AT MIDNIGHT

Just before midnight...

The forlorn pitch of sea
stretching beyond the southern Caribbean
black as coal tar,
moonlight vamping across the waves

So cold yet so tantalizing
So deep yet so vacant,
a redolence that beguiles the lungs
like the mutterings of an ancient mystic
petitioning the gods for mercy

On this heady concoction we arrive,
the new mariners
buffeted by the swells
of an undulating ocean
rocking us like a manic lover,
its groans and moans
echoing through the ship                      
like a berserk soundtrack
for our new adventures waiting to begin...
                                                    at midnight

###
                                                       

BATTLE SCARS

Those ravishes of time
wear them with pride

Those war wounds
from the battles of life

The wrinkles and sags
worn like so many scars

Each one telling the tale
of accomplishments and defeats

Your disappointments and triumphs
where you went and where you should never have gone

Those are the imprints of rivers crossed
and mountains climbed

The tracks of tears shed running parallel
with furrows of laughter

Those eyes now blurry
have seen love come and love depart

So look deep into the mirror
to read the map of your well traveled life

And wear those battle scars with pride
as you approach trail's end

For you are a soldier of survival

###

FOR SMOKY

He had but one eye

But it bore into our hearts

Like a shooting star

This bundle of five month old

Gray feline fur called Smoky

And he became a charter member of our family

He loved people and craved attention,

A stranger to no one’s lap,

Gentle as a mother’s kiss

And for fourteen years of playfulness

We petted, he purred carefree and content

Until Nature’s clock wound down

When he slept away the day

Motionless as stone, too immobile

To even eat or drink

When the purring gave way to gasps of breath

And confusion throttled his brain

As the assault of age, cruel and unstoppable,

Knawed away at his strength and spirit

 

But in his last moments of life, he buried his head

In my chest as if to reassure me before saying that final goodbye

A glint, however dim

Still glowing in his single eye to tell me

It was all good, my friend

It was all good

SEA LEVEL

SEA LEVEL

           

Love can be as capricious

As the open sea

One moment flat and complacent;

The next moment railing and tumultuous

It can run deep as well as shallow

It can evaporate into nothingness

Or it can overwhelm with furious force

And if it is saturated with salt,

It will leave the senses dying of thirst

While drowning in a tsunami of regret

SHADOW DANCING

SHADOW DANCING

Shadows dance with me,

Our movements as precise

As the orbit of planets

                     Who leads?

What does it matter

when we are light as a sigh,

our presence intertwined

until we are one, our steps

barely brushing the earth

while night breezes determine our tempo,

and the rolling surf plays our favorite song

We dance until sunrise,

then depart until the evening moon

reunites us

                    the shadows and I

WINTER

WINTER

Winter

           is a dead man’s game

north wind bellowing insults

           cutting

           stinging

anvil-like solidity

           beneath stiffening toes

hunched over like a drunken climber

           dodging a glacier’s vengeance

Breath

           in vaporous gulps

stammering in January dialect

iron landscapes

           severed flatland carcass

           spires of ice

hard-shell rapidity

           over sun flecked roofs

serrated crescents of frost

marking the windows

sparrows skidding

           across crusted canyons

dissected by diagonal planks

           of waning light

          

light starved voices

            wailing against the entombment of the season

DANCE IS POETRY

DANCE IS POETRY

Dance is poetry

composed by the body

agile limbs

providing the rhymes

a lithe torso and disciplined feet

providing the precise meter

while hands as graceful as rose petals

punctuate every move

each stanza defying gravity

as body and soul meld together

to etch a poem

upon our hearts