Crystal Fear

Photo by RIP - ©beeblu.wordpress.com

Above the clouds
the raven circles
below

the world turns
us down
to a fleeting kiss
of ground
in capricious wind’s riddle -
How to unstick gravity?

                      Pull up!
Pull up!

Maximum speed
unbraking hearts arrested
by clarity
a stark reality
in the whispering
of slow-motion minds -

Are              we                  unstuck?

And the raven hovers
and the world turns
and fear takes flight

Why?

Do I not care or
like others before
deny it’s the end
of my world turning?

Then the raven flies south
on flouncing wind
to drown brown lands

And so
we land

on a world
turning
without end

Old Oaks

Young oaks, fresh-leafed

uniformed
in naive acorn pride
stand tall in single file
guardians in memoriam
of those who died

- in Time -

gnarled with salt of tears
whorled in winds of sorrow
and furrowed with fires of rage
young grow old
in a different
age

toward the light, away from fear

with deferential bow
to a Callery Pear

A History of Fear

it’s

the dark, those monsters

under the bed, first day

at school – bruce m trying to kiss

you in the sandpit

and hell-to-pay for jumping in every puddle on your way home,

men in hearses and dark

glasses – stranger-danger,

not running solo, nor flying, but

an umbrella on the wind – cruel and unusual,

old man on the street corner -

feathered hat, immaculately

polished shoes, threadbare clothes,

a broken headlamp in the rear-view

and unspeakable things,

and then, you know, the death of a parent,

DNA gone awry,

that your actions caused this -

suffering,

not of your own shadow but

rage, betrayals,

the sound

of your own screaming,

depravity of infant

body-bombs,

spectres – Margaret Hassan, the Falling

Man,

Afghani children smashed

into dirt playgrounds,

the death of dreams, sadness

of others,

hearts beating through walls,

and then,

somehow, nothing

much

at

all

…

least of all

death

Dad II

In the end -

your Sweet Baboo:

just a 2-dimensional comic strip;

the apple of your eye:

a worm-infested core;

your shining light:

a sputtering

redshift Doppler,

fading out

in your darkest hour.

Lost

She cannot

look it in the eye

the same way again

its latest excess

an abomination

beyond excuses

Like the parent of a drug addict

she’s afraid to go downtown

lest she finds her Life

in that dust

on the streets,

lest she breathes him in.