Category Archives: Perspective

March 4, 2015 · 5:22 am

Abandoned House, Abandoned Clock

Silence in the broken night
withdraws its guarded head within
the fallen shadows black and white,
praying to give in.

Give in again to seconds passed
that carried subtle ochre schemes
of dusk upon suspended dust
in ebbing’s sweetened dreams.

Sweetened dreams of days once held
upon a rich and tempest life,
so bound indulgence beckoning
to claim their fleeting moments, wife.

Fleeting fast in merriment,
echoes through the oaken halls,
centuries claim to ignorance,
desolation within the fall.

Within the fall such silence broken,
sweetened dreams remain as token
seconds in the tempest, scorned
in dusk’s reflection, time is slowly torn.

There the clockworks stop…

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March 2, 2015 · 5:09 am

Winter’s Last Night

Here I sit detached, adrift,
through dying embers seek and sift,
in hoping for a welling flame
to heat the hearth and so in claim
a victory toward the spring.

The cords of fuel have spent their best
to heat this home, to garner rest
through lengthened nights of bitter cold,
through winter’s best and deepest hold,
through crackling fires, sing.

The wood pile is depleted now,
the fourteen cords I stacked somehow
have been reduced to eight sticks here,
piled at hearth in hope and fear
of how this winter ends.

Hopes of spring in March relent
to winter’s snow and frozen scent
that whirls around this alpine cot,
trading warmth and embers hot
for hope this season’s time transcends.

Eight sticks, one night, if not to freeze.
Like bread and fish and wine conceive
a hope for Christ to gather here
upon this mount with sermon dear
to hold the storm at bay.

But as the embers gently hush
I find the calm, ignore the rush,
sacrifice on piece of eight
pray that winter’s cold will wait
with me until the day,
and morn will bring the sun.

At warming hearth in blankets deep,
tucked into a rocking sleep,
I hear the whisper of the wind
calling me as gentle fiend
as if to say just one’s okay,
and promising the sun.

So into peace I run…

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March 2, 2015 · 3:51 am

The Farmer’s Table – March 1st

“Season’s border.”
“Time,” says I, “to sharpen shears and patch the fence.  Time to think of plowing furrows softened past this cold suspense.”
“Aye, but March, she brings no charity mixed in mud and heavy snow.  Best hold your anxious hand, boy.  Calm yourself ‘til spring to sew.”
The old man spoke in truths that tho’ March toward spring was burgeoning, was far too soon to set the plow and ponder on rows’ furrowing.
“I’ll bet she comes like lamb this year,” I mused in counter confidence.  “I’ll bet that Easter soothes the soil in April blossom’s countenance.”
“Could be,” he smiled a sparkled grin, “but here we’ve frost ‘til first of May.  Best hope for planting April rows will grow on how you pray!”
We laughed and settled back to count the coffee cups before us.  “It’s just this winter’s driven deep.”  So sighed we too in chorus.
“Well my friend,” he stood to go, “appreciate the morning break.”
“So to March and knee deep snow,” and with a nod, “I’ll see ya Jake.”

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February 27, 2015 · 4:44 am

Back Against This Wall

Back against this wall…

This alley in remission from evening’s shallow light that casts the neon’s echo ‘cross the puddled rain here left in flight. The creeping of the city’s poise, stagnant, yet repelling the every moment stood before, captured melancholy, telling of the brick so stacked behind my back, its story never told, of tears in lonely crying dealt amidst the thieves, amidst the throes of life, of death, of every moment painted black… I lean against this wall succumbed by all the world, by all the lack.

Into my very soul it pours, every bottle, every poor soul that claimed a moment’s home between the puddles, against the loam of what the city so disgusts, but bends to truth and hides in trust that such is never seen. I lean against this wall, now mean. I feel the bullet holes here left, where souls caught glimpses of their death. I smell the acrid bloom of fear and echoed running footsteps hear… to justice? to ends? to whatever’s left of soul’s lost friends…?

Behind the madness of my mind I feel the thrum and so go blind to all the hopes here swimming round, adrift within this dying ground… this dying ground, is it? I write it lest I should forget. My shadow crosses fast before the falling neon lights in roar glanced across the puddles’ rent where only living’s death is spent, and so I to my own.
Back against this wall, alone.

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January 27, 2015 · 4:48 am

Lost Words

Orphans

Ink on ink, stacks of words, lines bent from my mind in haste,
well in wretched motion’s scent within the pile of blotter’s waste.
Denied the spark of light to find a useful purpose where they lay,
lepers of my orphans, renounced to shelves of dim decay.
The dust of ages crack their binds, fermented time lends ochre’s brand
infusing dim their history upon neglected pages, tanned.

Why do they still remain there?
What purpose can they ever fill?
Whose eyes will ever read them?
What holds them in my ebbing will?

My orphans calmly line the shelf, at peace in holding nodding thoughts
that stem form frozen moments summed when grand solutions aptly caught
the hope to bend an errant mind, the rush to solve the world’s woes,
the drive to change, create such love that ecstasy would roll in throes…
Science, math, and cultures gripped. Politics of hatred delved.
Invention, story, fiction, truth all gathered through the ink, there shelved.

