As I await your arrival
I gather strength.
Folded up like a Bat in Winter
I draw upon deep sleep
With every day passing
our renewal Closens
in my readying I collect
the warmth with which
I will Unfold to meet you,
stretch my winged span
try my Blind eyes
in the night’s Thickness
full of Trust
in my unfailing Radar,
to find you, beside me
Photograph By Nick Zungoli
Erasing what is carved in Flesh
Takes decades if it happens at all
So much concealing,
So much conscious Effort
So much Reassurance,
Smoothing of tissue
******
Erasing what is carved in flesh
involves Rewiring,
painstakingly
Repetitive,
Tedious and Trying
So much tripping
Struggling
with Love & Belonging
******
Erasing what is carved in Flesh
Is for the Hearty,
Those who when Necessity
calls, see no Choice
But to be Who they Are,
Come what May
******
Art Work by Yaron Rosner
We are Reminded
we are but Carriers
that our children come Through us
not From us
Born of our Bodies
so hard to Fathom
their Well being
not entirely our Responsibility
No matter the Rational
championing personality, Independent Perspective
Free Will-
Deep down
in the very Fiber of our Flesh
We will Not let go
of what originated in our Bowel
Cannot but Feel bound
to their Existence
No matter the reasoning:
“They are their Own”
from the Cavernous depths
a Primeval utterance intones:
“They Are Mine”
Ancient Mesopotamian Seated Goddess
I could wander, pacing
the places I walked before,
knowing them again and for the first time
I could call your name,
hear it slip off my tongue,
whisper through grasses
I could forever search your scent
that I would find here then there
Instead, I sit by the quiet of rippling water
in which I see myself smiling
I kicked off my shoes
which sank to the bottom
of the blueness before me, barefoot,
I wander with my spirit
Ceased measuring my life
in kilometers, stopped tracing
my well being with changing backdrops
The only one now is the sun greeting me
and taking leave, over this great expanse
of ever-changing liquid
My heart stands still, content
to know itself, and you,
you are everywhere, in everything
Photograph by Nick Zungoli
I saw you the other day
mixed in a crowd of even skin
varied in pigment only
you Stood out
with skin like Applied parchment
a being of a different making,
a Visitor
those spiky bunions tell me
your hands tried so hard
to save you from the Inferno
****
You disappeared however
in the crowd with your even skinned
children, who accustomed to looking
at the tenderness of your soul
moving behind leather
see love in the inflexibility of your face,
no longer the pain
your Flesh so vividly remembers,
lets none of us forget
****
My vision branded
I do not recall the tall woman with the torch
****
Mixed Media by Yaron Rosner
Low enough to Gild the day’s light
and allow for the night to harden
our Sun has given the Signal;
for some it’s their first time
for others it is habit
Recommendations to the newcomers
reminders for the initiated
encouragement to the Seniors
everyone speaks at the same time
generating the clattering cacophony
of the Gathering
Such a sudden cloud you Rise together
settle on another wire continue your babble
Readying yourselves
for the oncoming journey South
until the Deep of the night Ices over
and only the Blue Jay call resounds,
you are Gone.
Photograph by Erwin Wybauw
To The Cirque Du Soleil
Your Body the Sun has kissed longest,
though finely tuned
the Bone has begun to Bend
the flesh around the still
precise muscle, has Thinned
shows its wear, Reveals
not only the Years of Prowess
but also the pain in achieving its Might
More human, more vulnerable,
certainly more beautiful
you have descended from those Heights,
Grounded by your gathered years and wisdom
you make us Laugh
that we could reach out
touch the Weathering of your tone
know the Stories in your Skin
Lillian Leitzel Aeralist
1882-1931
To The Cirque Du Soleil
Part Bird part Human
Lean, lithe, strong, you swing
making of your legs
trailing feathers,
which follow the graceful
flow of your body’s circumlocutions
Breathless we watch you spin
then stop, Airborne,
held in space by our Stare,
Slowly your body bends into a ball
shot as if from a canon, you spread
holding by one hand only
thirty feet above ground, hands clap,
you are upside down, Suspended
by one foot spinning endlessly
until you spring once more Upright
and gasping for Breath, we Roar.
Your body no more the clumsy Flesh
cumbersome and limiting
rather an Instrument
exquisitely tuned
fulfilling its Purpose
Part II Next Week
Lillian Leitzel Aeralist
1882-1931
The General waves
from Billboards
makes beautiful
revolutionary Statements
affirmatively, 50 years old
He peers from a smile
compassionate father
in the prime of his Life
forty years ago
Il Commandante is everywhere
immortalized, the Cuban god
And like a god, Distant
Faded, cannot help
in spite of his good ideas
Where to now General?
Will you tell us?
Do you Know?
We stand Suspended
in the communal world
created together
at your behest
Patria O Muerte
What will it be?
Now that you lie at the Edge
of death, unable to admit
where You may have erred
Forfeiting a gentler Transition
Into the Wild Wild West
Generalissimo?
* * * * * *
In times like these,
when I stand in shreds
on barren ground,
the sound of Water
does not reach my ears
the swish of reeds
and trees pass me by
I am hardened,
like the winter earth
beneath my aching feet
Deafened, I am aware
of my misery only,
were I to soften
would I dissolve
into a pool of tears?
Leaving my bare bones
and bewildered soul
torn apart, shaken
and lost forever?
Today, I am the Ice Queen
Hard, unpliable
a Rock
Today, no one
will have
their way with me
And I
will have
my way with None
Art Work by Yaron Rosner
From the series Atlantis