Moon at Midnight – Part V (day 1979)

(part IV)

The waning gibbous that night
Had nothing impeding it’s projection
Into the palm of my hands
I sat for a long time watching
It’s shadows across the meadow
I recognized how colours, now dull
Made for an entirely different landscape
I understood new energies
That floated about in midnight glow.

I feared reaching out, touching tufts of grass
That set aside momentary worries
I feared moving should it startle
What slumbered in the vicinity
I feared making a sound
For it should surely echo for ages
Like smoke signals at daybreak
I feared breathing to vigorously
Should my heartbeat change the hour
To a warmer beat.

I sat cross-legged
With my blanket closely wrapped around me
Slowly hunching over into my sleepy legs
That wanted to sit aright, erect
But my slowing thoughts calmed by thy moon
Let me feel comfort in falling backwards
Into the fur covered ground mat
That awaited my simple slumber
Assurance guided me there
When I reached for my nearby pack
An unreasonable yet simple reassurance.

I awoke with the same comfort I had fallen asleep with
Yet yearned for more time with that powerful moon
Watching the fire curl around its victim
Provided some of this amazement
And as life slowly flooded back into my body
I accepted the passing evening’s mystery
With an abundance of life all around me
Eager for my wandering pathway
To lightly pass through, eager eye open to all
Eager heart open to adventure
The journey was in every moment,
Not to be held for singular moments.

With the familiar motion
I swung my pack comfortably upon my back
With momentary shifting
Aimed to soothe each grumbling bump
Night’s slumber had produced
That, once assembled,
Found me beyond
What I had previously called my home,
Once again upon this road
Through magnificent giants,
Expansive ferns, soft mosses,
Sprouting mushrooms, drooping lichen,
And countless birds singing me hither.

part VI

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Moon at Midnight – Part II (day 1976)

(part I)

I woke to complete silence
Yet my knees screamed louder the murder
When I shifted them from slumber
Half crosslegged I had fallen backwards
Into sleep that left smoke trails
Through my dreams.
My nose was hiding itself from the cold
I looked searchingly at the fire
I could feel wasn’t even hopeful.

My pack was close enough
So I knew where matches were
But kindling rested beside my axe
Yet to be shorn from its whole
So were the tea bags that would slowly ooze life
Back into my cold frame
Easily forgetting the eyes of last night’s terror.

I made it a habit not to look back
When I walked away from yesterday’s camp
You don’t need that to remember what’s already known
Like folded socks in the side of my pack
I was well kempt and had a full bottle of water
And the industrious chipmunk
Was happy to see me go
Understood by the sounds of his chatter
That followed me along a path
I was making with my compass pointing East.

My first few steps always remembered
What yesterday so easily forgot
So I stopped and untied my shoe
To clip my nails that were growing healthy
It’s much nicer to put on warm socks
Then cold and wet socks of the first light of morning
And my pack jingled merrily
As I swung it back on.

Scanning the vastness was hard to comprehend
What had alarmed me so easily
The night before,
What creatures our dark mind magically creates,
And now looking back at me was salal so thick
No ghost could sneak through
And my heart reminded my mind
To believe in thy safety one thousand times again.

Slowly my breath found it’s groove
Steadily flowing with each footstep
My packs new bumps settled itself softly
And the world began to expose itself to me
With every step a new angle
A new tree fallen sideways
A slug neatly stepped over
An unidentified toadstool
A river softly gurgling somewhere in the distance
An obstacle I’d have to traverse.

part III

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Sheets in Pages (day 1747)

I could write your pages onto sheets of my unkempt bed
Slowly cycling the in-seam with the hem,
And rolling each corner up like a cigarette to smoke slowly
Because love here is so thick it’s impassable;
Between eyes of surrender and a heart of
I’m never letting go.
So I blot my pen into deep white sensories
Circumnavigating each prior night’s creases – expertly –
Until my final stroke has been felt and embraced
As if it were written upon thy own lined back.

Anachrome (day 1087)

Anachrome brought me here:
Leveled the forest floor
And dug the deep holes
That left me homeless.

I wrestled with fate.
I angled my history towards
Chemical baths and
Burning blow torches.

Then I left in distance.
With mud huts and ivory
And skinny dipping clear-cuts.
Like a woodpecker on a telephone pole.

There was no death.
No marked spot for execution,
Hanging noose or bullet hole.
Anachrome lived in smoke.

Whistling (day 1065)

Today there is a sign,
A window of an opening
Whistling softly,
Dragging at my conscience.
I acknowledge it.
I sit cross-legged
To experience its frequencies
Reverberate my lifeline.
This lesson is wordless,
Perched upon low hanging ledges
Of spring’s naked birch trees.
I imagine smoke
Wafting its sacred essence.
And my peace and gratitude
Flows mingling with the wind,
Vibrating to wordless words
Whistling through my conscience.

