寂しい (Lonely)

Alone,
She waits by the water,
She waits on the shore,
Her true love is coming,
To meet her no more.

Alone,
He drinks in the kitchen,
He drinks in the bar,
He moons over Molly,
As he crashes his car.

Alone,
She sings in the shower,
She sings on the stage,
Her fans always love her,
When she stays in her cage.

Alone,
He works through the mornings,
He works through the nights,
He’s hoarding his money,
When the heart attack bites.

Alone,
She sits by the window,
She sits in her chair,
Her children have left her,
In a resting home’s care.

Alone,
He sleeps on his bunk,
He sleeps on his bed,
He’s pines for his freedom,
As his last rites are read.

Together,
Search out the lonely,
Search out the lost,
Bring us together,
Or consider the cost.

The Hologram Heart

He has a hologram heart.
It is shiny and new.
He takes it out and plays with it.
Which is not what he should do.

He prowls the neon streets,
Hunting for his prey.
He captures them and tortures them,
since they cannot get away.

He has titanium hands,
They are agile and strong.
They tear at flesh and fracture bone,
To a dark and terrible song.

He has a positronic brain,
It is wily and keen.
He is smarter then mere mortal men,
And a million times as mean.

He has a digital God,
Empty and dead.
Who never answers beck and call,
To the monsters in his head.

He has a hologram heart…

Smash it, quickly now!

Zachary’s Lament for Jane

Where are you my love?
Where is your sweet voice,
The smell of jasmine, laughter, and the tinkling of bells?

You have stood by my side,
feeling but untouchable,
warming my heart in a world gone cold.

Where are you my sweet?
What have I done?
Kept from the golden gate, afraid, sharing each other?

You were taken in your youth,
Broken by a brute,
And left to dwell with me in my living purgatory.

Where are you my dear?
Where have you gone,
A ghost of yesterday, haunting, yet so alive?

You have fallen into the abyss,
Descended into the depths of forever,
And become an eternal memory.

I will always love you.
I will never forget.
The smell of jasmine, laughter, and the tinkling of bells.

Mercy and Promise

The bell tolls in the distance.
The widow mourns in black.
For her there is no solace, no peace, nor joy.
He is dead.

The thunder shakes the heavens.
The priest waves the censer.
For him there is hope, peace, and sanctuary.
He knows promise.

He is not dead.
Nor is he lost to rot and decay.
He is not dead.
He will return on another day.

The child plays in silence.
Her mother weeps alone.
Father passed and left them, sad and starving.
He is dead.

The priest feeds the widow
As he is fed by another.
Love and compassion binding personhood.
He knows devotion.

The lightning cleaves the sky.
The killer shivers in fear.
For him the law hunts, relentless, unstopping.
He wants mercy.

There is one who gives mercy,
There is one who gives life,
Compassion, and loyal devotion,
Even to those undeserving.

He is not dead.
He has risen from the tomb.
He is not dead.
He will return in greater glory.

The Lute Lad

A noble soul, he is betrayed
by men of ill repute.
They left him on the moor to die,
alone with just his lute.

When he awoke he saw the eyes,
of wolves beneath the moon.
Who circled ‘round the dying fire
for blood and meat as boon.

They looked at him and he at them,
For minutes long as days.
He took up lute and began to sing,
To calm their wolven ways.

First, he sang of maidens fair
who yearned for soldiers strong,
Then he sang of sailors brave,
On journeys far and long.

He sang of children lost at sea,
For their salvation found.
He sang of pirates in their ships,
And how they ran aground.

He sang of mists on empty moor,
And wolves who howl to moon.
He sang for lonely minstrel lads,
Who tripped on death too soon.

Cerridwen took pity then
For he’d moved her heart so fey.
She made the wolves to lie asleep,
Until the break of day.

So minstrel when you are alone,
And caught out with the worst,
Make sure your lute is strung up well,
And all your songs rehearsed.

Ruin and Beauty

Running and laughing through wind weathered halls,
Beautiful image to those who remember,
Dancing and singing to drips as rain falls.
A palace to bats and brown mice in December.

Her ramparts are leaking and battered with age,
and windows are broken and shattered by hail.
Her glory did pass when she stepped from the stage,
And neglected remains where ghosts alone wail.

Will somebody save her from ruin and decay?
How can she endure the decades alone?
Will some loyal soul return here to play?
When will they polish the vine covered stone?

Her stairs coil about like a serpent relaxing,
And lead to the balcony high in the air.
Halls have been swept by a bureaucrat’s taxing,
The garden’s neglected and given no care.

