S I L E N C E between H E A R T B E A T S

Vain Imaginings

2011-07-31T20:00:00.005-04:00

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In the chaos of the quiet,
when I think I am alone and yet,
I am united in strife and discord
with manic multitudes,
and the world does not go away,
I think about love, and you.
I think about love.

Is that which swells within me,
love... eager to be poured?
That which I've ached to do,
for so many unfulfilled years
of someone else's
misdirected loveless appetite.

I do not begrudge
the honesty of not knowing;
when in their own anxious hearts,
wanting to forcibly give
what they knew not I needed,
they selfishly gave what they,
themselves needed release from.

I have tried to fashion it,
as if to form and fabricate
love into being;
to tangibly exist for
my own selfish purpose,
which is to give to you.

I am constrained
to be released of it,
but prevailing more
in vain imaginings
of building castles
at tempest's edge
with desiccated sand.

And yet I know that
like sere, thirsty sand,
love is uncontainable;
not given to conformity,
but ever shifting to accommodate;
to reconcile each to the other,
and all to itself..
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The Silence Between Heartbeats

2011-07-06T12:15:00.008-04:00

Before you,
mine was an equilibrious life,
positively charged with negative currents
of discordant din and familiar havoc,
aimlessly energized by fits of enthusiasm,
casually strolling pell-mell toward the mark
of a not so much wiser but anxious goal-giver;
proceeding in haste, to fulfill my intentions
of tortuous journeys from heartbeat to heartbeat,
with not so much pause as to notice who goes there;
until as it happened by fortunate prelude,
an undisturbed moment of a quieter life,
in the silence between heartbeats.
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With you,
to rhythmically tenor my life,
a delicate finger was laid to my pulse,
your vigorous effort to order and rhyme
a more tranquil confusion, deceptively cogent,
more so as whispers to challenge the violence,
of overly-patient present day intellects,
rather than protest which placates the contrast
of passion and apathy from heartbeat to heartbeat;
the comings and goings from somewhere to nowhere;
tyrannical vanity holds tight the reins,
maintaining a slow down to a quieter life,
in the silence between heartbeats.
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Without you;
despite the hope that I ever breathe on,
I nonetheless bleed the choreographed tears
of lovers whose dance was hastily halted
by arrogant whores and the impotence of will,
which then fell to the floor for sadists to sport,
as journalists who queue to delight in disasters;
you think me absent since you can not see me,
alone as we are from heartbeat to heartbeat,
though memories serve for as long as they haunt,
such is the interlude of not being with you.
I know you there still in the quieter life,
the silence between heartbeats.
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I THANK YOU FOR THAT

2010-12-23T11:03:00.011-05:00

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Dear Father,

Here am I, again needing You to talk to because You listen, and care, and I thank You for that. Lord, we have talked, it would seem, many times about everything there was ever a need for. Sometimes You needed to talk to me, and other times I needed to talk to You. Often in our conversations, I was redundant; frequently I was bold; seldom was I selfish. Always You were patient; without wavering You were attentive; never were You dismissing. I thank You for that.

Lord, I need to talk to You about something I've never talked to You about before... my 85th birthday. I've known You or about You for most of my life. You've known me since... well, since before I was born. But there is no yesterday with You, and I don't know how many tomorrows I have, so we have only right now. And right now I want to tell You thank You for my life...thank You for my children's lives...and their children's lives...and their children's lives.

Oh yes Lord, there have been tribulations. As You said… in You we have peace, in the world we will have tribulation. But that we should be of good cheer because You have overcome the world.
And I thank you for that.

And even so Lord, as Your servant Paul said..."we glory in tribulations" because tribulations work for our perfection. I must be approaching perfection, thanks to You. But, I am also approaching my 85th birthday, and I feel like I have nothing left to do. I am here in this home with others like me. I have made new friends, but it seems a forced friendship; a communal relationship dictated more by proximity to one another rather than attraction. I notice some are worse off than me, (not that I have ever complained), and I sometimes wish I could help, but I know I can't. But You can, and I thank You for that.

