Searching for the Sun

I wake with the aching beauty

of the world. The sunlight shines a

sparrow's silhouette through my window ajar,

but it is gone before

the morning's melody is heard.

The fact that every thing is profound

takes nothing from the unique, singular

profundity of every moment, fragment

and splinter of our being.

The path is full of gravel.

I shovel the stones because

I like to hear them clatter.

I don't remember which way

the sun comes up.

I hunt for it in the mornings

then I just sit among the rocks

and pick at the weeds, thirsting

their way up, hoping for rain.

The weeds get their wish,

and I wade back in wet and worn

sighs.

The storm clears and

I'm left

still searching for the sun.

...Of our Time

Do not mistake what is being said for what has been said,

for even though time transcends the fragments in a spasmodic puzzle,

there is weight in each word

(repeated or not)

and with each imbrication

our individual actions implicate,

we are each of us

essentially the sum of our parts.

Plummet

Children sitting on the cliff edge, examining

the ebbing tide,

tossed pebbles first, then flowers.

The flowers floated;

the children sank.

Wade

Wave-licked

with thigh-rolled jeans he had strode

out to where the sea catches its breath,

forgetting the electronical device in his pocket.

And in that wind-plucked foam, 

made a father-pose,

though no sandal'd tussock bug rolled the dunes

waving the prize of a perfect wooden pistol,

and the shore was repeatedly planed clean,

clear of all gust battered figures.

The Noise That You'll Hear...

The hollow crash of waves on sand

is behind me.

now the sun, through sand,

sears my feet callused.

from sand to stone,

from stone to grass,

and home.

My skin glows like a coal.

I can still hear the water

as sleep slowly follows.

Sequestration at Sea

My aimless heart dances atop a tide-free ocean

with no pull to bring him to shore.

I know that he does not mind being at sea

but my mind's not as sure anymore.

I can't decide if I'm more frightened at getting stranded

or that it's what I hold deep within my will.

You see, at heart I am still a buoy

who is destined to stay innocently still.

With luck, I will be led to safety by a lighthouse

and arrive at your body of land.

A life spent avoiding being on the rocks

might prevent me caressing the sand.

So I will concentrate on making my life a speck

barely seen by hostile telescopes.

I will sail as far away as I can

then drop the anchor and cut the ropes.

Spun

The spider hung grotesque

upon his palace made of string.

My palace shuts out all the light

his trembles in the wind.

The maxim goes that I am strong

and he is weak and thin.

Yet here he sits, an emperor. And I am yet to spin.

Masquerade

Insincerity is society's greatest hypocrisy

and I cannot stomach the illusion.

A plethora of prepared pleasantries

to choke on in calculated confusion.

So spare me the sycophantic simpering,

complimented with a soap opera smile.

Remove the mechanical masquerade that custom has made

and display your human hatred without guile.

Estuary and the Ebbing Light

Forget my thoughts floating down the river,

let the bank pick up stray reeds and algae

like an unrestrained dog owner with boundless and bundling

love. Let there be darkness,

allow the mouth to open up and pour brackish water

into a grey pool of jagged generations.

Clasp the sky's air, wiggle your dirty toes,

splash your knees, sing to the birds, tell my thoughts

to stop swimming upstream, where they might

find the source to be furiously underwhelming.

Night Shames

Composing conversations

in my head

with the ideal conclusions

to relieve dread.

But what I can construct

within a thought

is never completely construed

the way it ought.

And so I must recompose

with blushing shame

a peripheral panicked past

penned to my name.