The wrecking ball swings to bash in her walls,
The bulldozer growls to eat her foundations,
To build one of those convenience malls,
To pay off the debts of her maker’s relations.

Longing – Haiku in 14

Carmine sun rises / boundary of a new day / “Wake up my sweet love.”
Sounds of waves lapping / boat rocking in the low tide / your eyes a green pool.
Blue sky and cool breeze / goose bumps cover my body / greeting joy’s new day.
Sea gulls wheal above / like kites on a summer wind / crying for their fish.
When you have left me / this haunting of a day lost / I wake and recall.
Your shadow is there / but your body is buried / in far away sands.
I draw my net in / for work will help me forget / the true love I had.
“Please don’t forget me / I am not mere memory / never a shadow.”
“I cannot forget / whiskey won’t grant me relief / my longing remains.”
Fish caught in my net / gasping for air entangled / my soul without you.
My tired bones creaking / I row to the pace of time / toward the shoreline.
My skin is umber / but my sharp eyes see you there / strolling on white sand.
When I get closer / I cannot believe my eyes / you are dead no more.
But she is not you / wading outward to greet me / “Welcome home, Father.”

Spring Sunrise

The swelling mother of dawn,
Crawling outward from the gloom,
Bending night like the grass,
And curling the mountains away.

Shimmer, oh twittering dawn,
Full of birds, and bees, and busy things,
The gurgling brook beckons,
And the maiden goes to bathe.

Trill, my lovely cardinal,
Red crest slicing the air so brave,
Dancing amongst the leaves,
Of last autumn’s descent into chill.

Sing and rejoice, for spring is here,
Laugh and be merry in dance.
Like the glistening dew,
Be the jewels of the morning.

Rise, oh fair maiden from the pool,
Do not be ashamed of God’s divine gift.
Embrace the morning sun,
Hold close the shining new day.

Splash, goes the beaver,
In his pond of sticks and mud,
Yearlings swim and play,
While mother feeds her pups.

Laugh, oh nymph of woman blooming,
In your springtime of life,
Be good and kind to others,
And give honor to your mother.

Rejoice, oh creatures of the day,
Partake in the rising of beauty,
Give thanks for the green, and kiss the petals.
Dance in the flowered fields of May.

Missing Bread

The bread is gone,
Gone from the hungry,
Gone from the widow and the poor,
Gone from the old, the sick and the young,
Into the mouths of the corpulent,
Into the gullets of the greedy,
Into the guts of the selfish.

The bread is gone,
Because charity became an obscenity,
Because society chose hate and hostility,
Because the poor became the enemy,
Lost to the money lender,
Lost to the crazy spender,
Lost to the sly thief.

The bread is gone,
We bet on the wrong horse,
We gambled against the house’s odds,
We threw away our children’s tomorrows.
While a few gather in the chips,
While a few build their palaces,
While a few tread on our necks.

The bread is gone,
Our banks are empty shells,
Our police war against us, and beat us,
Our prisons are full of the innocent, the lost, and the broken,
For we have rejected the truth,
For we have hated another,
For we have lost our way.

The bread is gone?

The Songstress

She sings with the voice of an angel,
her guitar an extension of her soul.
She is lost in a world of complexity,
As she drifts without resolute goal.

She dreams of fame and fortune,
And wishes for love uncontained.
She is shamed by her acts of confusion,
For impulsive sins she’s been blamed.

She needs a guide to assist her,
An agent of truth who will lead.
She casts them away when she finds them,
And leaves the heartbroken to bleed.

She isn’t vicious or evil,
Just a force of nature and song.
She must allow others to help her,
To carry the verses along.

So when you hear her fair singing,
Let your heart be uplifted and swell,
Though a dream is more than a person,
That person must be nurtured as well.

Memorial of Twenty Years

The stood in queues,
They stood in lines,
They waited for their lunch.
Big brother had another plan,
That put them in the crunch.

They lost their girls,
They lost their joy,
They sold them off to others.
Their spoiled boys were all alone,
Pampered, without brothers.

They gave up freedom,
They worked as slaves,
They yearned for better days.
Big brother had another plan,
That crushed their hopeful ways.

They counted children,
They hid the best,
They sent them overseas.
Thrown to gender genocide,
So their masters, they could please.

They tried one day,
They tried one week,
They stood up to the beast.
But no one in the big wide world,
Helped them in the least.

They remember now,
They bear the wounds,
They own those twenty years,
Tiananmen Square where they once stood,
Is filled with mother’s tears.

