30 Poems in 30 Days (Redux)

12 - 28 A Couple

Ellen had a stilted way of
speaking, like she was doing
her best to mimic some
accent or another but couldn't
quite decide on which one
it was supposed to be, the
result was a fairly
unnatural syntax;

Bobby was quiet, almost
preternaturally so, but it wasn't
that he couldn't or didn't speak
just that he found so much
more enjoyment in the sounds
of others around him,

It had been a blind date he'd owed
to his roommate at the time, but
that was just another way of saying
it was fate or destiny that brought
together a girl who spoke oddly
with a boy who listened to
everything.

Their golden anniversary is next week.

12 - 29 Expedtion

An attempt at a prosaic poem, here. Is it too prosaic?

12 - 30 Stakeout

And, to cap things off, we have Stakeout.

Nov/17 #1

My Stars are Older Than Yours

1.
You fall into space with gravity
snatching you back to start rolling
underneath the earth. Just around
the bent line of time and mass
effects that shape a sphere

You know the math for this event
and I cannot bring it to a conclusion.
My mind is intuitive in knowing
that we are both drawn toward
the centre and can't get to it.

The stars are moving, faster
than imagination allows. A number
exists in some (I call it arcane) form
that explains how they eventually
move outside of our trapped view.

2.
If I could I would ride to the edge
of the star path and wait for that year
to pass on Earth. Turn my back
on our solar system and watch
the galaxy slip by from my vantage
point out here, where the Milky Way
radiation has minimal effect so far
from that centre that I can't get to.
Explain it to me slowly so that I
can understand why you are both
close and infinitely far from me.
if I tried to take the direct route
through Earth's crust can i reach
you before next month?

3.
You see the stars before I do
but does two hours count?

Will a light cease to be in two hours?
Is a star's end so easily understood

while I watch it flicker and extuinguish
all those years and two hours ago?

I hope so, stars should point us
in the direction of their last moments

for a century, but for the two hours I spend
falling off the planet trying to catch you,

will anyone read my words and expect to find
wisdom of more than all I have tried understand?

4.
Stars aren't forever but they are the closest thing
to infinity that I can see. People can see the birth
of stars in nebulae billions of miles and millions
of years ago. How long ago they die! Flaring
from a small dwarf and expanding out so far
that the collapse back onto itself generates
incredible energies, fabulous radiation
and noise even though in space, no one can hear
the death throes of a dying star or feel
the torturous twisting of time and matter
as the core is reduced to a pebble and the last
photons take a brilliant journey to my retinas
two hours later than you have already seen.

Nov/17 #2

Even Planets Are Stars You Know

Tell me what is in the sky
where the heavens touch the sea.
The stars hang suspended over
the black glitter of the ocean
and shine like drops of water,
globular and patient,
hanging from Arachne's web
flung across the darkness.

Tell me what is in the sky,
in an expanse that is a stranger
to aurora glowing, and tracing
finger painted awe against the stars.
You do not see the bear
lumbering across the night
chased by the dog, and hungry
for the solstice that ends the cold.
She hunts for seal and walrus
and stays far from the fires of men.

Tell me what is in the sky
when the moon hangs low
and gibbous over an ocean
painted with the dusk. You see
the glow of stardust barely hinted
to your audience, as day draws back
the curtains to show the masterpiece
painted by Orion, with his trophy
flung across his shoulder
in defiance of all those who
thought the lion had done no harm

Tell me what is in the sky
as Mars glows pink and Venus blue,
but rarely in the same hour;
while the dog star never leaves.
The clouds blow in to leave
their own star drops in layers
on the gruond, and I look up to see
the varied crystals falling in myriad
brilliance to glitter on my lashes,
closed against missing you in the night.

Nov/17 #3

Super Nova Fan Girl

The fuel burns hot and fast
consuming energy until
the core starts cannibalising
neutrons and can't decide
where to put the rest
of the universe. How massive
can that ball become
before fusion collapses
and compression starts
the reaction of a hundred suns?
Implosion has only one end
and until critical mass is reached
continuously drawing on
itself and darkening, an overdose
of atoms already in a new
state, crushing the spark
until the star can suck
no longer and in one mighty
shrug throws off all the clinging
hands and desires of matter
in an explosion that sends star
stuff to the ends of time
the boundaries of space
the edge of what we call life
in our most insignificant way
without ever knowing
that if we hadn't been watching
would the cat be alive today?

Nov/17 #4

What's In A Nebula?

An infinitesimal share of energy,
the heart of matter, or maybe
the heart of the matter rests
on your neutrality. Life depends
on the non-reactive quarks
and the distance in a vacuum
travelled to this side of time
leaving the history of creation written
on the building blocks of matter.

That star generator
of hydrogen and energy
smashing together to bond
protons and neutrons. blessing
the universe with heat and energy
and helium. The fusion at the core
of all we could possibly be wrapped
in the heart of the pillars of creation.

