munificent

munificent Gaia
spread her wealth
like an eager bride's legs
and we with all her bounty
laid before us in sensuous splendor
instead frigid and greedy miners
ignore the joys she gives freely
to dig and drill and destroy
to prove our power over her
we muck and mar her face
and claim that she is ours to exploit
but battered wives may rebel
and she may kill us off
before we murder her as well

transpicuous

heart of glass
hung upon sleeve
christmas bauble
dangling on branch
still you do not mark it
transpicuous
you see through it
and not into it

Occam's razor

fill the bath
with warm
sweet scented suds
and sink
and think
concoct scenarios
that would save me
from all my cheap
and petty woes
divert from
likelier truths
like stones
upon my chest
to weigh me down
slit my wrists
with Occam's razor
verity I bleed
in verity I drown

retrospective

mind laid out
like gallery floors
the museum of me
a retrospective spectacle
mixed mediums
made of ink and tears
of blood and clay
of stormy skies
of first kisses
of peaks and precipices
of depths and dark abysses
the motif in every piece the same
joy and laughter found
from heartache and shame

sarcasm

like a leaky faucet
his sarcasm drips
drips
drips
and he mistakes it
for true wit
oh how clever he
believes himself to be
while kicking those
already down
and when they
justly show they're hurt
he acts as though
he's just the clown

not Shakespeare's fool
he's just a tool

perpend

the clock would strike
if clocks still struck
past midnight hour
awake and quiver
perpending consequence
unending outcomes
jostle for attention
in suspension of disbelief
faith belied by dawn's cry
as I toss and turn again
mulling why and how and when

unreconstructed

faith unsullied
she marched
into the world
head held so high
solid in unreconstructed certitude
that justice always wins
eyes fixed firmly
to the stars
while tripping over
contrary evidence
littering the ground
but she never understood
why she fell
she never once
looked down

nightmare

old tropes no longer hold
my teeth stay in my head
I do not dream that I am dead
no more the fall that never ends
or the taunting from dear friends
the bogeymen hunting me
lightning crash setting monsters free
no more cliche horror to haunt me
brutal mutilations no more daunt me
instead
your absence all too real
grief deadens all I feel
the nightmare from which
I never wake
hidden by my smile
fake

watershed

i looked into
the mirror mystified
unrecognizable
somehow I'd run
roughshod over
the watershed
of who I was
to who I am
without noticing
where one ended
and one began

lief

i miss you, that is true
but would not resume
as we were wont to do
this flower past its bloom
for soon as passion spent
you would as lief declare
like bar at closing time
you don't have to go home
but you can't stay here

ameliorate

try though i might
still cannot see myself
from outside myself

& could i would i

would i learn finally what evades me
the things that make them go

& if i did
what difference would it make

would it ameliorate
inner dissent/descent into despair
war mercurial vs immutable
is there an unwavering me in there
or are my failings fickle too

& if i changed
for one to suit
would i destroy a me
already perfect
for one i've yet to see

hackle

easier to shake off
the snide aside
some days more
than others
and if I had my druthers
like water on duck feathers
scorn would roll
right off me always
and I would
scoff at those
who raised my hackles
unshackled by
the time and tenor
of my day
and no opinion
but my own of me
would e'er hold sway

chaffer

in shadow play
the angel and demon
chaffer over souls
a luminous tug of war
on pendulum swings
of a tenuous thread
between the quick
and the dead

furtive

it creeps into my thoughts
furtive fox in my henhouse
and steals away
the golden yolks
of my esteem
the words that chip away
and so demean
the little hurts that we ignore
until we are so sore
we cannot stand
that we ourselves inflict
upon our own command

effulgence

daydream splendour
eyes squoze shut
picture smile
radiant as sun
reflecting off ripples
of clear mountain lake
the effulgence of
the ephemeral you
in imaginary love
with imperfectable me
lights me like a lantern
on a grey subway
riding towards
the maybe
of us

decry

in greatness
I cannot fault
but the little kindnesses
that smooth the path
of every day ignored
a small selfishness of apathy
this I decry when I
the recipient of trivial trials
am riled by careless collections
amassing into an avalanche
of indifference

