Musings

Cats are like age
They creep up
Unseen
Then suddenly pounce
Leaving marks

Nightsong

Tags

fantasy, Haiku

Moon called down to her
I wanted you to see me
That’s why I’m shining

Remembering

Tags

Haiku, life, stress

I should pause sometimes
Take deep breath and ground myself
And care about me

Regret

Tags

growing up, learning, loneliness, regret, relationships, sorrow

Crystalizing with a lump in my throat
Catching in my breath
As a tear forms in my eye
And a lumping ache in my breast
Missing you already
Still knowing
I had to let you go
I had to let you grow

These are the men

Tags

age, respesct

These are the men that built the tunnels
The bridges
The highways
These are the men that built the cities
The airports
The cars
These are the men who did the farming
Beside their wives
And their children
When you were born this country was here
Because they’d built it
With their sweat
Sorrows
Joys
These are the men in their advanced years
Some with walkers
Some with wheelchairs
Show them some respect

Flash Thunderstorm

Tags

Free Verse, rain, rainstorm

The sound it made
Like the sky had broken into a million pieces
The flashes of light
Like the sun had been shattered into incandescent filaments
The pouring rain
Like the clouds were letting out tears
they had been holding in
and couldn’t stop
But then it did

Thunderstorm

Tags

Haiku, rain, rainstorm

Sky breaking open
Shattering into pieces
Of wetness falling

Memories

People tell you they’ll fade
Will soon go away
And no longer be there
Stop making nerves fray

But

In the deep of the night
And stark light of day
They’ll sneak back to haunt you
Or come back to play

Bird

Poised

In stillness

For an instant

Then

Opening

Cutting the air

With slicing feather sounds

As the beating starts

Flight

The Oak Tree

Tags

aurora borealis, dryad, Free Verse, nature

He looked at the oak
Ancient it was
Its girth so broad that if hollow
He could have stood within
His arms stretched out
And not touched it

At first he knew not why it seemed so important to him
Why it had caught his attention
What had made him lose his breath
In a gasp of wonder
But then
A cloud crossed the sun’s path
And in the shadowlight
He saw it

Not it
Her
Seeming frozen in time
Magically grown from the tree surrounding her
Her arms stretched high to become the two main branches
Her legs flowing into the trunk
So her feet were lost in the roots
Her hair leaves and moss
Sage green
Holly green
Mistletoe green
Her face only seeable in the shadowlight
Eyes closed
Sleeping
Dreaming?
Alive?
Or long dead
petrified
He did not know

It unnerved him
How real she looked
As if she were a dryad
Resting
In the day sun

She could not be real
A figment of his imagination
A creation of his mind
That in his youth
Had been fertile grounds for myths and fairytales
She was a beautiful will of the wisp
A piece of his imagination
A gift of beauty given for him to see
So he smiled
Whimsically
And went back to work

He raised his axe
Ready to start the cutting
Sad to lose this incidental beauty
But knowing the tree was not his
Only the job to cut it down was

He braced his legs
Swung back his arms
Started the forward swing

And saw her eyes open
She looked at him
And screamed

The Body

Tags

body, Free Verse, perspective, river, surrealism

fish

Tags

fish, Haiku, life, nature

 

flashing of silver
above just for an instant
then back in blue depths

Night’s Sorrow

Tags

alone, full moon, loneliness, loup garou, lycanthrope, moonwolf, shapeshifter, werewolf

And he howls

In memory

Of something he can’t quite remember

Yet

Can never forget

The echo filling the sky

In a way no other wolf

Ever could

Achingly

Reachingly

Beseechingly

And

No matter how many wolves sang

Under the light of that oh so full moon

Always

Forever

Painfully

Plaintively

He was lonely

In singularity

Alone

For there were no others like him

Anymore

He sang without harmony

There were none to sing with him

For he was the last

Of the lycanthrope

Elven Lament

Tags

abuse, elf, elf human marriage, hitting a woman, relationships, rhyming quatrains, three times is habit

When he first saw the elven maid he said she’d won his heart
He told her he would die inside if ever they would part
She said that she would go with him and mortal she would be
Unless a day would come that his hand hit her one, two, three

