She sauntered up one fall noon wearing her western boots,
Carrying a freshmen grin with hints of a rural rustic agrarian.
Then she offered her name like a girl without a care to lose,
Delighting in the prospect of procuring another new friend.
She stood emanating rays of delight, like a child savors candy,
learning my name even thought it was just a pleasantry.

I remember that moment like Pecos Bill had just ridden through
On his spotted steed, like I had just been blessed by a fairy and then,
Poof–  I’m cast in the Little House on the Prairie season two.
The force of our meeting nearly moved my granite defense;
She hit me like a tsunami of innocence, and left me in her eddies;
Like a tornado of unbridled joy bubbling beneath my feet.

The winds of time softened her blow to a sweet melody– ageless,
But my stone seems too old and heavy to join her flight with the angles.

Is it possible to love another if you lack the self-love part?
True love wants the best for loved;
Would not love demand “release the dove to a truer heart?”
Fly be free my love to firmer ground hereof:
A shore in dignity, a home in olive tree,
And may his heart have room for you and he…

If you find none comeback to me on this crowded ark,
Maybe then the gloomy weather inside of me
Will depart, and when the sun shines, bows an arch.
His light is all I need to shout with glee.
My home of hope is not in you, but in the promise of
The one who died selflessly, beloved from above.

I’m sorry I made and altar to you in my heart,
That room’s given to Him we love most, never to depart.
You are welcome to return and listen at his feet;
I would not begrudge you that honored seat.
He will hold you gently, and give you peace in love;
We remember Him with broken bread and a cup like blood.

If a better heart calls on yours let it be,
  I can but comply;
It is well that you should be free of memory,
  The cherished bride.

For if love bears the chest but receives no yes,
  His heart is freed,
To voyage on a darkened sea an anguish guest,
  A mask of black for identity.

We must suffer the loss of each other,
  I the keener part.
Claim her from me worthy sir…
  “I do” will still my heart.

Till then hope flutters on an arrow lunar high,
  The thought of this;
Of her heart returned to me in true loves reply:
  As You Wish!

(Inspired by: Phantates XVII)

The time when you’re over visiting long into the night
and can’t snip the strings of staying, the bonds of friends
they hold on stronger, cementing with the passing years

Never Mind the gaping gaps in our shared memory banks,
the deposits slip’s just a formality here.  Thank you for your
piggybank pocket change, investing in this friendship venture.

Never Mind me in lieu of family, lost in nostalgic treasures,
dish towel fights, sleepy stary nights then the colic cries.
It’s your turn to raincheck dreams, and self-priorities.

Never mind my insensitivity and emphatic rhyme,
my loss of time and failures blind.  Look past my
spots and logs, my social spice comes in lime.

My mind is made up most of the time,
the anchor’s stuck fast in muddy facts,
but I think I’ll haul her in for you,
I’ll change my mind, well…
maybe some time.

Let this day burn in memory film, etched in silver,
Let it sink in peatmoss memory bogs layered with fog,
Let it dry in Egyptian spice and sleep under a gilded mask,
Let the sun set on blazing waves, rolling over time’s arbitrary line,
where celestial sailors bottle the days last slivers of golden liquid. Stash
|   the vintage in a cellar dark, a mind sealed with cork and wax,   |
|     then with age and passing years, when bitter tannins fade,     |
|         when the ghosts have gone with the swampy fumes,           |
|             and the contrast edges soften to an amber sepia,             |
|               pour a glass of days past, and taste nostalgia.                 |
|                 Let this day christen a ship of lines majestic                  |
|                     Let us sip every moment like it’s matter                     |
|                         Let it toast a union of days to come,                       |
|                             a mortal’s passage on Titanic.                             |
|                                  Our days are numbered                                  |
|                                    the hour and minutes                                    |
|                                       and the seconds                                         |
|                                          to, will drain                                             |
|                                             away like                                               |
|                                                sand                                                  |
|                                                  | . |                                                   |
|                                               When                                                  |
|                                              the night                                              |
|                                          scales weigh                                            |
|                                      the heart within us,                                      |
|                                  comparing the slumber                                   |
|                                mass of sand, don’t panic.                                 |
|                             Days past are drunk and gone,                            |
|                        distilled to find days last here after.                        |
|                      All the waters evaporate, the pathetic                       |
|                  sediments are sifted.  Proof is found at the                  |
|             last day, judged with fire, filtered to fit in utopia.             |
|         Some days shrivel like raisins melt away under flame,        |
|    Some days sink with silt and get scraped away like scraps,    |
Some days condense in fear before crosswinds blow away the ash.
Let the sun burn away, break the seal, and end arbitrary time,
Let the dry bones drink living waters blessed, this we ask,
Let ghosts of evil days pass away in the sight of God,
Let my dreams reflect His rays and praise day-giver

My stars are the crossed shive-lights hanging over an upside-down ageless land,
where the trees are thick closed canopies, and the birds are bright
like paradise.  Where monkeys howl, and macaws call.