Some days I cannot remember things that are certain and vivid to those around me. Some days, when I do remember things, I am angry at my idleness. Some days I need to vent...when my children are here. I know no one likes to see that... especially You. But I know too that everyone forgives me... especially You, and I thank You for that.

Family time seems somewhat reduced here, but when everyone gets together with each other and our families, it is a very exciting time... and fun! It's a small town here and most everyone knows everyone else. In some cases, there needs to be a re-acquaintance made because of years gone by. It's good to see "old" friends again. Some aren't quite so old. Some were still just babies when I knew them... now all grown up with children of their own, who are themselves about to get married.

My, my, my... how did I get here? 85 years (almost) and I wonder, "what next"? I guess we all wonder "what next" because, if we were to think about it, "what next" is in the future. And we all wonder about the future. Perhaps I should ask...what "now"? Never mind 85 years old. I am now, 84 years, 7 months and 3 days "old". (Sure feels like 85!). If I stop thinking about "what next" and ask "what now", I see that "the now" ...the moment, is taken care of. And I thank You for that.

What a long life. I've seen so much. Some things I still don't understand. Some things I wish I had not seen. Take care of my family, as You have all these years; and I'll see You tomorrow.
And I thank You for that.
.
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To A Gull

2009-10-10T11:30:00.004-04:00

Cupular wings which hold the wind,
to rise above the watery plane.
Racked limbs across expanse of sky,
gliding between the slalom rain.

The sea, the sand, the sun you soar,
your effortless flight I covet.
You live the life of musing men,
the world below and you above it.

Yet do I sense that you dream yourself,
I can not perceive quite the essence.
Only to know that you've long yet to go,
and learn that you live in His presence.

I've watched you bask on bountiful beaches,
poking and pecking at crab or clam.
You eat all that you find whether dead or alive,
even the swill of man.

Sail into spiraling space my love,
my thoughts and dreams do follow.
Sing the song of the graceful gull,
as the whimsical wind you swallow.
.
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GUNGYWAMP MOON

2009-08-23T10:13:00.002-04:00

An unabashed full moon beckons
bold above my abject autumn garden,
tempting tortuous memories of
a moonlit Pinchot night,
mocking with peek-a-boo gestures,
of recurrent revelations in opalescent clarity,
through dispersing anxious storm clouds;
silhouetting acorn-clustered oaken fingers,
reaching ever upward in worshipful extension,
of alms upon the bosom of the harvest maid,
bidding fond adieu from ever distant stations.

Scarcely the carefree custodian,
crisp and cold against the hot velvet black,
whose light I see forever framed
in your firefly eyes;
keeper of that perfect Pinchot night,
watching with nocturnal lovers;
that standing sentry whose company compels
historical reflection of forgotten fearless settlers,
and the mighty sovereign Tunxis who are no more,
but for that one whose nation now is Hooker’s Grove,
who only walks within this light.

My memorial moon of the Gungywamp,
shrouded and veiled vague on this altar indistinct,
this night’s unwelcome usurper,
enchanting nonetheless,
as forsaken others dutifully attest,
bearing vivid witness and animate remembrance,
to once upon a mystic midnight,
where two souls loved and three spirits met;
we eagerly embraced,
and were at once kindly gathered,
to the fellowship of kindred understanding.
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January At Jupiter Point

2009-07-02T18:32:00.000-04:00

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Gone away is the sun today,
behind the gray-veiled comforter clouds,
which descend to tenderly touch
the cold, steel gray waters,
far out to where the place
called No Horizon is;
punctuated by whiter shades
of successive gray boats,
moored to bobbing buoys,
devoid of summer’s color,
but for the incessant gray
that once shouted white,
upon the blue-green.