Spells in Rouge (day 1005)

A whisper so hard it broke down my spell
It scared enigma into heaven (or hell)
It washed away dirt with sputtering rains
And bellowed my sorrow into blood diamond eyes

But shivering silently in 2nd hand bespoke
Was a crimson laughter settled in with a smoke
That footsteps sung to all evening long
Fiddlesticks and canyon guns and school yard home runs

Shed not tears into these nostalgic shakes
Be not without faith, my ruby candied cakes
Memories are to guide you forth, a long settled score
Into night’s conquest march with a battling roar (whisper)

Then lifting my eyes to tender so bare
Lightening bolt shine struck with red-velvet boud-air
I shuffled to my flagpole in a partners embrace
And broke spells in a whisper, hardly a trace

Dragging Left Wing | Chapter I (day 922)

I

[and from here I crawled out into hands of memories, settling my mind on the truth machine that worked, grinding and sharing my thoughts with light I didn’t want to see]

I was callused from pains palm, a short smile that curtseyed like a smart little girl auditioning for the lead in this years high school musical. But my fever wasn’t juvenile. My fever had the whiskers of a great old wool-cardigan-wearing bespectacled grey-haired rocking-chair blues man. Stretching in the dark rays of a smoke filled saloon.

[I always wonder what happened in those old saloons as dusty rovers would sit amongst dirty city folk with nothing but sincere silence to fold the spaces between then and now]

Tonight bid me no exception. My hands were cold and the condensation stared at me through grace’s old left shoe; the mark of a vain attempt to pluralize a bygone romantic history with dots dotting and buzzards and cowboys shouting yippy-yi-kai-yai. Yippy-mother-fucking-kai-yai. It echoed through my mind and around the rim and stirred the bricks soaking in the toxic tumbler tonic.

II

Footsteps echoed on my heart’s inner recesses [those dark spaces with lifelines directly connecting my dick to my brain], and I looked up to see what stretched before my eyes towards the skies and held my breath as I began to accept the steps I did not control, nor did I expect to know for I was but a stranger.

[what life that I did live, galloping here and there in search of reason and mystery and a place to eat my dinner with warm socks and a soft hearted woman wearing a checkered apron, and kids filling up the silent spaces that ran around the walls and raw vegetables]

[did I behold the majesty that I had so long sought?]

Flush faced and affectionately asking if she could be the one to dangle my sorrows in front of the dogs chops, to mince that meat so delicately a surgeons needle would hardly Frankenstein this wanton heart of mine. Who was I to let this poor damosel tarry there like a bird on a wire? Hardly a minute the mood I wade in expresses such distaste, so I stood to my full height, smiled my deepest smile [yet did I know the deepest sorrow spoken from mine eyes], and bid the dark haired blood-hound to sit with me a while.

III

Here I was, a confident chap, merely seeking deep within – wallowing if you will – to no particular evil that could readily dance upon my tainted tongue. But such a foe that it could be was easily scared away, for in it’s terror – which it could see – was all that met the mind. But not, just see! Oh lordy me! It was more than my racing heart could ever manage to conjure. With those deep eyes, so wild and high, so eager for the punchline. Where my first glance had hastily missed, my senses soon repaired, it was aroma – so sincere – it took me by surprise; I was just some sullen eyes, awaiting times dear romantic fate.

[what focused on my brain just then was recounted by all men; so vivid was this memory it nearly knocked me back, for I was not some phony fiend, some mocking jack disgrace. I held with me a rabbits foot, a good luck charm to pace my heart and keep it here in check, to keep my mind from going aloof awaiting this as future]

Could you feel me as I felt you, could you smell me as I smelled your soul come wafting to my heart? Did you accept, nay, did you propose this gravity as much as I had willed it so? Did your soul reach out and mingle now with my strings reaching towards your being sitting there eloquently?

[and with this I lost the senses of my reason and logic. I lost my ability to recount my tales, and verbs I sling so well. I lost my thoughts that had carried me to this smoke filled saloon]

[note: to read full epic follow dragging left wing]

Scraping Elegance (day 897)

Wouldn’t it be worth it
To fly amongst wizards
Scraping elegance
From nearby apple trees
Pressing gladly
Into mirrors of deceit

Running callused fingers
Along loosened hairs
Billowing forgiveness
Between eyes of smoke

Escaping lethargy
That grows stronger
In children of love
Screaming without fear
Naked little babies
Blinded by ignorance
Inbred

There – and lost with madness
Like laughter fading
Into darkest night

Wouldn’t it?