Category: Poetry

“Conflicted”
Painting by Bob Brown
From bobbrown.com

glad and sad
tenants in conflict
share one room
one bed in my
studio brain
each awake when
the other is not
they have nothing
in common this
smile and these tears
no words pass
between them
I’m glad for that
otherwise I
would go crazy from
combative conflict
transferred from
their mutual bigotry
foisting their
chauvinist insolence
into my too often
cut apart heart
never healthy
enough to hold
properly fully
one simple emotion
but two such as
these oppositional
sentiments duking
it out oh my God
they would burst
through old stitches
scarred seams
would split open
and I would be left
neither peacefully
glad nor depressingly
sad just a sorrowful
sack cold and heartless

O’ Seeker of secrets
Traveller of the untrodden path
Do not retreat in your footsteps
When you face the cruelty of Love

Love does not announce her presence
She forces you to seek door to door
Until you discover her hiding place
And understand her priceless worth

Love comes in the darkness of the night
Splashing water on those who sleep
This is when she undresses
Long before the rooster crows

Love ties knots inside your stomach
The Lover loses pleasure of food
For pleasures act as dusty veils
Blanketing the beauty of Love

Love carries an axe and hammer
Tearing apart all that you know
Your foundation must be broken
So you may be resurrected anew

Love has many stages
Blocked by obstacles of fire
Your dirt calls for purification
If you wish to climb her ladder

Love pushes you to your limits
That moment you scream no more

*

I’m formless yet

so worried about
doing and looking

forgetting the sweetness
of being alive forsaking

god somewhere on my
own map of events

duties and having to have
being liked and praised

endless strife if I could
just stop it a minute

to get – that craved
drink of fresh water

transparent and true
on the shore of

consciousness
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Photo by Shutterstock Images
At photo-dictionary.com

how does a child view this world
does she see only colors she’s learned
or the whole shocking spectrum
of concatenation
we adults disarranged
with deliberate malice

does she recognize dark shades of war
in our black-and-blue purples
with subtle distinctions
of just war from unjust
of mercy from weakness

can she appreciate bright hues of love
in our radiant yellows
with gradient edges
eros blurred into agapē
storge into philia

how can we train her young eyes
will she learn only colors we see
or the whole lovely spectrum
beyond limitations
imposed by the ignorance
stalking our ill-matured guilt

she deserves more than blindness
to true colors we never perceived
she needs better than our
impaired vision as guide
perhaps we should give her a
palette to mix her own paints

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“Trust”
Painting by Lynn Rushton
From dallasartsrevue.com

vulnerability lies
in dependence
reliance is a risk
such is life for
we social beings
biographies told
in tales of trust
joys often tied to
trust reaffirmed
agonies grown
from its painful
miscarriage

but poor is the
life who in fear
closes down from
relationships
withholds its trust
for in final analysis
that is the one
and the only thing
we own of value
sufficient
to let us invest in
that most sublime
human exchange
of risk for reward

*

I gather a petal
desolate on the
grass dabbled

driven away
by fierce water
outstretching it

minding the folds
between drops
the tired figure

the mind a dance
entertaining
a divested dancer
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