Friday, June 20, 2014

poems of summers past

 
Welcome to Summer
 
 
Myth-laced lunar light,
infuse long summer days
with magic and romance
a’glee in joyous play.
Wild fantasy takes flight
above earth’s rule-bound maze.
Passionate heat-stirred night awaits.
 
            Waves of windblown flowers blooming
 
            Scent enlivens sense to peak
 
            Warm, warm breeze and rivers flowing
 
            Endless miles running free
 
            Let summer magick build up steam,
 
            simmer into thrills supreme
   
        ‘Tis season raised to rejuvenate
 
        So play on ...
 
 
 
 
Be(gin)ing
 
 
Soft Summer night.
Far drift of stars; open car-barren road.
Kicking up bits of stone and dust.
Remarking:
I could be anyone.
I could start here.
 
What is beginning?
Aware of the first rays,
conscious aloneness.
Summer is harsh on
fragile skin, newly opened eyes.
 
They catch on eager forays,
studies in mimicry;
simple truth hidden in proverbs,
squalid temporal cages, punishing
rewards that bind and itch.
Beginnings are not the point.
They are portals, not the
mystic river,
the sand so burning insubstantial,
the forest enchanted in
eider and lace.
Beginnings never warn of battle
flame or drunken dares.
They only promise vague
adventure, valiant possibilities.
 
A brief eternity before dawn,
supplicating the night sky for
solace, this soft moment before, 
an unmarked road
to ride along home.
 
 
 
 
peaceful moment
 
 
Like a warm evening on the beach, all woozy from sunshine.
Tingle of sea breeze, that ocean scent of the wild.
As the sun recedes, cooling, refreshing, yet still a lazy summer eve.
Oh that luscious feeling, that overflow of quiet liberty.
In and out of drowsy reverie, so gently washing through pools, reservoirs
of elation.
Like languid balmy breath caressing.
 
We give what we can; we take what we need.
Marching, in orderly fashion.
Or beatifically skipping to a sacred beat.
The horizon shifts through daily duties, nightly prayers.
We take what we can. We give.
Without edict, without rational equation,
we give each outward breath, and take in what is given.
 
Like happy inspiration, song springs from memory to lip,
moves the fortunate mind into momentary ecstasy of music.
Moments meant to linger, to haunt as loving ghostly guardian.
Wrapped in ethereal glow of grace's reward.
Summoning iridescent spirits to play joyfully,
ubiquitous harmonies.
Like the words we tell ourselves to bring us peace.
 
 
 
 
Joy to the Season
 
 
The Moon is adrift in the wind above
our sheltering craft in the sea
and all the world of Summer is ours
to ride the fire, toast to the stars
sway with warm desire, open our hearts
create a Summer of Love
 
Celebration waves the streets, with drums,
lucid bells, a call to play
Carnival cheer brings heat to flame
Chants blend to sing with drinks and games
Grand gestures expand, to applaud such a day
fueled by smiling Sun
 
 
 
 
Midsummer
 
 
Of course you come to listen.
Intoned to woo your fascination,
whispered primal code from lucid crystal climes.
Warmly floating on cool jazz,
mellow wine,
intimate, intoxicating garden party
'midst apparitions of simpler time.
Back from the rabbit hole.
Back from New York City, Boston,
Detroit, LA ...
from yet another backstabbing
grind everyday.
Rewind, recall.
Fog dense morning walk
along a rocky roadside,
unruly hair, distant eyes.
Tumble
into
song singing hallelujahs,
place of play, haunted
by pretty memories
tinged gold in sunshine.
Midsummer twilight,
fairytales brought back from sleep.
Sprinting across that abyss,
goblin mouths, hungry ghosts.
No longer keeper of my brethren's sorrows,
I don mischievous costume,
stomp out power, glory,
love gentle as a summer evening's rain.
Blossoming countryside,
dandelions and clover,
bounty of Earth blooms with elfin escapades.
Listless children whine.
"Why does no one let us rise?"
A world of sullen children
overdue for naps and coddling,
blueberry jam at teatime.
Flourishing prophets,
delectable, potent, wise
in the ways of demons,
oracles, gypsy Queens,
ascend into sacred muse-ways.
Every day a new day,
standing ground against a grinding
down to profit’s dust.
It can't be a secret
if nobody's listening.
But, listen:
places in your mind
will answer.
 
