There is a haze,

It hangs like sheer blinds

Over the still morning lake

And the smell of smoke

Invades the senses…

The world is burning

Somewhere else

But here only evidence

Of some other place’s end

Hovers like an angel

Bringing news of devastation

Like a visible irony

Descending softly

to these life-giving waters

Mocking a tinder-dry land

Somewhere else.

I heard the lost cry out

From deep beneath the ground

So I went to caves entrance

And let dark, stone-toothed maw

Swallow me whole

That I might rescue the lost;

Down and further still

Until even the echoes

Of my calling, hopeful voice

Were consumed by earth’s appetite

So I opened my mouth to scream

I heard the lost cry out

And recognized the voice

It was my own self-siren call

Luring me within myself

Standing at dock’s end

I let slip my precious,

My bronze beauty,

It fell beneath the surface

And into the darkness below;

So to the depths I dove

Stretching out in desperation,

But it danced out of reach

Beyond the limit of breath

To the rocky hidden places

While I…I’m still down there,

Long past the point of return

Haunting the cold lake bed

Forever looking for my lost joy

He is a song

Conducted by a mob

Through the ages;

An improvised cacophony

Out of which breaks

The most unexpected beauty

From time to time

When he’s able to wrest the baton

From those possessive hands

And soft sway gentle notes

Like Spring stepping forth as melody

Or rain falling on thin bells

Left abandoned on the forest floor

Pealing short cries of plaintive joy

“I am here for the moment…I am here.”

I’m writing poems

Like a man bleeding to death

Trying to spell out his murder

In his own spilled ink

A frenzied final act

Before he succumbs

And becomes a crime scene

For others to puzzle out

The morning starts

With a clean slate

And an empty blue sky

Swept clean of clouds

By caretaker night.

I dive into the water

Again and again and again

That it might wash away

The filth of days before;

A wilderness baptism

At Canyon Lake

Leaving me forever new

My shadow stretches into the water,

Cast like a line by the eastern sun

Neither dancing like Pan along the surface

Nor dropped deep dark across the bottom

But held suspended in a middle place

Like that image of a beloved dead son

Carved into the gem of a woman’s ring

Found buried beneath the Pompeii streets

Clever hologram that pretends to be alive

Before the eyes of unsuspecting onlookers

Tree dips roots into the dark

Like a skinny lady at the beach

Testing waves with timid toes

Never really getting in

Simply standing guard

Tall sentinel yearning to dive

Resigned to play life guard

Before the empty waters

A tower of yearning disappointment

Silently beautiful dressed in green

Happy to have come this close

There is beauty

Driven to despair

Pounding fists into the wall

That it might break

And reveal relief

Through pain

Leaving scars

Like a road map

Etching the journey

On her skin

The morning features chorus

Birds like the orchestra warning up

Preparing for the conductor

To guide them through symphony

As water tests shoreline percussion

While air is woodwind through the reeds

And xylophone frog sings scales

As the audience arrives on a bus

Driven by tired Morpheus

Excited for the fanfare ahead