gadzookery

in silliness we abound
peppering our sentences
with huzzahs and zounds
and other gadzookery
bantering to and fro
with all the archaisms
that we know
and in doing so
find a language
all our own

besmirch

the words defaming me

never color 

my heart 

my honor 

not besmirched 

by poison pen

inoculated against

vitriol untoward

by the love of one 

who disregards

viciousness for what it is 

irenic

though I try 

most times 

to keep myself serene

in conflict I 

too oft lose my calm

frustration turns to tears

when I am thwarted 

in reason or in deed

or accused unjustly 

of some crime of thought 

or words not mine own

to reconcile my heart

back to irenic state

I struggle in ego

knowing in

righteousness I 

may be wrong yet

and the fire of passion 

for a truth or an ideal

has never kept me warm 

as forgiveness or a kiss

vade mecum

a younger me
thought I missed the mark
making of the darkness more dark
took it in and wrapped my secrets
hopes and fears that others knew
the things that I did not
but older me
not smarter but more wise
discerns there is no vade mecum to this life
we do the best we can with what we've got
make light of things we wish we had forgot
no set of rules to guide us
try to find what will inspire us
and leave behind the things that do not

minuscule

into the sunshine 

leave the grays behind 

the minuscule me

forgot under a big sky

tattoo

excitement or anxiety
I cannot tell

cast your spell
my heart beats
a tattoo
inside my chest

my mind
beats up my hope

telling me not to expect

yelling to Buddha-like
rescind desire as though
I can trick love
to arrive by turning my back

stave off disappointment
without scaring away joy

but that balancing act
I have not mastered

and clumsy

fall again

ominous

not the dark clouds
swirling overhead
weather's just weather
not the crack of the door
as it slams behind
sped by the wind
drizzle drenched streets
and soggy leaves
not these
but the broad smile
cranked to ten
from ear to ear and
brighter than
an exploding star
this veneer of cheer
the ominous sign
I hang my worry on

ramify

tributaries flowing
we ramify down different paths
sometimes we forget
save for when we overlap
we are of the same waters made
too long we've run the paths
someone else has paved
those who would force our tale
divert and dam us all
but damn them
who would make us small
all our stories are one story
from Eve to time's end
we begin and begin again
we are a force of nature
and we will not
by their will
be condemned

syncretism

the beauty of the world not found
in the beat of our own drums
but in the overlapping rhythms
the syncretisms of difference
in polyphonic counterpoint
overlaying exuberant strata
into percussive peaks
making a mountain
range of sound

postulate

more speculative
than the histories
of distant darknesses
between far off stars
in galaxies
so beyond our ken
that we gaze upon
mere memories of them
intergalactic ghosts
whispering
enigmatic stories
more specious
than these
are the excuses
I postulate
for you
while I wait
when you
are late

affable

you fickle feline
sometime
you weave yourself
between my legs
and mistook I am
confusing
affable affectation
for affection
but on reflection
you withdraw
to hide yourself
to suit yourself
until you choose
to stalk your prey
drawn in by a purr
wooed by soft fur
you hold sway
until you pounce
or go away

nugatory

awake and make
each day create
produce and reduce
consumption
never mind
the nugatory nature
or what brings stature
in the eyes of
a famously fickle world
just do the thing
and do it again
and in the end
you find
that you did more
than you thought
you could
and only the boring
are constantly bored

cabotage

waiting for repair
by the engineer
who fills the space
between
electrons
with frisson
of cabotage
bits of our borders
mingling and mixing
like frenetic dancers
charging the ionized air
with subtle expectation
till curiosity draws me
from my Faraday cage
to be galvanized or electrified
defibrillate my sclerotic heart
with a key
a kite
a lightening strike
to start me up again

laconic

Waiting
for a word
from one
at best laconic,
but currently
silently surly,
is absurd.
The conversation
not lulled,
but catatonic,
stalled,
and sclerotic.
Of the whole,
it's iconic.
Ironic,
that only in
your presence
do I feel
your absence
aching like
an abscess.

exponent

deconstructed and reassembled
puzzle pieces from different boxes
hammered to make fit
the exponent made in memory
from bits and bobs of one or other
a higgelty-piggelty exemplar
blueprint of what I'm looking for