She knew not why but understood this was her peoples’ way
Third time a human husband strikes is the leaving day
Together they were happy a couple young in love
They seemed to suit each other like a hand will suit a glove

There came a day he saw her singing to the orchard wood
Enticing it to grow in ways that only faerie could
In fear she would be caught and dealt with in the human fashion
He hit her for the first time: once was in passion

There came a day he felt the ox could work a little harder
And so he hit with a whip so that it would pull farther
She tried to stop him doing it, whips aren’t the faerie way
Upset, her hit her with it: anger being second’s way

There came a night he’d drinking been in the nearby inn
She was still up when he came home for reasons he couldn’t fathom
He never thought of what she might have wanted to share with him
He simply felt a rage and then third time emerged from within

Something he’d not cared to ask and so had never known
She had been with child that day, one to call her own
For faerie human coupling a child is rather rare
His child died that very night when he had ceased to care

Next day he was out to work like any other day
But that night he came home to find that she had gone away
On the table she had left a sadly worded note
And he did weep when he did read the words that she had wrote

Once might be by passion driven
Twice in a moment of anger, forgiven
But once there is rage, and you choose to grab it
Then leave I must, for it’s become habit

He searched for her near he searched for her far
He found not a trace of her anywhere
As for her, she now knew the rule of three
Had reason, though still her tears flowed free

For once had been by passion driven
Twice had been anger which she had forgiven
But rage was the point where she had to leave it
Because it meant hitting her had become habit
And she was no longer safe

Street Musician

Tags

being human, courage, epiphany, musician, rejection, saxaphone, street performer, wind in my ear

When I first passed her

Whatever she was playing on her sax
Sounded more discordance than tune
She was not very good
From nerves or lack of skill
Who knows?

Then
Suddenly
I knew
What it was she played
In the Hall of the Mountain King
A piece I’ve always loved
And I remembered

I probably would be playing just as badly
If I was standing where she was
And I can’t even play the sax
It took a lot of guts

So I changed my thinking
Took my change from my wallet
Smiled at her
And dropped change in her hat

Cataclysm

Tags

apocalypse, being human, cataclysm, god, gods, humanity

The gods saw man
Weak in his mortality

They pitied him

Thus they taught
Sending knowings
And gifts
On the wind
Telling of the approaches of beasts
Carrying voices of allies
Holding aloft the seeds
Of what would become the food
The trees
So that man could care for them
About them
Eat them
Live midst them
Sharing the world
Thus did they give to man

But

Man cut down the trees
Slew all the beasts

Forgot all the knowings he had been given

Then

In his egocentricity

He proclaimed himself the equal to the Gods
And screamed at them
Within the wastes he had created

And the gods screamed back

Courage

Tags

courage, Free Verse, strength, whispers, wind in my ear

Sometimes it slips in
Like a wind in the ear
Not loud
Just persistent
Soft sibilant sound
Whisperingly
Reminding me
I am strong and
I can stand to face
Whatever I must
At that time

And I have to be sure
It’s not simply a falsehhod
A bravad?

Cleaning Blues

Tags

Free Verse, humor, humour

You bit me!
Me, who was handling so gently
Cleaning you so lovingly
Carefully sudsing you
In the sink

Then you bit me!
Now I’m mad at you

Silly scissors anyway

What Happens

Tags

being human, Free Verse, life

What happens in our lives matters
Maybe only to us
But it matters
It can take us to the moon
It can make us feel like we’re nothing
It can be a beginning
Or an end
Because it happened
And it affected us

It affected us

Believing

Tags

bullying, child security, epiphany, Free Verse, growing up, loneliness, rejection, transcendiing

if
in a sorrow of sad life
we are not taught to believe in our self
then our existence can seem futile
our self unwanted
unloved
uncherished
lacking

BUT

if something helps us
somehow
to open our eyes
raise our heads
and see beyond the suit of sorrow we’d been dressed in
then
that day
the sun rises in our world
as we begin
to realize
we are a something
a singular act
a beauty
in and of our self
and on that day
the caterpillar becomes the butterfly