Let’s hope for change,
Let’s yearn for truth,
Let’s seek a better path.
We can never let the despot win,
Or give in to their wrath.

Quantum Quarternion

I am falling through the world
An echo of light from the distant past.
Searching for a tomorrow which may never come,
And hoping for a future which I am destined to lose.

Clock at one.

Speaking from the hiss of a radio detuned,
I talk, am heard, but not acknowledged.
Shaken by the chaotic, stirred into the ether.
I am a twitch in a transistor, held in a quivering state.

Clock at two.

Shout for me lightning as I start your spark.
Speak for me mutation as I change the beast.
I am the ragged wanderer between the stars.
Ghost of a billion yesterdays wrapped in a tangled thread.

Clock at three.

The child is born and I pour through her.
As I pour through all mortals, a cup of nothing.
I vex the precise and bring agony to the chip.
I am a curling trail of bubbles in an alcohol box.

Clock at four.

The physicist is confused by my complexities.
The mathematician is offended by my simplicities.
The fool forgets me and is happier for it.
While the wise man races me to divine conclusions.

Clock at five.

A boy becomes a man and grows old.
My age is stretched by the speed of genesis.
The flip of a coin and the toss of a die,
Summon Higgs to answer for his crimes.

Clock at six.

There is a violin strung in my heart.
It plays a tune as old as time itself.
A melancholy dirge of a builder’s sorrow,
Of origins unmade by disasters of choice.

Clock at seven.

Some say I come from the center.
But I have never known a center.
Others say I am from the dying core,
I cannot recall that past to make a future.

Clock at eight.

I am you and you are me.
I shimmer within, too deep to swim,
In your bones and your flesh,
freed when the sun grows old and senile.

Clock at nine.

For all of man’s vaunted wisdom.
I am an enigma, a contradiction, a mental scourge.
I breach the common sense of the classical,
I grow the huckster’s existential jumbo mumbo.

Clock at ten.

I awaken the truth and quench the lie,
While hiding both in facts unmeasured.
When you ask for both and insist,
I flit away on a lark of interference.

Clock at eleven.

Wake me at the end of the universe,
And ask me if I ever had any fun.
I will recall the dances within your soul,
And forget the offenses of your collider.

Clock at twelve.

I am falling through the void
An echo of light from the distant past.
Hoping for a tomorrow which has a chance,
And searching for a person who will find me.

Lazy Summer

Opal sands on a beach of black,
Toes and feet a swingin’
Passing time for a tan on back,
Parasol dancers singin’

Monkey steals an old man’s hat,
– hue and cried slow motion.
A hefty boy on a floating mat,
In dire need of lotion.

Beer is cold and the tide is high,
Salt and spray a flyin’.
Towel flaps as it hangs to dry,
a baby’s somewhere cryin’

Summer time is a gift of life,
Up and down the shore.
Forget your troubles, cool your strife,
And relax a little more.

Žemė

She is a jewel in the sunlight
Blue, green, and brown.
She is wet and wild in the wind,
But enjoys wearing white.
She is fertile yet sometimes barren.
Her temper makes her children shake,
And they flee the fires of her rage,
Yet they adore her beauty,
While strangers seek to marr it.
She wears robes of grey,
And glimmers in the misty dawn,
Standing out against the stars.
She races her companion,
Chasing but never catching the sun.
She is old and yet young in spirit.
Her companion tugs at her tresses,
Teasing her with his changing moods.

She is strength, yet weak.
She is full, yet empty.
She is mother, daughter, and child.
She is yours and mine, yet…

No one can ever posses her.

Wounded

I am wounded, and yet not bleeding
Wounded by the days which pass in sorrow,
by the moments that drift in pain.
The sun is my enemy,
blinding me to others,
Binding me to solitude,
Enforced by the chaos of fear, conditioning, and bile.

I am wounded, lame, and broken.
Mind bound by mortal loss,
A bloodless Coup d’état of the brain
Chilled by unlove, and hastened to tragedy.
Time is my enemy,
Worth more dead,
Then ever alive,
A corpse drudging down stairs, and up, now rotting.

I am wounded, gifted, and foolish.
Heart shattered on love’s anvil.
Wounded by barriers and spikes of distrust,
By resentment and misfortune.
I am my enemy,
Holding my soul naked,
In shaking hands,
To be crushed by the heartless act of another.

I am wounded, and wounding others
A wolf in a trap turned violent.
Wounding through acts of neglect,
By hiding from pain and fear.
I must surrender,
Give up despair,
And embrace hope,
Or the wounds will never heal — forever.