Author: akalandros

Catacomb of Colors

Wikipedia image of Rosh HaNikra grottoes

I can hide in catacombs of colors and never look to the sky.
My blood shed, bled out in tiny droplets of all the years of parting,
dripping, draining in the darkness
And carried away, scattered to the winds,
Leavings upon the ground, seedless seeds,
Sprouting up in colorless flowers of summer without colors,
Without the dreams of sunlight on their faces,
Without fragrance sweet, divinity in scents we can never forget lost.
We learn to live with regrets taken, earned, packed away
With the mortgage of things within our hearts, within our lifetimes of meaning,
Within our trying just one more damn time,
Drifting up in clouds of long-ago cigarette smoke.
Crush this dried out husk of me,
Scatter those particles of dust to the wind
And see if colors sprout once that dust settles upon the ground,
See if there’s meaning left within their regrets,
See if there’s fragrance, some elegance of divinity within a scent
To be remembered when there is nothing,
Nothing left but this wisp of memory
Within your breath.
Let go my hand, love. Leave me wrapped in the shroud
Of all my days and regrets shared along the way
To here, this time of parting. Leave me to hide away
In this catacomb of colors.

Horrid Spring

image from kilduff’s.com

Wind and rain
Of this horrid spring
Whips us to perfection
Of brokenness being
Beaten souls
That we are
In this time of need
And want of touch.
Our loneness sheltered
Bodies, our silence shattered souls,
Contoured colors of minds
Restrained our madness
In this once upon a time.
If only to wake in the warmth
Of human skin upon skin
Once again in some perfumed swirl
Contained in believing a speck of faith
Preserved as a fly in amber.
That fly who found rest
In warm liquid ooze
But was never to escape.
Yes, grateful to escape to
This fitful rest though, yes,
It is, indeed, blessed.
My mind scatters,
Struggles to find a train of thought
To ride in peace from one station
To the next, make a trip to the elegance
Of a dining car, white glove service
And all else– in contrast—
To this vast emptiness—
With which to wrestle like Jacob,
But my soul has long been crippled.
All the trains left the station,
Ran circles around my heart,
Chugging on into the tunnels
To find there isn’t much
In expectation on the other side
Of those darkened tunnels.
No light, no light,
Just a cold grey
Of a horrid spring.

A Prayer

Kathmandu Post

I walk my dog by the children at play.
I must stop to admire a small girl upon the swings,
Kicking her feet straight out and leaning her body back,
A challenge to the dimensions of air,
A brave heart to dare push her feet against the height of the sky.

Yes, this girl, smiling in the joy of her challenge and dares,
Will carry her brave heart into her youth,
And, I hope for her, she will carry it to her grave,
Dying with the bravest of hearts.
Unlike me, who carries a heart tucked away
Inside this lidded vase kept upon a shelf.

Arrival of Spring

From google images

Spring arrived

Barely seen.

Our eyes turned inward.

Suspicious of air,

We could not take spring

Deeply into our lungs,

Feel the warmth of it on our skin,

Taste the freshness of it on our tongues

For fear.

We counted our first born

And tried prayer.

Had we forgotten the blood of the lamb

Above the lintel?

We sought protection in distance,

longing for human touch.

Hate and fear drained us.

We grew weary hearing–

Wash your hands

Don’t touch your face

Wash your hands

Prayed Mother Mary full of grace

Six to ten feet apart we must stand

We feared to touch

Our mothers

Our fathers

Our sisters

Our brothers

Our sons

Our daughters

And longed–

All the more–

For touch.

Yes, this will make us aware—

Appreciate what now

We could not do.

Yes, we would improve,

We would appreciate all.

Technology would see us through.

Somewhere in our collective soul

We had doubts, questions–

We had to know–

Hadn’t there been signs?

HIV, Ebola, Bird flu, Swine flu,

Zika, West Nile too,

All killers, all unseen—

Hurricanes, droughts,

Famines, earthquakes—

Natural disasters ripping

The world to shreds.

Had we done this to ourselves?

We hadn’t been the good stewards

We were charged to be.

Drowning seas with plastic, killing bees,

Melting ice caps, making greenhouse gases–

Killing the mother God gave us.

We hadn’t loved each other as we were loved,

As we were instructed to do. 

Then our arrogance, a weed within our souls grew.

We killed, pillaged, maimed, raped, started wars–

For the one skin that made us master,

For the name of God, the only one to worship,

For riches, since the strong should prey upon the weak,

For gender, after all women were things to use,

For sexuality, holy books said there’s but one way to love,

For everything was ours to take.

We’d killed each other

For these grotesquely grandiose ideas,

While calling ourselves Godly,

Saying our actions were sanctioned

By our God, our religion.

