Who are you?
What is your sound/vision?
What guides your call?
Deep gulps of morning coffee
Flickering sounds
An empty wall
With little splash marks
Years of service gone by.
This pen fades
The more I write,
Like fallen leaves
Into enrichened soil
Rhythms have lost my voice
Telling me of better days.
My anger soaks me;
Leaflets floating to ground
With script precisely writ.
Daggars fly;
Pen dries and is again dipped
To lay out my pulsing veins
That have taken hold
Each cumbersome breath,
Each suffocating exhale,
And filled my hand with poison.
I dare not touch again.
Yet yearn I do so much
For even a deadly touch
So soaked in yearning’s pulse
That I feel
Faint throbbing at my neck
To gasp at last
A breath so soft
Anger’s taken leave
My life.
Each one
My ancestors words
Trying
Dying in the middle
Of my consternation
Accessing only
My little breaths
Taken
From unwritten history pages;
A pen
So delicate
Little fragments
Are lost
As each letter forms.
My worth grows
And I shall remain patient
Foreclose the bank
And sail the wind
For I have a gust
That is like the pen
Silent as itself
Torrent with all rain.
Would you follow me
Into depths of wonder;
A lion slowly looking back
Before entering its den.
And like the fanning feathers
Of an egret,
Would you care to my aging aims,
Darkened by time’s toil
Against that which is bad?
For my gravity is open,
My heart beats pure
In a bloom for your entering,
And I am trying
To hold my pen and my hammer
As I build for tomorrow.
I found you down a darkened road
Construction and rainy smells
Inside an old historic building
In to what felt like a historic store.
The walls were lined
With countless pens
And items supporting pens,
All illuminated so eloquently
Showcasing the finest specimens
Any penman could want.
In here I walked back and forth,
And fellow patrons wandered deep in thought,
Where finally in the deepest corner
I found you resting on a stand
Not a fingerprint laid your barrel.
And now so many years have passed
Yet not once have you let me down
Though the world we’ve traveled by foot
No wear shows upon your barrel,
Your nib a perfect flow.
And your mark has been inscribed
On countless pads sent afar
With, what I believe, quite an exquisite touch
Unique to me, my penman mark
You so critically help me lay.
I look and hold you every day,
Proud to know you by feel and weight
To have you by my side,
And to know that when I need you most
You’ll be right where I lay you down
Ready with your perfect balance
Upon paper we do play.
In envelopes of my collection box
My heartache rests beside my lover’s hair
Rusted pins and unused pens
Worn well and never used.
Could opening be the end?
I drove a long night
Through windy roads
Of Scotland’s y’Or
Great Bras d’Or,
And long wild grass on feral land:
Swan song I’ll sing again.
Head can see, alighted way
Matchsticks lite Borrower’s torch;
Down a cold tunnel with dripping water.
Lover’s name in a letter she carried.
I heard you over every drone
That came into my eyes
Little did I know I could
Whisper every note to you
Though I couldn’t remember
What had brought me here
I slumped into your presence then
With my ginger and soft tipped pen
But you decided to remake
The last scene of every book
That had two lovers lost at sea
Who found each other near the end
But how could we remember
What had stolen each of them?
How could we begin?
I left my secrets at the door
And then I heard your secret eyes
Tell me everything again
Tell me all I had to hear
For I would wonder nevermore
As you were here as I was here
Like sunflowers in summer air
Like dandelions woven in your hair
Like cheap sunglasses you always wear
In what I see inside your eyes.
Counting out dollars of an unmarked womans purse
She told me I had nice hair, I said she was rather curt
That is when she told me about her dear old fathers luck
That had run its course as a scholar written from a pen of steel
I was young, she was pretty, we had fun and then we both remained
Dear friends just all the same.
When the water boiled I poured the tea for three
She hadn’t come alone but we seemed to be private
I wrinkled up my nose to an unexpected story
That had me rather wondering when I would ever read his book
So we took just a minute to choose what herbs would do
And we sipped, then we stirred, and sighed until we finished
All the deeds left to do in a scholarly mans todo.
I don’t know how to say I love you
Without loving you entirely, Lisa
I pace back and forth in my room
Questioning myself like a mathematician
Struggling out the answer to
A deepened understanding.
Some days it’s ok, I can love you
Without desiring the distance we’ve never had,
The whisper in your ear,
The smile that finds your lips
Too close to mine for latent desire
Stirring within the very breath I take.
So I love you with trembling fingers
Tentatively resisting your jungleness,
I love you though I’m calculating
With a pen I’m expertly etching
A solution to you entirely open
On a boat in the great wide ocean.