It lies at the headwaters of the Marañón and low lakes of the Ucayali. 
The “pirates” pilot peke-pekes up and down brown vanes
 of swollen silt, and my “Indians” guide dugout trees.

My tale does not imagine tables covered in empty plate entrees,
and steaming bowls of make-believe Bangerang pastel cake;
the foods too good to waste on delusive hunger fights.

My story is filled with tree banquets, fruits so perfect,
ripe and juicy jungle food.  Tangy papayas, plump piñas,
and mangos form memories of tasty flavor parties.

My Neverland is filled with tales of adventures,
of playa camps, bullet ants, and battles in snotty ooze.
There’s swimming with pirañas, midnight hunting alligators,
and I could write a song about hooking a giant tiger-tuk.

My band of barefoot-boys built bamboo forts,
armed with little bows, and fought some marble wars.
We explored the caño paths and walked up to Machu-Pichu.
Those are just a few stories from Peru, and some of them are true.

If I’m a mechanic, I’m a novice despite my years, 
my experience has only been short diagnostic drives,
all ears to the issues volunteered and hidden fears.
Some have scoffed at my meager shop, disinclined.
Not all cars are happy with my prognosis, and sigh 
saying their better off out there away from my
rags and wrenches, shuttering as if seared.
Other cars just didn’t fit my gear.

I keep telling myself that it’s for the best,
that I’ll bide my time and wait out this test;
Till then, I’ll keep telling myself it’s fine
to wait for one that I can call mine.

“Car mine, I promise I’ll be good and gentle, and true till the end of time.
I am not perfect true, but I will humbly listen to you with care, or-line
the pages of my book with thoughts of you, in car rhyme.”

An apple fell on the footpath.
It tumbled, bounced, and bruised
As it rolled on down the pass.

The fallen fruit came to rest in slimy mud,
Colored with hues of black and oxblood.

Oozing sludge clung to the abused skin,
worms and rot feasted, devouring it from within.
The dying fruit released a painful odor,
Like a breath mint in the mouth of an ogre.

Then came a bright-eyed boy
who knelt in the filth with reverence.

He picked up the worthless fruit and spat on it.
He rubbed it on his stainless shirt to clean and shine it.
He worked gradually till his face could be seen in its mirrored finish.

Looking up from the pit with bleeding hands clutching his find,
The boy shouted at the sky: “I found it!  The job is finished!”
“I found the fruit that was lost!”

He arose then and ran on up the path searching for the farmer,
all the way he wept a joyous relief, crying:

“Father!  Father look, I found it!”
“I found the lost apple dad!”
“I did it like you asked.”

Running up to a kindly old man he said:
“Can I keep it father, please can I have it?”

The farmer beamed at his son with pride,
and eyed the blood-red apple, a glint in his eyes.
He scooped them up with a laugh and replied:

“Because you obeyed me and did as I asked,
You may have all the apples you choose,
Even the one that fell on the path.”

If I could paint the sky,
If I made it rain so plants grow,
If I commanded seasons changed,
If the winds obeyed my voice?

Nothing in those ifs of mine
could match the beauty of this.
Nothing I imagine can be mine
without infringing on this.

For he is and was and will be.
He spoke mater into being,
He started the ticking of time,
and said “let there be light.”

He spoke those magic words,
Words of praise for all we see,
Words of right made wrong,
Words of hope to all who seek.

Words painted the sky tonight,
Words of time dying to night,
Words of love’s unending light!
His is the song of rising might!

Have you ever met someone who failed to fit into any box?
Maybe they fill them all or just couldn’t be contained.
They would spill over any container, bouncing off the walls.

She would always surprise me as if to tell me “Just you wait and see!”
I imagined her like molten metal still hot and malleable,
still rebelling against that old time mold.

One garment, or shoe, or anything new, bubbles over.
A new song or sunset lights up her canvas like it’s the end of 1999.
Explosions of thoughts poor out, absorbing all the colors.

