On a Hymn Before Sleeping

The sheets can get crumpled:

beware.

Hoards,

nature abhors a vacuum, right?

the whole space

is crammed

with a crushing bone on bone

marrow might

trip the silence maybe

only body

remedy, we cure by sleeping

in.

A body

is always filled,

so

why not fill

it

with the

sweet of

meticulous ebbing

tides?

wind, through the window

any distraction should be

foreseen

and hasting-ly prevented

still,

she must resume

life even after

tasting with the

sweet of

meticulous ebbing

tides

grown to fill her space

screaming when no one sees.

She is grown

the might and weight to hold the ready seed

and

only for so

long, we know beware:

the sheets crumple,

the mess of hair is her hair

the creak of her voice is

her voice,

the sound in her voice

her head speaks in her head

she can’t think to bear the burden

she can’t burden the burden to bear what had been

held

had she not seen

out the window, then

ecstasy

abhorring a vacuum in the

listless light,

and oh, the gentle morning

an encompassed jewel,

glinting with a thousand eyes.

Copyright 2014 Golden Star Poetry

I do not own this photograph

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Jasmine

The first breath in the morning,

and oh,

how that smile

which so seemed

jasmine

to a broken eye.

Myself, and the water above my head

singing of the only song

that was,

a face.

a rainfall monsoon spread to india today.

A girl was seen rushing up the street

soaking her dress,

and i thought

of myself

when,

dragged beneath the sea comb of the beach

my hair dragged and rippled up in knots

you were my first love

and now her eyes stare into mine

that girl,

tossed inside the waves of rain

whispered

“he is gone,

and a jasmine blossom

now drowns in the river”.

Copyright 2014 Golden Star Poetry

Long Stop Through Nowhere

Chapter one.

The only thing that the red truck in front of her wasn’t going to do was kill her. Maybe cars in this side of town went slow, you know, like that phrase–slower than molasses in January? Yeah, that’s the one. No, It definitely wasn’t going to kill her. But she had heard her mother say very distinctly that the world was much more stark and scary when you went out into it’s clutches, and cars were one of the things you had to look out for.

“I told you. Practically no one drives here Cornelia, it’s a dead zone. Nobody lives here.” said Peter.
“Then why’s he stoppin’?” drawled Cornelia vacantly.
“Because we were just about gettin’ ready to cross the street, that’s why. Didn’t nobody ever tell you ’bout such a thing as driving rules?”
“Uh…no” Cornelia admitted defeatedly.
“Well then, what are you waiting for? That truck ain’t gonna wait for us any longer! go on, git!”
“You sure, I?…”
“Git! go on ahead, that driver ain’t got all day!”
The brisk morning air suddenly struck the two young travelers as they flittered across the narrow dirt road. Pine trees ran along it’s whole length; an endless wood ran on either side of the mountain highway like a secret hideaway into the endless mystery of nature. But that wasn’t their focus anymore. They were almost on their way to a city, and this was just where civilization had begun to turn up.
A twisted grin began to play on peter’s sun burnt face as they continued walking along the road.
“What’s so funny?” whined Cornelia, who was just about through with her brother’s pointless games.
“You don’t know about the pedestrian’s right of way, Corny. It’s like knowin’ the world goes around the sun. Common knowlage.”
She hated it when he called her that stupid nickname. And she hated how he knew more big words than her, since he was in the tenth grade.
“What’s a ped-est-rian?” Asked the bewildered girl carefully, who was now at her wit’s end. This question only made Peter laugh harder, snorting through his nostrils and cackling like a hyena, which made Cornelia even more outraged. At least, thought Cornelia,we only have ten more miles to go. It was a comforting thought at best.

If seen from above, the whole journey would have seemed startlingly picturesque; A young girl with shockingly red hair walking down a mountain path along side a much older, very red and tan boy dripping in sweat, looking as if they were on some secret spy mission to save the world, hold up the one car traffic of a huge scarlet truck in the middle of the day.

Copyright 2014 Golden Star Poetry
I do not own this photo

Dryspell Child

Mother, who made me
you see that child bare with smiles on his
face you see that
lamp that shrouds his color in a peach light of
star you see that
way he grows up to a
fault the way he
smiles in your direction never
sure to start conversation but a
joy to see and hear and though he
may be far away you dream a
strange restricting wail towards the
sky and watch in vain as he might
live to be a year or two as
life would slip you by much more than
he could never love you what with
time and space and friends and what with
him being the
gentleman he is when not a
word that leaves his mouth is more than
ruby sapphire speech and all that
speaking makes you cry with the
sencerity of tone and what with
every thing he says or in the
middle of some dryspell you could
scratch the metal gun from ‘neath his
chest and watch in awe at
transformation of the
kindly eyes and shiny
hats to rocky
stone and hands that feed her
growing hair and
eyes to see him that
that hungry eyed child was scared enough but then he
slept on some odd tree and left a
message in his hand but still
intact and open free:
i saw you
saw me found me pray you
don’t get caught up in this
storm to search for me lest that the
cloud above your head lead way to see
you over the last hill of
streamy sound
Copyright 2014 Golden Star Poetry

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

Internal Dialogue

After “The Pillow Book”

1.

