Tag Archives: self portrait

Of What Men Know

What stands before the path of man that to his conscious calls?
What errant spun devices cast a doubt where shadows fall?
What is the fleeting last regret that spins a temporal web of lies?
What casts a haunting second breath before the mournful cries?

Tis locked in deep regression, where only courage can transcend.
Tis in the danced illusion that wraps his mortal soul in sin.
Tis nothing less than innocence engaged in dreams beyond.
Tis only shied experience ‘till age can take it on.

For here upon the precipice of aging mortal waves,
is seen a lifetime’s counter call in triumphed moments saved.
Here recall the history that to these feet has blessed,
that what’s before in mystery has once or twice been second guessed.

To grey and tattered countenance upon the head and cheeks.
To moment’s hope impaled in hate forever left beneath white peaks.
To kindest wrinkles manifest by laughter stolen in a sleep.
To every living texture’s thread so stitched within the soul so deep.

Raise a glass to history! Call a toast to life!
Sing a song of mystery that courage grows from human strife!
Bless the living innocents that by their lacking wisdom go,
to fall and muster strength to rise and come to this of what men know.

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Filed under Growth, Perspective, Poetry, Universal Soul

Amber Dawn

Amber dawn, ‘neath blushing skies,
quells the azure’s limpid eyes
from dewy tears of morn
that cling in hush and silenced breath
beyond the long cold arm of death
that’s stilled in stone when days are born.

Here upon this Scottish hill
o’er grassy lea and whispered rill
the sea in silence kisses
rocky shores where lovers leapt,
shipwrecked crews whose secrets’ kept
within their love, their misses.

I in humble witness here
mend in hope the simple fears
that balance dawn and death,
by simply casting prayers out
in hopes such dreams may come about
to grant sweet love its breath.

That crescent moons in morning skies
wipe clear the tears from lovers’ eyes,
stay the blush to truth,
that closely held to beating breast
will grant eternal peace and rest
with memories’ lain in threads of youth.

This amber dawn, these blushing skies,
draw a tear unto my eyes
and prayer from my lips,
that as I rise to find my day,
blessed in love I’ll sweetly stay,
leave just my dreams with sunken ships,
for here the day is born.

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Filed under Dreams, Perspective, Poetry, True Love, Universal Soul

Earth’s Delight

Stand within the failing light of summer’s dusk demarked in time,
suspended ‘twixt the poles of night, stretched thin in whispered rhyme
whose lengthened shadows softly bow these moments held sublime.

These moments captured in between the poles of birth and death,
feed the fleeting flurries’ scenes, in gentle grasp that bends each step
to cull the most you’d hoped to know and all you’ve come to find.

Yet evening follows dawning,
death descends on life,
moments lose their passage gained
as days in task become the wife…

Time remains immortal,
your simple work somehow transcends,
until the mirror folds the lines
around your smiling eyes and skin.

Then to the fleeting moments call your patience born on anxious wings,
with dreams renewed in hastened steps, on bucket lists of greater things
that kept the working day at bay,
that held your time immortal,
that granted strength to iron will,
that stayed the threat of life’s last portal.

Now stand within this failing light, summer’s dusk disrobed and bare,
for evening stretches long her hand and loosens long her darkened hair.

That as you wait for dawn to rise and grant the peace now held in shadow,
do count the many steps surmised, the blessed memories gifted, hallow.

Softly sings the whispered rhyme stretched kind between the poles of night
for souls enrapt in dreams sublime and lullabies of earth’s delight.

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Filed under Dreams, Perspective, Poetry, Universal Soul

Of Passing…

Ashes drift across the page,
smudged in ink that lies in rage
left loosened by these blotted stains,
so holds the moment thick.

I sit with silenced, emptied mind
denying few the words I find,
yet nothing blunts the pain
that bends these lays in pages sick.

There is no hope in honesty,
when to the last, emotions fail.
There is but lucid clarity,
that paints the final moments pale.

Flesh deprives the man behind.
Sickness ebbs the soul in kind,
but still the eagled spirit shines,
so baits us to the end.

Moments pass as prayers drift
until the spirits seeking, lift
his deity’s smoky lines,
that in our presence mend.

All life is left in moments played
between the poles of death and birth,
yet left perplexed in passing’s sum
we stand here heavy on this earth…
Waiting our return.

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Filed under Family, Perspective, Poetry, Universal Soul

Blue Bird

Poignantly paused in sullen stare,
her quiet embarks a journey there
that pulls a long red thread through time,
where memories’ stitch runs soft in rhyme,
yet for no other reason
this time alone entrapped.

With softened wing she tugs the line.
Her feathered breast gives rise in time.
I feel the very moments played
before the greying light and fade.
Drift I another season.
Cast still. Alone. Enrapt.

Hushed, her stare, from on the branch,
gives rise to childhood’s echoed glance,
repeats the southern wood and spring
where all my wonders held me king,
where once I could parlay
the heart of summer’s dream.

As whispered through a lilac breeze,
she tugs the string in playful tease,
that I into the courtyard’s dusk
find love in autumn’s deepest musk.
First blush by kiss belayed,
in love’s eternal scheme.

