i heard once about a rope
tied between truck and tree stump
truck pulled hard
and stump just wouldn’t budge
truck pulled harder
stump held its ground
you could hear the rope groan
until eventually it snapped
flying back through the rear window
killing the driver
afterward laying in shreds
dormant, broken, and useless

The soft gray haze

In the morning air

Tells me

Something is dying

Not far from here

I can smell

Ashes on the wind

Remnants of what was

Remnants of what might have been

But fire and flame prepare the way

For renewal

Incinerating tangled underbrush

That blocks the way forward

Leaving a clear line of sight

Toward the future of our own choosing

It’s a new day

A kind of renew day

A wake-up and get your way day

Every moment is a first

A fresh start from the worst

To try and grow something beautiful

Through the shit piled up around it

Use it as fertilizer,  make it fit

Into a rewritten plan

That speaks to what you can

And erases thoughts of cannot

Destroys fears of will not…

Today is a new day

A time for you to have your say.

Sing soft

In the quiet of the fallen eve

As all things sink to rest

And we seek to dream

Of things that are

Of things that were

And things that might be

Sing soft

Lullabies like an embrace

To give us a final grace

Before the day’s end

once you have convinced yourself
that it was never alive to begin with
it’s easy to drag it to the backyard
take aim, and shoot it in the head
as if it deserved to be dead
and you,
you can go on with your life instead…

remnants of oatmeal and berries
stain the bowl like a murder scene
with bits of fruity red flesh
drying slowly against the clay sides
the only evidence that the occupants
were ravenously consumed

this is the morning ritual
completed solemnly
and in sacrificial silence
providing the day’s fuel

i can taste it on my tongue
and my stained lips convict me
but i couldn’t care less
there were no witnesses
and it will happen again and again
the hunger is never fully satiated

how does one pull gold
from the cracks of a mended vase,
beautiful veins welding shards together?
not without open-eyed coldness;
not without violent fire and crucible
melting that which binds the whole
leaving pieces scattered upon the ground
dark, dead payment of demanded toll
then greedily gathered and hoarded
like the fillings of Auschwitz
to be used in the purchase
of proxies for joy

how does one take a once broken treasure
made whole by the work of human hands,
and pry it slowly, insanely asunder?
not without cold-hearted brutality
sending creation into a furnace
while watching them melt apart
from the heat of soulless need
to be pried later from the frozen earth
like the fillings of Auschwitz

If i could
I would teach you again
Of the beauty of water
If i only knew how
I would take you
Into the young, green wood
To smell life anew once more
If i remembered the way
I would sing you to love
With words that once roused
Now stale
As they leave my dead mouth
I would send the warm breeze
Like my lingering touch
That has created gooseflesh
Along the bronzed landscape of you
But i lost the map of the world
I’m working from flawed memory

I believe in laughter that remains,
Untapped and waiting to rise once more
And i perceive
The possibility of re-creation
That sits like silver Eden
Within sight on the horizon
With its gates left unguarded;
These are the threads called hope
That can lift whole nations from the dark
And my vision –
It is light by comparison…

If i could
I would teach you again
Of the beauty of water

I am my own Iago
whispering poison in my ear
there’s a reason why shoulder devils
look like the people their tempting
(at least in cartoons)
i will drown it all out and away
and sit peaceful within this sunny day
i will blind myself
i will deafen myself
to the goings on around me
and find contentment in despair
no, no, no
you’re not listening – not depair
find your joy in thin air
be a magician and manufacture delight
just enough to get through the night

My column in this weekès Winkler Morden Voice and Altona Rhineland Voice