Dreadfully gray is today,
as if the artist, blind,
with but one paint on his palette,
had begun again with gray gulls
sailing out of the god-help-us gray fog,
resting tranquil for a time,
upon weathered gray, planked piers,
looking out on stepping stone stretches
of cornflower-blue boat covers;
memories of warmer garden months;
one is reminded of reflections
of a Bahamian sky,
which isn't there.
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Everyone Always Leaves

2009-05-04T12:58:00.000-04:00

Everyone always leaves,
to travel on,
another self assigned adventure,
toward occupied horizons,
prepossessed for weeks,
in redundant prior dreams;
seeking yet _______ (another)
limited existence with
some pretentious pilgrim,
on a tour of thereabouts,
headed for hereafter.
.
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Everyone always leaves;
as if a whistle blows,
to signal end-of-shift;
a five o'clock departure,
to return to where we lived,
before the intersect of hearts;
together ________ (fixed)
with links of shared affection,
kept fettered yet fulfilled,
within the chain of love;
or so we thought.
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Everyone always leaves;
the excitement of the search,
defeats the goal of peace.
I exist at the last alone,
nurturing barren gardens,
of the depleted soul;
sharing life without you,
again _______ (because),
everyone always leaves;
our only intercourse,
at junctures in the journey.
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GIBRANIAN

2009-05-01T22:16:00.018-04:00

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I would not feign my longing,
Nor do I lament Pinchot's journey
... it still stands. Say rather,
Why regret the forsaken journey,
Which cannot be taken up again.

I do not feign the desire of knowledge,
Nor the longing to own that experience.
Moreover, why the bitter heart,
Which insists to shackle semantics?
Experimental is indeed superior to experiential.

From behind veiled dreams,
You echo in the dark.
And now, do not hide your face from me;
But if you should need, I shall honor your intent;
However, for pity's sake, share with me your voice.
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When You Visit The Meadow

2008-06-27T10:01:00.002-04:00

Tomorrow, when you visit the meadow,
ahead of Spring's pollen gathering thief,
pick me a flower that grows in the shadow,
where sun never dresses the chartreuse leaf.
Beauty is what I would have you look for;
send it to me and I'll love you more.

.
Tomorrow, when you visit the meadow,
while walking along the deer-blazened way,
record the song of a lark in the heather,
whose author creates a new sonnet each day.
Joy is what I would have you look for;
send it to me and I'll love you more.
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Tomorrow, when you visit the meadow,
quietly set yourself down below grasses,
find there a toadstool growing with head bowed,
whose lowliness shrouds it among the masses.
Humility is what I would have you look for;
send it to me and I'll love you more.
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Tomorrow, when you wake in the morning,
before you arise for stretches and yawning,
no primping, no coffee, before daily adorning,
collect all your thoughts of us and our dawning.
Life is what you should find in your heart;
send it to me so we may not part.
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Tomorrow, when you visit the meadow,
where butterflies dance with slender loosestrife,
gather the sunshine that gives you your glow,
which radiance warms and brightens my life.
Truth is what I would have you look for;
send it to me, and I'll love you more..

Intersect Of Our Hearts

2008-04-11T12:00:00.000-04:00

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I have made the journey,
mirrored now many times
in vain excursions of the heart,
whose only reward was
articulation of emotion spent;
a dire roadmap of a life
whose footprints never led back home.
Paths that might, to wiser men,
serve as roadside billboards
to beware, and yet,
whose postings only seem
an invitation for one more fool.
.
I made the journey once, to you,
who were yourself a
voyager of providence,
who thought it then best
to allow our paths to cross,
having both seen along the way
the hazards posted by
unwitting wayfarers,
who were themselves turned back;
but now tethered, as I am, and bound
by love for my child.
.
I may not travel on, again
that avenue to you,
whose inviting presence
is my first consideration,
with each new day of choice.
I will not seek new paths
of windward drift.
I know that road now,
and if I am allowed
but one more journey,
it should be to the
intersect of our hearts.
.
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CINDY'S GARDEN

2008-02-11T00:13:00.046-05:00

Have you ever stooped
to see the daisy,
or was that chore
to far to fall?
The daisy strives
to meet halfway,
it reaches up;
do you hear the call?
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Have you ever bent
beside its stem?
The dew grass damp
soaks in your jeans;
a tell tale sign
of humbled muse
and reverent wonder
upon your knees.
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Have you ever tracked
the scent of jasmine,
as if pulled by leash
along the unseen path?
Scentually led
to where the vine
is hidden deep
with birds who take their bath.
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Have you ever noticed
snowdrops stretching skyward
to melt the hoary crystals
in its icy silver vase?
The paradox of winterspring,
flowers in the frost;
needing warming blankets
of that day sun’s embrace.
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Have you ever seen
a bee relieve the clover
of its golden given love?
As cupid of the kingdom;
sharing with and caring
for the here and now,
but also for the future
of columbine and bee balm.
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Have you never been
to Cindy’s garden?
A home for frogs and snails
and this poem on a rock…

Come to me quietly,
while the web's lace glistens
with morning dew;
to dance on rose petals
along a garden path,
when the sparrow's song
awakens the sun,
and caresses a new day
yet unspoiled.

