Just a shiny little apple, still growing up
But that shine you see in the pictures
Isn’t really there
I just reflect it off back to you
And maybe it’s what I was
But I’m far from you now
I’m far from the tree.

Maybe we are the same
Could you live without your stereo?
Did you live for Pinwheels
and holding someone’s hand?
Did you sing?
Were you angry?
Was it me?
But now I’m far from you
Now I’m far from the tree.

Mind
is used up or consumed
ere the
Body
is buried or exhumed
and the
Soul
is invisible
as much as are
I and you...
Period.

The Clock Master. Set 1.

Don’t wind me up anymore he raged
at the key of sleep, I’ll stop your heart,
take your hands off without so much
as a peep.
The key ignored his screaming
round face, continuing to turn even tighter
at a more pertest pace.

ONE SNOWFLAKE

And here we freeze
one snowflake now descending
like spring blossom disguised as water
floating
on currents of air

down light
the white of winter's cast off gown
make pale the distant hills and town
in shrouds of thin soft greys

the wash of water colours
on the page of days
that should be filled with rays of sun
the flowers begun to burst in celebration
shut now every one

A thursday silent as a sunday
ascension day
they say
with wistful fitful quiet

With each heart beat
I see visions…
Faces…
Of kinsmen from next door
Burning in domestic flames
Screaming out in mortal pain!

With each drum beat
I see…
The Bloodshot eyes of young people like me
Balancing guns
In their premature hands

I watch in horror
As they spray bullets into the thoraxes of others

Familiar tunes play in my head
Of songs continually sang
By my mothers…

I hear them whisper to themselves;
“Was it better for our babies to be born alive?
…Or…”

We have heard the rattle and rhythmic clings
Of metals, and woods and plastics
Breath out music, melodic inspirations
We have even heard the dulcet humours
Tunes of our hearts beat rhythmically
And our troubles rest their tides

But the rhythmic clings of terror
Sound rattles of the riffles
And the millipede march of tanks
In and around our neighbourhoods
We only hear music of cries, stench
Of fear and awful aroma of death

Who sends me gifts of lilacs,
their mute scent clamoring
with my city, its carbon monoxide
mouthing words I can not hear?

The forest is unremembered here,
a sad dullness spikes the spring air.
Vacant fields of yellow emerge.

Come, pour the wine. Inhale the
elegant chandelier of air. Loosen
your lionheart before we forget
why we smile sometimes.

There is no reason for beauty.

SAY, “CHEESE”

“I’ll see you when I see you”
I said.
By that time
I will probably be dead.

How nonchalant and cool
of me.

I wish you well”
“Go to hell”
Is what I meant
But A thorough thoroughbred
am I.
And so I hung up the phone
faked a voiced indifference
And began to die
again

Say, “cheese and smile”

A careful grid of purest white
laid out upon a field of green
white rows trailing out of sight
all the lines are crisp and clean

Above, the clouds pass as they do
meadow larks sing out their song
before they flush toward skies of blue
a mild commotion that seems wrong

For on this consecrated ground
brave men who have earned their rest
lie undisturbed by any sound
men who died doing their best

INDIAN WAY
Ann 4th April 2012.

Trees diagonally lit, a ladder up
The Indian Way, leading to the stone,
an altar for the squirrel's meal
spread out with pine cone bracts,
the wind whispers vespers in the breeze

a leaf from autumns dress floats down,
delivers silent prayer, the roots play music
with their sinewy fingers clasping
velvet cushions, moss,
offering their ever changing shades