Only we knew the natural order of things.

In pride, we claimed

Where we walked—

Holy Ground.

Then guilt filled our lungs,

We finally questioned—

Was this it–

The fourth seal broken?

Had the pale rider been loosed

Upon the land?

While wanting to believe

It was all simply science.

Drying Time

Turn toward the hours passed.
Size them and arrange.
Let soak in dyes of prism colors
As the minutes pass away and then
Lift them, dripping dye,
To hang in the warming sun
Over tight strung wire.
Watch the colors drip, splashing on the floor.
Wet splotches collecting in puddles
Of liquid silk to be mopped away
As the hours drip colored dye
In the drying of time.

Ash and Blood

image from Moblog by orbits

Ash soft upon the brow.

Atonement drifts

On frankincense smoke.

No one ever seeks

To wear the stigmata

Upon hands and feet.

There be no martyrs here.

Confessions worn down

By touching whispers

Of brokenness.

A shattered seeking

Of what heals in ash and blood,

Whispering of saints and sinners.

Wingless prayers spoken for things lost

In a darkness of light.

The wish of a murdered truth

Contained in dusty grey skies

Of wanting and desire

 Sought over again–

To now seek and send a trembling

Hand to reach with no strength to grasp–

For a soul too wearied

From the grinding away

Of trying.

Wild and Tame

My own image from Provincetown, MA 2015

Originally written in July of 2015.  Revised 2020.

My friend, the squirrel, sits at my feet.

I wonder perhaps should I be sitting at his.

He is tame

Unlike me.

I have peanuts for him.

He knows.

He is willing to wait

And teach me

All the lessons he knows

Of a heart

That is wild

Yet tame.

I marvel at all

That is contained

Within his tiny heart.

The joys of peanuts and sunflower seeds,

Being unafraid in the face of strangers,

And making friends so easily,

Of finding a home among things lush and green,

Knowing no fear to leap

Into things unknown.

Will he instruct me

In the ways to live once again

And move on?

Tell me to remove these rings

Linked to a grief buried beneath grey granite?

Can he share with me the lesson

Of what to do with all things circular,

New and old grief– link upon link of chain?

Teach me the ways of letting go?

The ways of living without fears

To staunch the bleeding of wounds

Both new and so very old?

Is this the meaning

Of being wild and tamed?

Tears of Fire

https://deadwood-deacon.obsidianportal.com/characters/senior-gabriel

Originally posted in August of 2017.  However, after driving from Dallas to Houston to take care of some business with having a home built and experiencing nearly deserted roads because of the lock downs and quarantines, I thought I’d touch it up a bit and post it again.  

The seven descend.

Each with wings spread

Enough to fill a house.

Shalom not upon their tongues.

Throughout the compass points

They search to find

All the gnawed bones,

The muscles and sinew,

The heart and entrails

Torn with teeth of hate.

And once the seven

Found all the tiny bits,

With flaming swords

Used as needles,

They did try to stitch

All humanity’s bloody bits

Into one thing well knit.

Neither their swords,

Nor spirit of their breath

Did have the power to seal

The meat and sinew to bone.

And then they knew

Those who showed no mercy

Would be given none.

Their heads hung

Inshallah upon their lips

As they ascend.

Their flaming eyes

Weeping tears of fire

As they saw the pale rider

Striding across the land.

The seven knew humanity’s

Avarice and hate

Had broken the fourth seal.

Maa shaa’Allah a whisper of smoke

Within their throats.

Their flaming eyes

Still weeping tears of fire.

Scars of Flame

My scars flames–
The sides of my back,
pock marked brown
drying dark
if not daily oiled in
the red, orange, white
of flames,
trailing once welted scars,
faded, now barely.
if even seen–
Feathered flames
enabling flight,
if I should like,
or if I so prefer,
burning back past paths
behind so I may fly
to places I wish,
keeping promises
to my soul.
My scars flame–
Only I see
and only I know
the power contained
in my flaming scars.

Wired

Image from Wisegeek

In this day and age
We ought to be able to be wired
Wired for anything, everything–
For hope—
–dreams
–love
–desire
Wired for it all and more
Wired for an add on room
In the heart when we’ve run out–
For expansion of sound inside
When we’ve come to love the buzz of silence.
For blood that doesn’t run dry,
Doesn’t clot to clog the works up.
Wired so we always have just one more try
Inside souls always filled
With the romantic dreams of youth.
Wired so there are stairs always to climb.
Wired so no wounds ever cut so deep
Blood runs out, runs dry.
Wired so we can learn
Yet pain be erased.
Wired, just wired,
Plugged in with a soul of shiny copper wire.