....which faces early east
to greet the staging sun;
written with and for a friend,
planted now with four-o’clock.
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THE NIGHT I DREAD

2007-09-05T13:26:00.000-04:00

This is the night I dread;
dark within me, empty without her.
How anxiously I await sleep,
to be within that world
where nothing exists;
no thoughts, no dreams, no memory,
of what was, or might have been,
no hope of what will never be;
to sleep eternally,
not ever to confront
another day without her.
Could I make a life within that world
of non-existence, perhaps on occasion,
to intrude on someone else’s dream?

This is the night I dread;
a night whose remembrance of me
should be drowned in drunkenness;
a night in which memories of me
should be cancelled
by what new sacrifice
offering himself upon her shrine.
How many times must she die this death?
There is no rebirth, only decay.
The altar is desecrated;
it is a consuming sepulcher,
not content with death,
but with dying.

This is the night I dread;
the night that awakens with
the tomorrow that should never be;
this is the night which persists,
the longest night that finds me
cast off the whitened altar,
prepared for the consummation
of another zealous feast;
sublime love devoured
by the insecurity of the here and now.
This is the night I dread;
waiting for that morning when
I will awake... again.

LUNA

2007-08-14T21:57:00.016-04:00

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I was born unwanted.
Unnecessary in that pitiless person’s life;
thrown out as refuse with kitchen trash;
a back-lot dumpster became my tomb;
the sad collection box of superfluous waste;
that hideaway of unclaimed mistakes.
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I was weaned in friendship.
Fortuitously found of fate before death;
a hand of kindness invitingly extended;
a touch, a stroke, an embrace of warmth;
a cradle of patience instills a hope,
which swells with each breath of self worth.
.
I live in love.
Sharing a life of panoramic views
with him and her and Willow, who
bore a lonely year, before I was;
having known the same rejection,
which is forgotten now in the peace of love.

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Moments and Daydreams

2007-08-13T11:41:00.000-04:00

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Moments and daydreams,
wishes and wants,
fashioned to selfish desires.
Freeze-frames of life,
fanciful flights,
consumed in our nocturnal fires.
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Dances with sycamores,
sans souci cheesecake,
moments cataloged and plated.
Windwalking Wranglers,
intercourse with Ansel,
daydreams to wrestle with later.
.
Shadowfinger branches,
volleyball moons,
stargazers queued in absentia.
Night polished faces,
firefly eyes,
lips that are softened celestially.
.
Barefoot in bluegrass,
breasts tickled by seafoam,
imagine we might have lived it.
Moments and daydreams,
wishes and wants,
distance and time that prohibit.
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Missing You

2007-07-17T22:26:00.020-04:00

Walking down to water's edge
on weathered, planked paths
whose repairs have
long been forgotten
by what coastal caretaker;
passing by bleached clams
and memories of crabs
devastated by greedy gulls;
I gaze across the sea,
missing you, at sunrise.

There is no end,
and where does it begin?
Where are the fountains
that forever feed it?
How is it that it finds its limits,
dissipating its force at my feet?
We stand at each other's boundaries
and rage against one another,
maddened by what unseen conflict
deep within ourselves.
All are stayed and driven to hide.
I alone stand in its fury,
missing you.

And then while I slept,
there at the edge
of your intended caress,
for what may have been one hour,
or one week, or one lifetime,
the sea calmed itself
with the envy of my peace,
only when I sleep;
as an unsung lullaby
which only it can hear.
And we slept together
in our deferred dreams,
missing you, at sunset.
.
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If You Were Here

2007-07-02T20:37:00.000-04:00

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If you were here,
I’d be with you,
I would softly talk to you,
You would talk to me,
Of restless smiles from timid strangers,
And eager acts of anxious beggars,
Then in the quiet evening hours,
By the fireside,
I would hold you,
And you would hold me.