The stars give us matter
and matter gives us energy
and energy, in the perfect
perpetual machinery
of our universe,
consumes and renews
in a cycle never imagined
by Copernicus when
he modelled the solar system,
placing Sol at the centre
of all human understanding.

Dangerous as the core of a star
is the thought that mankind
has been turned loose to learn
all it takes to bring a spark of life
out of the dark void and look
on the face of creation bound
at the heart of an atom.

Always seeking electrons
and always finding that critical
thinking is more than chemistry;
man needs the magic of a star
to continue to be awed
by the blinking existance
of a bottom quark inside an atom.

Nov/17 #5

Midnight

Dark gains quality
until black defines winter
Aurora and stars

Nov/17 #6

A North Star's Descending

You had the distinction of sitting
in the only stationary point
in the universe from humanity's
vantage on Earth. Tell me lovely
Vega how it felt to fall into a spiral?

What does it mean to lose that lofty
right to be the light all eyes
lift high to see? Do you no longer
point the way to sailors on the water
or wanderers in forest and fen?

The navigator's true direction
without a lodestone or needle
slipped away as iron swirled
in currents at the core to pull
away from Vega, toward Polaris.

Nov/17 #7

Starborn Memories

I remember summer nights
in dew wet grass and humming
night song of mosquitoes
slowly hushed as the twilight
ended and the sliver of a moon
ascended to hang more dark
than light against the crystal-
hung curtain of the Milky Way

Did you lie back against the grass
and watch Orion swing his club
against the lion's head? Looking
east against the continuing
night we'd place a bet on
the little scorpion outrunning
the archer's arrow yet again .

I was blessed to learn to read
and love the myths of stars
and Zeus' hand that set
his children high in the indigo
sky. The sisters of the Persieds
and the shower of falling stars
bringing heavenly love against
the upturned faces of children
snug in dew-damp blankets.

Nov/17 #8

A North Star's Ascending

You are part of a progression
cycle planet wobbles as it goes.
A top, spinning a little wildly
with childish fervor, as we ride
the whiplash fun of gravity
around our friends

My life is too brief to see
the change of sky thirteen
thousand years in the sun,
the birth of planets, the aging
of our playful dance amidst
Venus, Mars and Saturn.

Polaris, can you see the way
the mariners use your place
and trekkers mark a map
to stay on course? Is it odd
to you or are you too serene
and indifferent to care what
happens here beneath those
cardinal beams of light?

Nov/17 #9

The Song Of Worlds

I hear the music of the stars
the fearsome hum as if aliens
play the spheres in an orchesta
directed by the universe
and transcribed in the beauty
of time and space.

Each orb emanates eletromagnetic
murmurs that stand the hair up
on my skin and proves that if we
listen long enough, we can hear
our planet's cry for succor in the vast
unyeilding vacuum of lonely,
and not so silent, space.

The beauty of galactic harmony
acheived through the balance
of natural laws no one can argue
against. Earth song as part
of a greater chorus echoing
the symphony of creation
at the heart of time.

This link is an open source recording The Sounds Of Our Solar System

Nov/17 #10

Three Years Gone

And I miss your warmth when I
need reassurance that I
am still alive. You burned
in my life, a quasar explosion
that blasted me into excitement.

I took challenges I would never
have accepted - never thrown
myself down mountainsides
on snow and fast moving rivers,
-never risked my present
for future excitement like I did.

You left too soon. There are things
undone and incomplete, successes
you can't share from where you watch.
Do you watch? Do you know how
you are missed? I do. I do. I do.

Nov/17 #11

for the dead of The Third Battle of Ypres fought in Passchendaele, France

The Torch Bearer

This loss is deeply felt beyond the pain
of fire, of wounds cut so deep
they merely feed the mire of mud
and sweat and the waste of living
trapped inside a narrow trench
with just one way out.

Not sleep, no rest upon this bench
from the guns, the shells, the cries
of birds shook loose from leafless
trees and broken branches.
The noise of fear is drowned in cannon
fire and the torrential downpour
of late coastal winter.

Yet I bear this flame, the true desire
of soldiers fallen in this dirt, the filth
of oppression, facism and zealous
belief that wrong is right, slavery
is freedom and that war will bring
peace. We fight on to correct
the wrong of dying here.

The quiet I see in the dead man's face
reminds that he has found his rest
and passed to me the burden to soldier
on and teach morality to a land
that knows such fire and pain
of wounds so raw that no justice
can correct this loss.

Nov/17 #12

The Endurance of Stars

How lonely a tree is in winter
her empty branches stretching
croned fingers toward the sparkling
fall of bright diamonds backdrop

to the drama of a winter sidewalk
the ice the colour of a night sky.
Those stars in the heavens
at a magnitude reflected at her feet
shining blue shifts as we get closer

on this slowly revolving arm
of the Milky Way. So slowly
a compressed video of my life
would replay a billion times
before I ever count the twinkle
I see in your eyes and echoed

like a mirror shines infinity on itself.
I feel the waves of light thicken
and hold back the forces of night
that the tree and I need not worry
that the world will collapse in

an instance of time and energy
collected together to make mass
from nothing and spark the chain
reacion that is living an eternity away.

