To Be In This Masquerade

Until forever comes
I am waiting
I long for her
Endlessly
My thirst unsaited
I long to kiss her
To hold her
To be with her
In the tall grass
To be in her presence
To be awash in her scent
To revel in her being
I long to be drenched
In her kisses
That pour from her soul
She is exquisite
Perfectly made
Who am I to ask
To be with her
Who am I to be a party
To such a grand masquerade
Where our flesh is mask to our soul
I am no one, no one at all
Just a man who burns
And knows to answer the call
Deep inside my being
For when I see her
I am made whole

CLICK THIS IMAGE, PLEASE

Click to enlarge... Artist Fred Fields and I collaborated upon a work, called Liquid. His image, my words...

Ghosts of Teutoburg Forest

3 Months after the disaster
They still walked
Scouting the wilds
Of Germania
Snows still fly
Over the frozen earth
Where was youth spent
Lives were bent
By the collision
Of Roman arms
And Barbarian guile

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Nikater

So many lost
Buried under leaves
Autumn then winter
The fallen
Kept in abject silence
For none tread the ground
Animal or human
Where the disaster occurred
In the horror of the battle
Both sides were found
By fates falling
Falling
Like snow
And bodies
Frozen in time
Their corpses
Unmoving
Except in memory

Bare

You left me like a tree
Stripped bare in Autumn
Nude to the world
With just my body
To face the eyes
Of all who look
Or stare
With your lies
No disguise
Of your hate for me
You say you loved me
But you could never have
To have done such a thing
You drown me in such sorrow
Because my heart towards you
Was full
Of things like hope, faith and mercy
Filled with love and dreams of
Tomorrow
But now
There is nothing
No hope inside
Farewell to my dreams
I’ll sleep until I desire
To finally wake
And that isn’t happening
Until the steps I cannot
I have the strength to take

I Am Surrounded

Surrounded in the fields
By the grains ready for harvest
Stunned by the beauty
The gifts from earth to yield
Your love we attest
You feed us
Clean us
Give us air to breathe
And on this earth we see
A treasure from above
Seed to eat
To save and plant beyond
We are one my lord
In need
In need of who you are
We are one, oh God
Your word
Gives this world life
And we plead
For your mercy
And we pray
For your saving grace
You are lord of all

My Love, I am Dying

I didn’t expect to die
Bleeding on some unnamed hill
For a country fighting
Against Franco
And all the fascists
While my heart
Was so grievously taken
By you
I should never have
Allowed it to start
This love inside
You couldn’t be mine
Couldn’t allow yourself to love
Me
Daughter of Madrid elite
Trapped in such a war
Su familia
Suma importancia
I was just an American
Fighting for something
That I didn’t really understand
And I allowed myself
To fall
In a foreign land
Unloved
Unsorrowed
So sad
To not be with you

LOST CONTINENT

Beneath the waves
Of oblivion
Lay Atlantis
Surrendered
To the daze
Of Babylon
In its sundry glories
Submerged beneath
Earthly clay
And mud
And tons of ocean
Waters clear blue


Covering the vast ruins
Of a continent
Lost to time
And tides
So deadly
So doomed
Darkened memories
Of a land



Where a people
Consumed by comforts
Finest silks
Perfumes
Unchecked lust
Desirous of leisure
Ignored warnings
As to their nature
As children of abundance



Meanwhile the beasts
Of the earth
Fled
Leaving the city state
So high and of great import
To drown
And its people bled
Into the blue
And disappearing for all existence

Woven

Holy presence
Celebration
Life begun
Blessed creation
By the creator’s hand
We are woven
With such fascination
From love so holy
Let every child be held
With hands that will never fail
Let every spirit bless
Every parent
So that love prevails

Purpose

It is not written for the religious
They’d twist it
It is not found upon a rock
Nor visualized with a hieroglyph
The eternal does not desire
The tears of a sinner
Righteous tears
The regrets of a cheater
The sorrow over stain
The grieving over years
Lost to time

The eternal wishes
For humanity
To live
Without pain
Within each moment
In love
Without fear
For we were made
To fulfill our mission
To be joyful




Made of flesh
Born of flesh
Poured into the clay
Spirit
Every breath is a masterpiece
Of time and design
Every moment is a gift
If only we might see it
This is our world
Our only one

We seek perfection
But cannot be it
Only the eternal
Only the cosmic path
Is perfect
And we are fortunate
To be offered
To dance

A letter home

Early December, 1863
Union Army of Tennessee
Chattanooga, Tennessee

Johnny Reb doesn’t need the slaves
To do his work every day
Its an institution
That ain’t worth saving
Old Abe is determined
To save the Union
Johnny Reb, is fool to think
We will let them break away
From the nation
Our armies will collide
It is inevitable one will fail
I pray its them,
I pray that every day
My grandpa told me
About the time he rode
Against the Batallón de San Patricio
In the Mexico war
He said traitor Irishmen
Had left our side for the other
They fought against us
And when they were caught
They hung them up
That ain’t possible here
Too many against us
And not enough nooses
Not enough knots
Not enough gallows
There are too many
In rebel gray and butternut
To hang them all
When we see our brothers
Wearing blue
Laying in the fields
In the craters
And can’t be saved
Our resolve is hardened
We aim to make it right
The Union will be made safe
We fight for our homes
We fight for our country
We fight for Old Abe
And we pray
That God is on our side