Each bounding leap more distant.
Inviting opulence, opening vistas
vastly
flowering.
 
 
 
 
Three Penny Opera and Grateful Dead:
What They Mean to Me
 
 
I was listening,
under a shadetree on a summer evening,
to the morals of our time as displayed
in popular music,
and thinking of the many tiny travesties
of personal moments all around me.
The seatide ebbing/flowing of the music
more than hypnotized
as I watched people flowing
through an inner newsreel
of pride and misery.
People marching in various uniforms
to a beat of pride and progress in the marketplace
and war zones;
people marching or being trampled or
sniping from the rooftops
all in rhythm.
And a friend said to me
on a starlit evening,
"It's so hard to know anymore what to do."
 
 
 
 
A Dog Carrying a Frisbee Is a Very Nice Thing
 
 
Sunny Sunday, summertime seaside breezes
Bicyclists, joggers, old men asleep on benches
Rollerskaters, sunbathers, and sailboaters
A dog carrying a frisbee is a very nice thing
As are the shade trees and greenery
and rippling blue river
under a blue and white sky
overlooking Cambridge, MA.
I tell you this to let you know
There sometimes is a perfect day.
 
 
 
 
The Longest Day
 
 
Earth of sea and land and air
ignited into opportunistic luminance
by her mother star.
Energy for you and me to
burst into bloom
flit fly in
busy devious thievery
cacophonous ramble.
 
Surging through veils,
storms breathe ice, sand,
the fire of prophecy,
the flood of repentance.
Glacial migration
bequeaths rage, rampage,
rapacious gratuities
boiling beneath.
It's not winter here, nuclear quiet;
all's right for the longest of nights.
Not yet.
The eternal balance:
rocks, meteors, dark
inconsistencies with
metaphors of the righteous,
pilgrims past the age of bowing to scriptures.
Tomorrow, the Sun will rise.
The Earth will revolve.
Life will adjust, compromise.
After the workday, we celebrate
potent evening light.
 
 
 
 
Under Solstice
 
 
Swinging
in phase
with natural rhythms.
Shadow to light
entrained
with greater cycles.
Time through space.
Do ages collide?
Do stars expand
into tragic brilliance?
Do simple little twists
change worlds and consciousness?
Very early in the day,
just beyond the penumbra
of night, as magic
clashes with reason:
That color so enriches
my palette.
 
Air giving way to water.
Arid emptiness anticipates days filled with
joyful abundance,
emotional sailing on vast
turbulent (and/or) calming seas.
The desert is so fragrant
exotic, mystically inviting.
Dusk whirls of wilding sands,
stoic creatures,
surprising discoveries.
The desert in forms, sculpts,
creates crannies of secret
delight throughout my imagination.
A no-man's land where cognition
can hear inspiration
blow through, encompassing
senses.
I will not leave the desert.
I will merge with its becoming,
allow imminent floods
to rise into thirsty pores
rendering sand squishy, unsettling
into ocean floor.
 
Ride with me.
Open raft beneath firmament,
unguided, unplanned, unafraid.
Changing winds have always been my home.
 
Enclosed against starlight.
Sacrosanct images
meander,
keep close their
mystical meaning.
A touch, a brush,
an entanglement.
Awake in the dream,
breathing cool greens,
intense shadings,
pregnant intimacies
bursting into
the magic of life.
 
Trail of effervescent Mercury's abandon.
Charming trickster,
plays upon seasoned winds  -- Quicksilver surf.
Exhale old air’s detritus.
Inhale and whoosh,
under sea-change brew.
Sentimental, far from gentle,
whirlwinds gasp; ambitions,
expected conditions,
wavering memory,
caught up in flying breeze.
Blown out to wailing ocean,
forgotten gills respond --
mer-mind wakes.
 
 
 
 
City Summer
 
 
Let the games begin.
Let the long luxurious summer days begin.
Let us harken back to when
our schooldays' end
would send our thoughts adrift through 
    dazzling fields
    of daisies and daffodils;
    sandlot games & swimming holes and
    endless flights for fantasy's fulfillment.
And let us not forget the nights.
The hot & sticky summer city nights
that send us to the streets in colorful array
    like firefly lights.
Joking & drinking and starting sudden fights
'til the thunder rumbles through and blessed
cooling rain relieves hot-headed strife.
 
As the heat-soaked summer skies once more descend,
let us drift down sleepy sun-drenched streams
till summer ends . . . .
 
*

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