The Man with No Heart

so you take from the dirt what you can,
we weepers have a hard time in maine
hard he struck at the dirt with a few words
and he desperately prayed for the rain.

there aren’t that many people with souls left
but you’re after the ones with no heart
and though mother had said it’d be tiring
you can see that’s what sets them apart.

he is walking around with his maker
quiet smiling not saying a word
and you didn’t run off with the baker
though he always made sure you were heard

in the late night the forest was empty
it was nighttime and nobody stirred
but the man with no heart said come with me
i’ve the back of my horse and a bird.

Copyright 2016 Golden Star Poetry

Advertisement

Air and Smoke–Stream of Consciousness #14

Frogs croaking at midnight
a twin heartbeat
like moss engraving stones entwining with spongy hearts that bleed
the question now is who will carry the porridge?
who will listen to Sumter describe the events that followed his desasterous night of frogs croaking, camping in the woods?
who listenes to him, the dusky hours grow long
the day widens into a smile
furrows into a frown
the clown
Sumter,
banned from the camping ground just as the air was warm
in the chill,
he knows the only comfort can come from
humming a silent tune
a tune which he will pick himself
in doing so he sounds just like the twin heartbeats of the two croaking frogs
he must find his little world
he must find it
or the summer will drag him through an endless pit
and he will see himself as a small boy
groping for the sidewalk and the sun
not knowing that the only eventual destination was death and lead,
the spongy twin bleeding hearts his own.
he feels the ground
the moist air lightens his eye
upwards is an unforgiving sky
tinged with something else he cant describe,
but we shall call it a vague
and unmistakable hope.
he clings to the forrest ground, the moss,
like a child refusing to leave behind his blanket.
the porridge is on a stove growing cold
it’s breakfast fire
warming time
but poor Sumter on the forest ground
the enemy of which he made last night
sleeping on a bed of firs and pine cones.
the last of his breath escapes from his nostrils,
tendrils of air and smoke in equal measure
percolate the air
but he is not there with his friends to see the fire or to hear the stories
because he has told them his story
and that was the one story
they could not hear
so instead they decided to shut him off
and he, with his breath
and they, with the fires, keep burning aloft in their own separate ways,
he pains to think of them, the little children he has left on the
other side of the mountain.

Copyright 2014 Golden Star Poetry

Ode to Winter, Ode to Summer

By the west end of the Lake
is a bittersweet orange
it is the tang and oder of sorrow
and the sweet citrus skin of newness.
I bring these things from the lake,
the west end of the lake in june
so the waters rise like a slow baloon
and the winter crawls out from its snowy cocoon
and the oranges flower at noon.
by the west end of the land
she spies you
and her hands grasp at her middle
as a sharp longing.
to feel the same as a child
and yet to never be forever young
it scraped at the bone marrow of her.

You left a little bruise on her cheek
and she smiles.

It is like the soft rain beating against a drum
sprinkling her soft berry stained lips.
the oranges are all tied to her bedside
and the smell is like sorrow
covered with the feathers of a crow
and all of the feelings
that were once new.
by the west end of the Lake
is a bittersweet orange.
it is the tang and oder of sorrow
and the sweet citrus smell
of newness:
to begin again on the same road
is to never end,
it is to know the skies
as well as you do your brother
with the faint rustle of trees
in the fall,
on a morning
oh so aching
as a welcome
haunting
call.

Copyright 2013 Golden Star Poetry

Left, Right, Left?

“Good writers touch life often. Mediocre ones run a quick hand over her. The bad ones rape her and leave her for the flies”– Ray Bradbury, Farenheight 451

(the spring blooming light was approaching.)

I hear hoofbeats, now.

thats the sound of her arterial valve, crackling on the oven

and thats her left aorta ,keeping time.

She is afraid she has it all mixed up

left aorta, right

right aorta, left; (?!?!)

touching life most often

is a hard guess.

(at best, mine is at work.)

a calculation, interpretation,

statement accusation.

thats my cervical cortex springing back, at the centrifuge

and thats my left cortex ,analyzing you.

I am afraid I have it all mixed up

left cortex, right.

right cortex, left; (?!?!)

giving life a run down

might be a bearable mess,

(but he is on the wheel)

making a turn to the station

faster faster FAST

relax

take a look back

that is the sound of the oil tank, up in flames,

the left turn signal, clicking.

He is afraid he has it all mixed up

left turn, right

right turn left; (?!?!)

raping the soul out of life (I assure you)

is your best bet.

Copyright 2013 Golden Star Poetry