Nov/17 #13

Hello

We make happiness every day
a particular smile or that hello,
more than a greeting but not
an embrace, just a word
to draw shivers across heartstrings
strung in tune to make loveliness
on the ears and love to cochlea
gone deaf to all else, finally
soothed with the timbre and tone
of a beloved voice.

Nov/17 #14

We had a foot of snow last night.
Twenty centimeters of solid water.

Fluffier than shaved ice
spun into bright frost dust
at the foot of the season's
sculpted centrepiece, out front
beside the shining lights
that dusts the clouds hung
low over rooftops smoothed
by the brisk north wind
with brightness from below.
Winter is here.

Nov/17 #15

Notes On Penning The Ninth

The madness that bedevils my brain
sets my teeth on edge. To hear melody
is my endless want but my ears
no longer have this graceful pleasure.
My music rages from my soul,
woven to the stave in silken fibres
and heavy percussionist thuds
upon the loom as each measure
becomes a heartbeat I can only feel.
I know this harmony is beauty
the strings still stir the air, a touch
of fabric teasing the hair on my nape
marking me as damned. For no more
is it my blessing to soothe this ache,
calm this pulse; as if I will live forever.

Nov/17 #16

Study of a boy at rest in the garden -
ekphrastik of Monet's painting "Le repos dans le jardin, Argenteuil, 1876"

He looks like his mother
dark curly hair and oval
face and somehow,
my own squared jaw;
but she has her mother's
looks. Vital and alive,
sensual curves hidden
in crewel work and layers
of light linens. The blue
of flower petals a true
reflection of her iris
or is it of the sky, I don't
know but I ache
with memory of flounces
flipped in taunting flicks
of fine-boned fingers
and flirtatious looks
out of the corner of every
woman's eye. Don't
be a soldier, son, that only
leads to sorrow and dreams
that burn their way out
of the past and into blue
shaded days and frilly
skirts edged with lace
on the hems of admiration

Nov/17 #17

Fanning Flames

I don't want this bit,
this part right here,
to fizzle, right as words
come, new, and fresh
to me every day; but
that is trite and hack-
neyed but oh so true.
And if you push one
day, what's pushed,
pushes you back down.
So burn words and pop!
in the steam heat
that breaks your seal,
and ignites the bitumen
and tar waiting for fire
to start it blazing.

Nov/17 #18

Dance Me Into Happy

1
This jewel has been a decoration
on my soul. Long attached,
facets polished, and firmly soldered
to the shine of lifetimes shared
as sisters of the heart.

2
Families do not need blood to bind
them to the hearth of childhood.
Instead laughter of tensile strength
greater than the strongest polymer
of man's invention. Yours is ours.

3
We stand together in a circle
beside the bleak shell reflecting
our sorrowed stares looking
for glad recollections
to blot our tears

4
The triumph of success!
Whose is not vital to this
celebration; instead we dance.
Our feet beating out rhythms
of happiness to follow

5
When, weary from our wandering
we're left to cherish all we've known
the friends of crib and home, school
and growth, life and love, will follow
and lead us to the ends of days.

Nov/17 #19

Do You Love Me?

You make me smile when for an instant
I remember the touch of your beard
against my neck as you kiss my ear
and move your lips to my mouth.

And then there's another instant smile
when I think about your voice; soft,
sibilant, whispering adoration in my ear
before showing me what love means.

I'm happy in this. I know I rarely speak
that emotion out loud. It's hard for me
this instant love that I keep testing. You
are patient with me every time I ask.

Nov/17 #20

The Whole Thing Is Mystifying

I'm at a loss and couldn't even begin
to draw on my experience because
I haven't any. Not in this. It's new.

Love is a huge thing. A gift to celebrate
but to have open and bountiful love -
Wow! I close my eyes to the vertigo

of my head wrapping around the possible
ways to build a family of loves and tie
my heart to the lines that string it all

into one condition. Boggled and joyous
all at once and in so many directions
that I am challenged to make you happy.

I want your heaven to be as clear to you
as this is to me when i look down the barrel
straight to the muzzle flash of the business

end of the rifle. I am slain by the majesty
of all these heady moments when I embrace
and am embraced with the energy of love

Nov/17 #21

Hairline Fib

You
thrill
the skin
on my back
where hair becomes neck
peppered by the smooth face of gray
where neck and shoulders
colliding
follows
each
shrug.

Nov/17 #22

Fall Into Me

I stood out there in unfamiliar heat
waiting and worried
over what seems insignificant now.

Now that I know and have been
reassured that you do
and wouldn't say so unless
you were ready to take me on.

You stood, nervous, more uncertain
than I imagined a certain age
would allow those years
to hold on to. But when I lifted
my eyes and smiled
at your lit up soul I knew.

Fall into love with me, it's not trite
when it's meant so hard, inflexible
through it's need, impassive
in pulling barriers aside
and letting me fall into you.