Rustling Autumn Leaves

◊

Woods     Forest     Deep

Moving fast quiet

Instinct to survive

Running through understory

Hidden from above

Alone fighting selection

Must be superior

Combat the environment

Self and nature

Claw     Bite     Flee

Day to day

Granted ever nothing

Nothing ever given

Get through today

Live for tomorrow

Eat     Seek     Breed

Not just inches

Take only yards

Never question why

Accept only how

◊

Advertisement

Writing

◊

A passion fueled by prey

An attempt at survival

Lurking midnight mists

Congeal into the shaggy form

Of a hungry mind

This hunting twilight beast

At first an unnerving presence

Then

A weighted force

Rending flesh

Bleeding ink

◊

Price of Pride

◊

Calling my bluff

That moment of fear

I use an adding machine

To tally the pain

I

Put on the robe

& Light the candle

Stand on the alter

& Spread the shroud

Insert the dagger

& Burn the Heart

My heart, my alter, me

Always

Always

◊

Cold Stone

◊

Walls need not close in

When they block all doors

Defending a fortress

Or haunting a tomb

Lightless and alone

◊

Staircase of Gauntlets

◊

Set the expression

Raise the lance

Cross the line of burning fuses

Strife

The cost of Will

Dominated by none

◊

Depression

Pouring

Pouring rain

Rain on the streets

The streets of my mind

My mind drained of its Soul

Its Soul that never sleeps

Never sleeps in the dark

The dark that shrouds the life

The life that stalks wisdom

Stalks wisdom

Like Prey

Praying I might feed the hunger

The hunger of fear

Fear that pours on me

Pours on me like rain

Standing on a Block

Standing
Standing still
Still in the forest
In the forest looking down
Down at my feet
At my feet feathers
Feathers from a hawk
Primaries, tail, many
Many feathers beside a Beech tree
A Beech tree with a hole
A hole filled with the remains
Remains of a Red-Shouldered Hawk
Kneeling
Kneeling near a different tree
A different tree with another hole
A hole in the base
The base filled with leaves
Leaves covered in blood
Blood dripping
Dripping from higher inside the tree
The Owls tree

Coal Burning Fire

The 200 watt bulb illuminates
A rusting Pot Belly Stove
Snow turns to steam
Rising from the furnace
As a damp December snow
Attempts to mask it’s presence
Low ceiling clouds lie obscured
By the nights indifference
Christmas trees placed around the stove
Form a shelter against the wind
Huddling within the alcove a man
Stealing the warmth for himself
Feeding the diminishing flame
He takes a stone from the pile
Woolen fingers open the grate
Tossing a lump of coal
Into the low banked
Crimson fire
He leaves the grate open
To watch the stone ignite
Thin wisps of black flame
creep along the edges
Of burning stones
That once covered the world
As continental swamps
Teeming with Life
In the silent quintessence
Of the snowy eve
A man is pulled
Into embers
Older than his race

Life on the Crease

-The vulture masthead

On the utility pole

Along the road

Waiting for lunch

To try and cross

-So bold in a world

That consists of

Road signs that read

 

BEER

AMMO

 

Shall we scare it away

Or run away ourselves

Leaves

Alone atop my Tree

The Moonlight and I

The arms that hold me

Monolith to the Sky

-Worship-

My color stripped

All friends gone

My swan song

Fall

-Farewell-

Heart Wood

Alone on the Path

Isolated under the expanse of the forest

Freed from the Past

Left only with Today

Trudging through the trees

The trees that count the years in rings

That today’s leaves breath life into

-Living AS Time-

Callus to anything under a decade

Yet, capturing each moment in the fiber of its being

Deep in the heartwood lies the seedling still

Avatar of youth now long dead

Birth its only contribution

To that which now stands

Where neither storm nor hand has touched

Embracing its youth

With mature resolve

To never release its sound wood

Which gives to the tree strength

 

Yet I scurry by

-Consuming Time-

Walking where only today’s Sun shines

Releasing the Past as a matter of survival

Living the Future a day at a time

Absorbing from the Now what I can

Expelling the rest into the Past

Write Now

Ode to a moment

Put to the pen.

History forged

In the present.

More than a memory.

It’s a tale of perspective.

Evidence of emotion

Or thought.

The conclusion of

A moment.

Wide Rimmed, Brown, Leather Hat

Edge of a field

Just off the wood line

November leaves lie beneath

A grey skies wet snowy blanket

Bound in layers of cotton, snug

Comfortably warm

With the drone of sleet

Colliding with the few leaves

Still perched amid their trees

SOLITUDE

Brisk the breeze that

Reddens and chaps my face

Reminds me that I am alive

Sings to me of subtle beauty

And touches me with a natural smile

Grand is the power of my respect

For as the lovely Queen of nature dances

I stand captivated in joy.

The Hawk

Dance you

On the wind you ride

Silhouette against the sky

One missing tail feather

Still the master

Power of the thermal

Unfolding beneath your wings

Born to fly

Hunting to survive

Moment to moment

Innate prowling

No alternative

Yet

Unmarked time

Away from the nest

Away from instinct

Nobody is looking

Dance you

On the wind you live

In the Rough

Relatives by design

Sharing life giving ground

Acknowledging the differences

In a continuum up support

Weeding the foundation of unfamiliarity

Growing old together

Becoming one

Frost on the Rye

Φ

When the clouds turn to stone

and the harvest dies

the Savage Season begins.

Wind no longer holds wing

and the lightning flies South

it is the season of elimination.

Dearest mother Earth

hides her secret of life

and the mind rages against the soul.

It is the season of the cold Sun.

It is the Savage Season.

Φ