If you were here,
I’d be with you,
I would gladly sing to you,
You would sing to me,
A song of how our lives will be,
In joyful rhyme and harmony
Then in the early morning sunshine,
When I greet you,
I would kiss you,
And you would kiss me.

If you were here,
I’d be with you,
I would laugh with you,
You would laugh with me,
Over comical times in the crowded park,
Sharing picnics that overlap in the dark,
Then in the darkness we would lie,
To rest and sleep;
I would love you,
And you would love me.
.
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A Sylvan Moment

2007-06-26T10:36:00.000-04:00

I love the forest
where one tree
becomes another,
becomes another,
becomes a forest.
Each towering column
is an altar
within a tabernacle.
The forest is a home,
is a playground,
is a school,
is a church.
.
.
The forest edge
is as a wall
with an unseen door
at every juncture.
It is a magical transition,
momentarily instant
from without to within.
One can not hurry.
Running through a forest
would belie having ever
found the door,
and you are rejected.

Someone

2007-06-24T11:00:00.000-04:00

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There is someone who loves
the dew-drenched debut of dawn,
wrestling away from gray remnants of yesterday,
lustered by virgin light of a young sun,
whose strength awakens today,
...as I do.
There is someone who loves
the mass of proud postured daffodils,
spiked among the shy wildflowers of each new spring,
heralding the comfort of the summery sun,
an intimate blanket of warmth to bring,
...as I do.
There is someone who loves
to see the busy mother robin feeding
her forever starving nestlings the unvaried diet
of early worms stalked and ambushed,
hoping soon for rest and quiet,
...as I do.
There is someone who loves
the plush pile of the moist moss,
lying as an exotic carpet in the warm wood,
seducing one into sylvan sleep,
where we once stood,
...as I do.
There is someone who loves
the top-down-doors-off of a Jeep,
with the summer night's disheveling breeze
cooling dry the sweated brow,
driving down to shoreline seas,
...as I do.
There is someone who loves
the spent roll of the once swelled surf,
finding its boundary where footprints are pressed,
tickling the toes and licking at ankles,
as former lovers can attest,
...as I do.
There is someone who loves
the startling crackle of an open fire,
discharging sparks as a mini fireworks display,
choreographed to the hypnotic dance
of flames that lick and sway,
...as I do.There is someone who loves
the last golden glimmer of sun,
hesitating over the threshold of far horizon
for one last lazy second of sunset,
unwilling to yield to consummation,
...as I do.
There is someone who loves
wet silver-dollar sized snowflakes,
spilled from that blizzard which knows no end,
that seem to collect themselves
again into snowmen,...as I do.
There is someone who loves
the brilliant mother-of-pearl moon,
hung high upon the star-sprinkled ceiling,
while sleepless souls in the night light
lie rhythmically breathing,
...as I do.
There is someone who searches
for that special gentle person,
to share a kinder love spoken of by selfish poets
who, maddened by their passions,
will never really know it,
...as I do.
There is someone who loves
... as I do.
.
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Children of Tears

2007-05-21T10:19:00.000-04:00

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Tears for the lonely child,
crying all her years;
armies of infants,
playing with fears;
parents with hearts of stone;
love on the telephone;
kisses dialed for Rebecca.
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Children from empty homes,
crying all the night;
guardians and nursery schools,
can’t make it right;
playpens in court,
some kind of sport;
law letters daily used as toys.
.
Cries from lonely children
fill our ears;
tears from broken children
fill our eyes;
all the broken children,
all the lonely children,
filled with tears.
.
(and she says)
.
Please God, let it be,
when You and I are three;
now they’ve just begun,
to make none of me.
Build your home again,
rhyme your poem again,
let me be again.
.
Cries from broken children,
fill our ears.
Tears from lonely children
fill our eyes.
All the broken children,
all the lonely children,
filled with tears.
.
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