With fluttered tail and heaving breath
her red thread pulls the chord of death.
Beneath spring storm and somber sky,
raindrops blend the tears I cry
for love once found, now lost.
Remains to bless one rose.

Such quiet holds her mournful stare
that unto evening rends a tear,
that holds this grey and withered one
in faltered breath and setting sun.
A blue bird counts the cost.
Drift I in last repose.

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Filed under Angels, Dreams, Perspective, Poetry, Universal Soul

The Open Road Awaits…

The open road awaits… it’s lone white line in beckoned call, sings of freedom, pulls me straight and long through curves of blackened sand, culls the bitter from my hand, sweeps my soul o’er hill and dale past bleached white laundry’s dancing sail…

Or is this dream’s impatient flirt a haunt these asphalt memories kept?
Is summer’s hope a burgeoned ghost that from the highway’s berm has crept?

Broken lines in blur and dance, count a rhythm’s hymn of trance upon the aging county road that gives no heed to faster calls, yet courts my sole desire, honed by aging signs of rust, guiding posts and points in trust rekindling age old fire.

As the v-twin roars along, my soul rejoins its freedom song that clears the purpose from this ride, stands my truth where none can hide, so drives my soul to run. That long beneath the summer elms, upon the two lane’s sacred realm my histories’ call to waken me, my ancient past explorer free and to the long white line succumb.

The open road awaits…

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Filed under Perspective, Poetry, Universal Soul

The Crap They Serve

The moments hang between the stains of dusk and clinging dawn,
scratched in ageless epitaph across each verse of rhyme-less song.

The anger builds toward aging, denied the path where knowledge runs,
therein betrayed the honor owned, left to steep in fading sun.

Incredulous the false become when to their faltered minds they pray
a mount of sermons spewing, yet not a single word they say.

An age in bringing mind here, sacrifice for “working” gains,
now left behind as youthful hope, in sweat and blood, in honest stains.

So now I’ll leave the peddled path
where minds are bought for selfish lathe.
I’ll leave the future’s rotting yeast
to feed their soon encountered beast.

Into the woods and river’s berm
where hope, I pray, will fast return
to grant a peace so well deserved,
to cast to grey the crap they’ve served!

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Filed under Perspective, Poetry, Universal Soul

Brothers Grimm

The road stands long before me. I strain to see through setting sun the length to which I must, the pain to where my memory runs.

Cold, the anger bites my heels, clings in dust that sparks with gold. Irons clamped around each step draw blood from ghosts my spirit holds.

I stood to give you vision. I spoke that you might see.
I braved the threat of repercussion which sacrificed your part of me.

The distance casts a silhouette, gaunt and black, sure suffered thin. It stands in crooked posture, paused, disposing hints of wicked grins.

Its tilted hat hides scars of lies spilt from pain set loose. Around its neck of sinew hangs a necktie stretched, a dead man’s noose.

I kept my word to wait for you, to wait to see you rise.
I held my silenced anguish close. I kept my hope behind these eyes.

The stench of flesh decayed and dried whispers through the breathless still, to silence hounds whose snapping teeth tear at my fading will.

Tis death and hell before me. Tis hell and death behind. Yet still I pray the truth may play the queen of hearts and trump death blind.

I cast a soulful hope for you. I prayed you’d find your truth.
I gave all freedom to the pain you pierced into my youth.

Weary coursers bend the sky in streams of black on ochre stains. No step, profound in trying, draws my hopes to free or find this pain.

The road stands long before me. I pray to feel the cool dusk drawn in lengthened shadows calming blush, with you at peace, me waiting dawn.

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Filed under Dreams, Perspective, Poetry

April Dawn

Quietly, ‘neath this silenced dawn,
I pause near edge of grassy dell,
as mists arise from dewy sleep
in whispered dreams they dare not tell.

Gently, April’s morning brings
a rumor to the waxing sun,
storied rich in daffodils
gracing paths were spring fawns run.

Unobserved, I stretch to hear
the whispers light upon the air,
feel the stir of life anew
as first beams spark the dew drops there.

In humble bows the mist relents
to grant the dawn its honored throne,
led by low and bowing arcs
between the hills, across the stones
that raise their heads from lea and rill
in peaking, see what life may fill
the wooded court where men do pause
to draw their peace, repent their flaws
before the quickened rising gold…
now bathing warm, my face to hold.

So held in God’s sweet kindness,
so granted strength to see the day,
so blessed in sacred service set
between the pine and hopes I pray.

Sentinels stand around me,
robed in fir, wrapped in sun,
guarding forest’s darker moods
from spilling to this courtyard won.

First birds call in echo,
through the giant’s highest boughs,
“Amen!” they sing across the dell,
embracing hope within the vows
spoken in this April dawn.

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Filed under Nature, Perspective, Poetry, Universal Soul

Aye

The distance calls in reverie,
seducing dreams to future shores,
yet echoes tombs of loneliness
till death become its oars.

No passage can be seen,
no step is placed through surf and sand,
no payment pulled from empty pockets
will cast a rope beyond this land.

But aye! the dream continues.
Aye! the heart pulls hopes along.
Aye! the future’s glorious,
where soon I will belong.

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