Liftoff

Liftoff

 

Late

 

I’m driving home,

High-beams

Looking out for

Deer whom I

Might then drive

Around

 

Yellow center

Lines with white

On either side,

 

Bushes and trees

Farther off still

Line the road,

Marching back

In layers of green

 

And black that

Make up the

Horizon, too,

Which I see in

Front of me

 

Then—I hadn’t

Thought of

This—the moon

Rises in my

Direction (that is,

 

The way I’m

Going) behind

Dark verdure

Rows

 

Half-disc bright

Red-orange

Startling the

Sleepy countryside

Into becoming,

As if in an

Astral spell, a

 

Rising plain of

Backlit silhouettes

 

Sentinel at night

Ascends like

An ancient mother

Ship leaving

The quiet earth

Where it has

Hid, now taking

Its watchkeepers

Home;

 

Maybe, too,

A matriarchal

Ark as well, bearing

DNA of flora

And fauna,

Gene-tracings

 

In chromosomes

Of mitochondria

 

Lifting all toward

Freedom of

The Earth, carrying

Our errant

Molecules through

To what we say

Is outer space:

 

Passing other

Spheres of cosmic

Condensation,

 

Asteroids and

Planetoids and

More substantial

Yet nascent

 

Un-wakened

Denizens of

Rock and fire

 

Cradles for

Star-making,

Entering nebulae,

The vessel-charge

At last and

With a knowing

Satellite’s prophetic

Discretion,

 

Diffuses organic

Atoms inside

 

Entropy-laden

Stellar capacity,

Static potential

Wanting alien

Life

 

To incite and

Render systems

Viable for carbon

Habitation;

 

And so

 

Our lives together

Evolve into

The future of

World-making

Atatürk

Atatürk

 

The death-toll rose

From ten to forty-one

 

Was there a plan

In the attack that

Foreign blood would

Mix with that of

Home

 

Insane strategy

To kill those first who

Are not involved

 

The cheat of

Terrorists whose

Cowardice will not

Face military forces

 

This aim makes a

Target out of me, and

Certainly I can get

Scared;

 

I must hope that

Death by misdirected

Amateurs will not

Find me today

 

And grieve with those

Slain in anonymity,

Because the killers

Don’t care

 

Who we are

Almost Heaven

Almost Heaven

(phrase from artist John Denver)

 

Kanawha, Nicholas,

Greenbrier counties

 

Earth gives way

To water and to fire

In the anger of the

Skies

 

Prometheus surrenders

To the whim of

Dionysus,

 

Touched with the

Power of Poseidon

And sport-attitude

Of Zeus

 

We reach over gods

Toward better

Intercession,

 

Praying for the

Tendril touch that

Holds the earth

And sky

 

And all the heavens

 

Because on land and

Other West Virginia

Lives, an ocean’s

Upheaval falls

 

Drowning, splitting

The ground on

Which we alive yet

Strive to stand

 

 

West Virginia Flooding Kills 24; Search and Rescue Efforts Continue

https://weather.com/news/news/west-virginia-flooding-severe-weather-outbreak-news-impacts

http://www.fema.gov/disaster/4273

Psalm 46

Psalm 46

 

A new world comes

And some would say

It’s here

 

By your hand, we might

Live in better days

 

The images we make

For politics or

Entertainment

 

Are wrung through

With shiny fakery

 

I think our new day

Will arrive,

 

Lord,

 

When we learn to say

I love you to the ground

And to the air

 

And to the wind we

Cannot see but truly

Feel and have:

 

When we learn the

Value of unseen things,

 

We can say I love you

To each other

 

Then your new day is

Manifest

Gutted

Gutted

 

Walking through the house

Was strange: your

House that burned, now

Skeletal and

Perpendicular

 

Beams and cross-beams,

Bannister askew—rooms

Awash

 

In neutral shades of earth

And ash,

 

An appliance here or there;

 

For all the blackened parts

And where textures are

Impressed with soot and

Shadowed particles,

 

The house we see

Could be

 

Rising from the ground

As new:

 

Save for a generation’s

Life, now endowed only

By memory as legacy,

 

Which I think you saw

Upon the bones of

Your remembered home,

 

As we all walked through

Love is There

Love is There

(at any age, on any page)

 

Where?

 

Up?

If I look up,

will I see it?

 

Out?  If I go

outside, will I

be it?

 

Around the

world, where no

bound can

keep it?

 

Or deep inside,

where when I

hurt I hide it?

 

Love is there.

It’s everywhere.

 

Reach out;

we’ve earned

it.  Teach it, and

we’ll learn it.

 

Everyone of

Earth and

on

 

deserves

love from

birth to

build upon.

 

 

Pins in Dolls

Pins in Dolls

 

I’m tired, and I wish

I could rest well

 

But pains like pins

Keep me awake

 

I wish I could resolve

These; I wish the

Witch or brujo

 

Would pull these

Unearthly prickles

Out

Dawn-Calling

Dawn-Calling

 

Who calls dawn

 

One bird, two birds

I hope it’s at least two

 

No one should have

To call the new day

All alone

 

At such a time, there

Should be company

 

And, if it works out,

Friendship through

The morning

 

That’s how I’d like to

Start the day

With someone near

 

To know me now

When the day begins

Failing Night

Failing Night

 

Just after five—

I have not been asleep

 

Pain shoots through

My leg, a single line

Of nerve

 

As if a wire was pushed

Through inside

 

Then something threw

A supernatural switch

Tripping a low current

Of too-warm, electric

 

Sting without

Cessation

 

Pulsing through tired

Muscle and protesting

Vessels

 

Having surrendered

Day’s labors into

Aspiration’s night of

Negligent awareness

Barely keeping guard

 

Letting go of awake

To turn into dream

 

In hope to re-knit and

Repair stretched

Measures in the body

And the mind

 

It’s a cycle that’s

Supposed to work

 

Why then is pain

Ruining what I’ve made

 

Not fair

 

I want to rest then rise

With good, hale

Consciousness beneath

The skin