In some I rarely venture a visit through their ashen sparks.
Others, I’ve not the courage yet to reach or touch their pages, dark.
But yet they are my orphans, my hopeful babes, my lepers scarred.
For by my hand became here, and by my hand stay safely barred.

I pity those who find them beyond the last of breath in me.
I pray they’ll not destroy them, yet maybe let just some fly free.

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January 21, 2015 · 5:42 am

This Aging Garden Gate

Hung in hesitation’s poise,
this iron gate denies no friend,
creaks and clangs in phrase of welcome
whenever one walks in.

Here amidst the cold stone wall,
now overgrown in moss and vine,
hangs this aging garden gate,
held to dress this walk, quite fine.

Beneath the years of layers black
in sacred paint applied in trust,
cracks the skin of age and wear
exposing blisters filled with rust.

The slapping latch is worn quite thin.
Her angles softly sagging.
The spring to bring her closed again
strains beneath her weight, just lagging.

Yet through this temporal portal streams
the futures past in longing dreams.
Through her kindest stance has come
the sweetest loves, the greatest sums
of all a man desires…
…angels swept in summer dress…
…devils danced in fire…

Through her constant threshold drifted
words of war, hopes of peace,
worries of life’s certain failings,
prayers for a sweet release.

Now as I, with aging hand,
caress her subtle arabesque,
I quietly gather dreams recalled,
some living, most at rest.

Oh dear friend, my fortunes flowed
across your gentle grace,
calmly calling to this path
that since has aged this place.

Once more I pull her toward me,
my life resounds her echoed call
that soon our futures beckon
toward the fade, toward the fall.

God bless you little gate,
my colored life’s been marked in time
by gracious clangs and creaking,
so set, by you, to living’s rhyme.

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January 14, 2015 · 10:29 pm

Follow Your Dream!

What stands against our perseverance unfolding from a hoped success?
What calls a man to hesitate in second glance and second guess?
What drives the winds of challenge to bend us back onto ourselves?
What hearkens to the failures stacking dreams on dusty shelves?

Is there such that keeps from us the dreams we strive to dream?
Are there really fateful blows rending fault within the scheme?
Can it be that such denies God’s purpose within us rent?
Must a life placated be to only walk the path that’s sent?

Hearken not to such blind passion that pulls the grave so ever near!
Follow not the empty echoes that call you home when most you fear!
Stand to face the triumph waiting beyond the hell that you must pay!
Step beyond the trepidation that pulls you, tugs you, scars your way!

For ne’er a lie, nor hope’s descent would be from God in purpose lent.
Ne’er denied a dream applied that from His will came our intent.

Steady long the weary hand that draws the dream from burden’s lading!
Gather strength in spirit steeped upon the path in trials’ trading.
Lash the beam onto the dream that pulls from deep within you.
Follow fast in courage clasped within the heart of soul that’s true.

Follow your dream!

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January 6, 2015 · 6:39 am

Lover’s Cove

Smooth the silken butter lies,
creamed across the bay’s sweet dawn,
dressed in silver rivulets
appointed by the gracious morn.

Hushed, the air stands light and sweet,
gathered by her love’s respect,
adorning strands of memory,
captured as the sands reflect
a lover’s night of kissing
upon the mooring rocks broad stance.
Shy, this bashful history
stills the morning’s flirting glance.

Slow, the sea recedes from shore,
each rolling touch comes back once more
to sweetly kiss this lover’s bay,
seduce the morning mists away,
till daylight claims the shadows full,
till quiet hushes drown the calm,
till from the rocks, in evening, culls
another sweet seduction’s balm.

Oh! The sea!
Brought to angel’s mercy here,
willed to stand the bay to cream
when dawn’s sweet light sets soft upon
this lonely cove’s sweet lover’s dream.

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January 5, 2015 · 5:37 am

Snow’s Sweet Mercy

Ripples frozen white on white,
cold beneath a winter’s night,
fabric cast in brilliant light
within a blue moon shadow.

Silhouetted black on blue,
shadowed edge in fire’s hue,
sparked on crystal’s single cue
reflecting through the meadow.

Low a single night owl mourns,
hushing wings from storm to storm,
solace seeking winter’s warm
between the branches fallow.

Here a quiet prayer claims
my thoughts and hopes of what remains,
leaves a blessing in the grains
of snow’s sweet mercy, hallowed.

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December 25, 2014 · 7:19 am

Christmas Snow

Today, in winter’s first day glory,
I’ve walked ‘neath frozen giants, gold,
held to sun in morning’s story
with midnight’s snow and breezes cold.

By brook in babbling, thawing chorus,
amidst the chirp of Christmas birds,
we pause in awe at sights before us
and listen still for nature’s words.

Through golden grass, o’er muddy field,
a thin and broken Christmas snow
shines bright with morning sun and warming,
dazzling heaven in sparkled show.

My dog and I rest in deepest
woods, at frozen creek bed’s bend,
sit and listen throughout the morning,
that to our spirits this heaven lend
the peace of understanding,
the truth in balance witnessed here.
For us, this soul felt Christmas gift
recalls the blessings brought this year.

Merry Christmas…

J. Blue and Homer (the dog)

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