“Welcome!” she says, “Come in, no need to fear me.”
Is it curiosity that fascinates and gawks at this aberration?
Is it wise to watch chemistry without protective lenses?

She is not a gas, liquid, or solid,
No single element or isotope defines her atomic mass;
Her shape is more than cubic, more than realism.

This is not a high school science lab.
She is more than base or acid, more like both combined.
She is a chemical reaction, and a magnetic attraction.

She would laugh at that scientific description,
Those eyes would say, “You’re crazy and still not even close.”
Maybe I just haven’t figured out her style of art, but I’m just guessing.

This is not art history class.
There is no single era, artist, or genre I can reference.
Then again, some of the greatest masters took their time to lovingly refine.

Perhaps she is a great masterpiece in progress,
An oil on easel, or pigment in water, a mess of tile shards.
There’s a maker’s touch, a chemical explosion, paint dripping off the walls.

She sat alone at a table, accompanied by bound friends,
and waited upon by a cup filled with comfort and warmth.
Her eyes found mine in a flick, and spoke a barred-up welcome.
Then came the sideways huff as if to dismiss an aberration.

I was not real, and my flesh turned transparent in that glance,
The look of crossbow bolts finding a home in a hollow chests.
To be fair my absent mind may have warranted disgust.

I might have misplaced her name in a poor substitute.
I might have mistaken her identity in passing salute.
I might have been oblivious to some personal foul.
My existence might have been more than grace could allow.

It is well that my pitiable state inoculated me against Medusa’s gaze,
for only men are frozen by her eye’s disinterested weight.
A drizzling cloud preceded me, shrouding me in apathy,
an armor suit, a dressing for my sense’s mortal casualty.

For years I walked by unphased, a patient of that burn ward.
I would pass that table many times without a second look.
My breastplate stood strong, and with my visor down I felt impervious
to the danger, yet I felt the clouds lifting and the son breaking through.

I could feel again!

Even now that I know her name, I never discovered the nature of her wound.
That table sits empty ever since her new friends entered service,
but she hasn’t forgotten the comfort found in a faithful book.
As far as I could tell her skies were turning and bowing in a promised reward.

She could see then!

TBC

When I close my eyes, I can picture grandma’s living room.
It was a room of shag carpets, trinkets, and clocks,
A sagging sofa accented with a llama skin throw and guarded by a gramophone.
That sanctuary of stability, anchoring memories, changeless by so many years.

Grandpa’s new chair and a flat panel TV at odds with that theme,
and though he’s gone now, that booming voice still echoes in the air, punctuated by his crazy hair.
Grandma would sit in his chair for years after, riding the recliner down memory winds.
Flying through turbulent patches, times rapids, on to some slow sweet summer days adrift.

I know this by that flat smirk and a twinkle in her look.
A regular visit paid to that place, Friday night’s after dinner tradition, traditions TV channel.
Like chocolate cake for her reflection, fondly held in many memories, and religiously consumed.
The rest of us experienced show flavored like stale bread, but stayed for the sake of her happy thoughts. I didn’t fly to neverland’s timeless channel every Friday, but that sound remains in my ears.
The sound of folky gospel, vocals braded in choir, boisterous bands, and singers.
The sound of tap dance shoes hailing like so many high school drummers.
Grandma’s favorite music cake, a sweet melody to her memory, the Gaither Band.

If I could go back to when I first met her,
I wouldn’t stamp and stammer sifting through my thoughts,
I wouldn’t discuss the weather like my mind couldn’t fathom something other,
I wouldn’t stare that way with nothing else while my heart and blood fought.

Were I to meet her, it would go much better,
My smile would be sincere and smoother,
My mind would enter gear without a chatter,
My modesty wouldn’t fail me in my ecstasy either.

Then prepared with proper warning, all my faculties would fail me not,
For I would slip the chains of fear never to be caught,
For I would speak with elegance and wise forethought,
For my heart would be prepared and ready for this moon-shot.

Oh, to return and do it over, that time when I met her!
Oh to get a second chance to set that first impression slot!
On that moment my mind took flight and left me blubbering there,
On that day my eyes first found you in that precious spot.

Then you might have really looked at me beyond the frozen stare,
Beyond the quadriplegic frightened animal so scared,
Beyond the mindless dribble, and small talk impaired,
Beyond all that, I’m here, me the man, dumbstruck though I be.