City of Steel 1943

The city of steel
Stalin's own city
Attacked for the value
Of its name
Such a crossroad
Between hope
And none
Such a juncture
So few could see it



Sent to strangle the structure
Named for the leader
Hitler's men
Some in Black, others in Gray
Moved in mass numbers
Ready to destroy
Ready to consume
Ready to slay



Untold cataclysm
One army told to take and hold
The other told to take not one step back
Steel versus Iron
Blood on the Cross
Hammer and Star
Collide, attack



More than a million dead
Doesn't matter what uniform worn
In death, frozen and covered in snow
Bodies are bodies
The flesh is broken
Corrupted by lead
Bombs and fire
Declarations of strength
Don't limit
The length
Both sides resort towards
And nobody wins
Despite victory declared
Nobody lives
No one in the ghost town
Spared



Tragedy of Steel versus Iron
The frozen land unforgiving
So many dead
And the dead do not envy
The living
For the living
Returned in so few numbers
Starving and dying
For serving
The crooked Cross of Iron

Howl to the Furthest Horizon

Howl into the winter wind
The sound carries
And the frozen world
Echoes the wail
Your pack is gone
Chased into the distance
To the furthest horizon
Where the winter sun
Doesn’t rise
And you long
For the others
In your tribe
But fates are not kind
And the path is
So very far to go
And the world
Around you
Swirls
With the wind
Your voice echoes
Bouncing upon the snow
Covered hills
Alone
For you are
Without your kind
Alone in winter
Where is your tribe
They cannot hear you
Their path blanketed
By the snow
Your howls
Are unheard
And the sorrow sounds
All your own

The Composite

Composite form
Envelope burst
No record of removal
Death took their life
But the spirit's original
This is not a copy
The final repast a feast
The spirit is vacant
But instead of decay
Flesh birthed curse
Undying beast
Unmoved by death
Which is worse
Unliving life
Or never taking breath
Lightning lit spark
Moving dead limbs
He is child of Prometheus
Who made his quest for fire
And Godhood
Stolen and given
To man
Titan lost his mantle
Chained to the cliff wall
Beasts feeding
Upon his flesh
Horrible pain
Forever
His punishment
Seemingly unjust
But are humans able
To wield such power
Unknown and now
The composite form
Living without breath
Dead now sleeping
Not needing their viscera
Nor limbs, nor sight
Dreaming in the gray
Another has stolen
All the form
But not the spirit
A kind of Golem
But not filled with a spirit
Rather filled with energy
Stolen fire from Gods
Child of Prometheus
Now abandoned to living
Cannot find a legacy
For the flesh is dead
And there is no spirit
Cursed to walk the earth
Without ability to die
The fire stolen
Burns inside

“God help thee, old man, thy thoughts have created
a creature in thee; and he whose intense thinking
thus makes him a Prometheus; a vulture feeds
upon that heart for ever; that vulture the very creature
he creates.”

Herman Melville

12/7/1941

Two nations, neighbors
Oft times friends
Adversarial
Soon to be enemies
Racist tidings
The message was sent

EAST
WIND
RAIN



Weapons aimed
Men trained
Armies moving
Navies cruising

TIGER
TIGER
TIGER



A nation sleeping
Dreaming of prosperity
Another creeping
To the edge of launch

TORA
TORA
TORA



Zeroes, Kates and Vals
Crashing down
Upon a sleeping fleet
Some men never waking
From the now
Eternal dream

Sounds of 50 caliber MGs
Flak being sent up
Without relief
December 7th, 1941
Air Raid Pearl Harbor This Is No Drill
All Hands, Battle Stations
All Hands Battle Stations




2459

THE MARATHON RUN

“In peace sons bury fathers, but in war fathers bury sons.”
Herodotus

490 BC
Running from Marathon plain
Pheidippides ran to Athens
25 miles To tell them
We have won
But before this
He ran 150 miles
To tell the Spartans
That a battle was waged
Between King Darius
And his Persian empire
And the Athenians
Who raged against the invader
For brother Greeks
And they were roused but
Came too slowly to help
The Athenians and Plataeans
Sought battle where
Darius had landed
And like a tiger fighting an elephant
The numbers did not favor
The defenders
But Greeks cherished their freedom
More than others
Cherish even their very lives
So Athenians
And their Hoplite valor,
Despite being swarmed
By greater numbers
Pushed back against the tide
Bled the Persians white
And then, by superior tactics
Pushed the Persians
To the shores
And cast them into the sea
For brother Greeks they fought
And for the future
Of this world
And democracy

Dreaming Dragon

Dragon sleeps soundly
Dreams of burning the town with
Fire and angry breath

WOLF IN SNOW

Wolf in winter stands
Snow piled high, she stares away
Distant horizon

SPARROWS

Sparrows in the tree
Looking over a small pond
Their wings make them free

I Lift Her Up

(I am asked often how I can write such deeply felt love poems, and be married. I think all I can say in response is, my wife Beth is my partner, and first loved me in this life. )



I lift her up
Both of my arms raised
She balances upon them
And deserves praise
For her isolation there
Is hard
And is so delicately placed
Upon the horizon between
Light and dark
Our dance is one
Where the end is not the point
But rather the place we arrive at
To let us know
The journey has changed
To begin anew
Together again
And I remain
At her side
I hold her up
So she will not be undone
By the damages of fate
And the pains that come
From life
Together or apart
She dwells in my heart
I lift her up
God hear my prayer