Eleven Minutes

There is a deeper silence inside the ears

Than anyone could achieve on purpose.

Find that place and you can sleep forever.

Find that purpose and you can wake up.

In this state we make the observation that

Paper turns black at the footfalls of fire,

But air traces the flames' edge with a blue

More deep and lovely than Autumn's best sky.

Walking on sticks is fine for some

But those with less balance and stress

Find joy in the slime, mud and grass

And can watch water fly if they laugh.

In the end, it's the light falling on all this

That makes sense and makes sense pointless.

Because laughter counts for something

And the clink of coins sounds more like illness.

We Built This Little House

Karl

We built this house and here we'll stay.
We have new hardships every day.
The children are ill with fever and ague.
Wolves took the sheep so we bought a dog.
The dog got rabies and tried to bite us.
Then the well ran dry. Just to spite us.
Our animals died without any water.
Indians came and captured our daughter.
You went blind from scarlet fever.
Friends are no help, they just say, "Leave 'er."
The crops are withered, brown and scrawny.
Before we even got here we ran out of money.
I'd turn to devil worship if I thought
It would bring me rain in this dreadful drought.
Now evil men with greed instead of conscience
Want to grab our land right out from under us.
I have to admit it would be easier to give in.
But this is more than a house, it's the home we live in.

Susan

We left our friends and family.
We came to the land of the brave and the free.
We've lost a lot and gained so much more.
Every night I kneel on the floor;
I pray to the God of the heavens and earth
To bless the abundance we've raised from our dearth.
I felt heaven so close. I didn't fear to die.
But life is God's gift, even without my eyes.
I can't see your tears, but I know when you weep.
Your heart's in my heart, it's your thoughts I keep.
We built this house together, and here's where we'll stay.
Take my hand, husband, we'll face another day.

Survivor's Guilt

Meaningless streams of water

Writhe like living ropes

Made of glass (how very strange!)

Across the gray linoleum tiles.

The light fades in this room

To match the captured

Ancient light in photographs.

Time itself must be confused by this.

Two tears and some dominoes fell:

The aborted start

Of an imagined design...

A line that would never be finished.

Meaningless streams of water...

(Am I not human?)

Pulsing through vein and vessel...

And we all know humans die like flies.

Demon Hunting

We fall inside a sphere of masquerade and fear,

Streaked blood and dust all through, like little walls

Built of vanishing cards and formless souls.

Insistent and persistent lies, I idolize;

Above all else I worship any proof

That lies are real, more than the ugly truth.

And gladly death would take me in his purple hand

And squeeze me till I bled like warm, fresh juice

Into his cup. Look up; there's no excuse.

Full twenty thousand years, and half that time spent lost,

A laugh cracked out, unnoticed, edged, serrated.

Those who can hear it now are overrated.

An eye turns upward glinting like diamond facets:

Cold, wet, made of white marble with red veins...

And devoid of all that heals or sustains.

Mastery

Oh, if I could just reach out

And hold back that lightning

Before it disappears!

If I were king.

If I had the skill.

I'd cradle its prehensile flicker

And marvel as it tickled

All my fingers.

If I had the skill

To serve my will.

Could I dance the same arcane steps

The light dances in its power

Across the storms?

If I knew how

I wouldn't be here now.

The terpsichorean arts,

I fear, failed me entirely.

Black days lengthen,

And moonless nights

Grow in proportion.

Mastery of all I see;

Master of masks am I,

On those moonless nights.

Truth and death follow after

As I walk backwards.

Pure And Cold White

When snow is thick on the very waves

And the waves rise up like screaming witches

And the dead lie gray and cool in their graves

And the tailor ends his line of stitches;

When the snow covers over the windows

And drifts higher than the gabled roof,

And I can no longer watch where it bellows

Against the road, where you walked, aloof;

Then, only then, will I finally sleep

In a sleep like death, wherein I won’t dream.

So from now until Winter this watch I’ll keep

And sew another long wedding gown seam.

Trooped ranks of daisies, pure and cold white,

Tempt my mind to believe in the frost.

When a motherly breeze stirs them with light,

Pretty fingers so warm, my hope spark is lost

And its fire dies down to an ash-colored coal

And I prick my finger just to remind my blood

That my heart is still beating, and once it was full

And in Winter pure blankets of snow hide the mud.

And the diamond-clad ground any darkness will pierce.

Someday the seasons will swing ‘round their head

And smile again, with that smile so fierce,

On the one who returns, even back from the dead.

Before Breakfast

I walked on the moon this morning.
It was blue and cool,
Probably from the tides.
All they gave me was a warning
And the name fool;
And then I found my way outside.

I flew over Jupiter this morning.
If the sky is the limit
Then I'm breaking down the rules.
I light my path by sojourning.
Opposition can't dim it:
Light glows and flows and pools.

I found my home this morning.
It is cool and dark like hands
Holding me back lest I fall.
The hands of seashells adorning
The beaches and white-hot sands,
Where dances a child's doll.