I’m lost in a transient sort of state

utterly lost  and abandoned,

I mean who was this girl–

this thing–

I’ve become?

 

2.

REGRET

on a  dry, razor- perfect cut lawn,

her red lips are stained with a sort of

forced forgetfulness.

the magenta furls of summer,

like kites or long twirling dresses.

White alabaster carvings in her mind

of a boy she almost left behind,

like a patch of cool shade in the late afternoon,

making her swoon.

 

 

3.

THE DREAM

The wooden chime sings in the air, as

we take a moment to find ourselves once again.

We will sing, like two small flutes,

like proud-breasted birds,

on miniature twigs,

as the wind rides on the current like a dancer on the water,

flickering in

and out

of everything,  as if she were a

skater without skates.

she flies once again through the night

without any means of suspension

not by firelight,or torchlight, or by the sound of her breath,

but by the only sense that she has

which is senseless.

 

4.

I’m lost in a transient sort of state

utterly lost  and abandoned,

I mean who was this girl–

this thing–

I’ve become?

 

Copyright 2014 Golden Star Poetry

Photography Copyright 2014 Golden Star Poetry

But I Wasn’t So Sure About Me

i.

mango tree

soft and gentle

apple on the apple mantle

garish night

a lightening strike
and the tree falls swiftly down

(only
a
whisper
on the
lawn)

ii.

I grew up
on a little -advantaged farm
where all we had to spool
was threaded yarn
but i wasn’t so sure about me

the timetable tango was a
schooling method
the lights switched on when least expected,
and in the morning sun
you abandoned me
but I’m just a lonely child of Serendipity
the stories always end with peace
but I’m not so sure about me

iii.

Mango tree
Soft and gentle
Apple on the apple mantle

Garish night
Lightening strike
And the tree falls swiftly down

(only a whisper on the lawn)

Copyright 2014 Golden Star Poetry

Painting by Childe Hassam

Moon-Silver

and up on the slope
where the moon-silver hides
the rain,
the rise
the pause between
the eyes

and up upon the slope
is winter on the run
and as she grips my hand
i feel
so nearly undone

the battling wind,
the groping cries
the rain
the rise
the intimate sighs

(and we begin,
and the stars we barely reach….)

~~~~~~

I laugh, we laugh
I and you and me laugh
strangely and unforced laugh
fine for spring and day laugh

gold on string and squirrel laugh
wakes up coat and shoe laugh
world is waking
frost is breaking
feeling for
the dreamer
that’s rising and running,
the rest, almost
unseener

Copyright 2014 Golden Star Poetry

Penelope At Sea

her mouth
gaping wide
over the side
of the sea

as they tossed
from the crash
and the softening knees.

and
afloat with sieves
she gapes
at her own state.

his kisses like missiles
all the while and
firing and
cr
ash
ing
on the
side
of
t
h
e shore an
d
the
bo
at,
her tongue so
wide as to hide the
missing song inside
and-
where?

where will you take me?

When, on the evening
will the pale crayfish
who are stalking the sea road
see a woman embracing her husband
like she has never seen him before?

Copyright 2014 Golden Star Poetry

On Size and Truth

1.

in her dream last night

she looks inside a dusty chamber

with walls echoing

not yealding

she wants to be her mirror reflection so badly

but her voice just comes back

again

and again

through that glass and coated silver.

then she hurries through the water

the antichamber and the sand

scurrying out, out, out of

the cliffs

and the rockface.

That image is only a small glimpse.

mother asked: is it like looking at a pinhole of a sweater?”

“of a blanket” I said.

( well, It’s hard to say

when you stare into absolving water and dust.)

Its funny you mention

size:

i was once predestined to marry

a man I had never met.

he told my mother fresh sweet lies

about his past

the sad fate it was to me, her precious little girl. (sweet little good girl)

mother asked “how many lies did he make? a dozen?”

“a thousand” I say.

(well, it’s hard to remember,

they seemed so real).

It’s funny you mention

truth:

2.

I had this itch to see you last night

when the white Pickett fences in Iowa take on a bluish sort of hue in the

fading light

and the birds and trees stoop down to trees–

I wanted it,

I wanted to see all of you–

when i stopped

and i realized

you were just about

as convincing to me

as the lies i told myself to sleep.

(for how could i be sure when the little holes seemed so precious?

when i loved the thought of you, not you? )

Copyright 2014 Golden Star Poetry