Spanish Moss

Live Oak draped
in Spanish Moss,
wilting with it
as if weeping
in the sweltering sun.

Autumn never comes here,
only peripatetic monsoons
which bring heavy, soggy freshness.
While through the rain, shivering still,
remains this mossy tree in a breeze
(like sultry girls shimmying
on bars late at night).

After the storm’s passing
the sun dies
an inexorable death, leaving a
saturnine penumbra of tropical magic.
Yet, there remains the dance of
this figure swaying to
quiet, secret music-
jape of the lives we live.

power of words

After reading this poem by Antonia at Reluctant Painter, I wrote this:

the throat has no subtle strangulation
when met by rhythms such as those
beating hearts that slip off
the page into my porcelain soul

i take my leave
midst the course palpitations,
check my vigil at the door
and wisp myself away

on the words you leave me with
while going about your day
unconcerned with my fate,
my formidable challenge

Tell Tell, These Bells

Tell tell, these bells ring in clamorous mimes,
golden light ripening dusk’s rhymes.

Their wavy peals knock senseless all will
with intoxicating smells. Sweet frilly trills of

velvet curl ’round minds weak thoughts.
Trumpets blare orange, their mute shots

grip deeply, but mildly, spreading moments apart.
Move not a muscle! You only think you start.

Alien udders, teats, voluptuous, alluring
spew marvelous gas, earthward procuring.

Honey, clover, sweet oil scented plasma
fumes night’s clicking air with hypnotic miasma.

Take their milk, succor its careless troth
of sun, summer’s blare distilled for the moth

whose wings, hummingbird style, blur eerily
as it darts near these towering tubes, haunting warily.

These chants of vertical cornos, aiming skyward ho
blast off, pushing earth and you, flyward, singing so.

These cantalope colored carillons urge time away
to let your mind wander, let love to love stray.

The grand, momentous, earthward hanging trumpets of Brugmansia are blooming ecstatically and prolifically on an eight foot potted plant I have in my back yard. There are now 26 huge flowers flopping carelessly down from the tree like form. (which started as a 1 foot stump in June) This nightshade family plant is also related to Datura, whose up facing trumpets carry hallucinogenic oils, giving them mystical powers over human minds.

Technorati tags- poems, poetry, Brugmansia, flowers

Sacrificial Tree

Here are two poems about Christmas Trees. I’ve always been torn about having cut trees. I’ve reconciled my guilt by thanking the tree for giving me the soulful pleasure of its wonderful smell and living presence in my life.

I keep my trees as long as possible, usually until my birthday in mid January. This year I haven’t yet gotten a tree. I’ve just been too dissipated physically and emotionally, plus winter came on early, hard and strong. Who knows, maybe I’ll still get inspired.

Sacrificial Tree

Darkness descends upon afternoon’s glow
And pulls day’s light to down below.
As fickle air courts heavy chill
Feeble warmth flees up,
Conceding defeat
To weighty still.

I then illuminate the sacrificial tree
To lift the void which leadens me.
Her scintillating glitter
Enshrouds my fears
Enveloping my heart in glamorous sight.

This starry gift is infinitely old
yet ripe with richness
as time’s birth of soul.
Such sweet ritual!
Such mundane skill!
Giving root to such lofty thrill!

We need only open our hearts,
Our senses, our doubts, our souls to Her allure.
The myth of the season is born again.

Our Christmas Tree

Our Christmas tree stands before me,
evergreen through the seasons,
glowing with light
through darkness and freezing.
My soul is warmed by its
shimmering spirit,
all crystal and glimmering,
giving life to love needed.

I’m able to hope
by such burning glory
for peace where there’s strife
and love for those, lonely.
My heart aches with sadness
that you can’t be here near me
but life must go on, then
for Beauty’s Eternity.

technorati tags- christmas tree poems, Christmas poems, solstice poems, Christmas tree

Garden of Growth, II

Upon revisiting and revising this poem, I noticed how much its message applies to life in general. As I age and hopefully grow wiser, I am learning that letting go of habits is not only vital to happiness. It’s also vital to learning and to growing as a person. I’ve recently started studying Alexander Technique, which I will write about more soon. One of the basic lessons of the method is to let go of the tension in the neck and stay open in your awareness. This is harder to do than one might think. Alexander called it Primary Control. I like to think of it as Primary Flow. Let each second go as it happens. Repeat. Rather than creating a superficial life, this idea allows one to experience the richness of the moment much more deeply.

The seeds emerge naked from gray, rough soil,
though most will perish as grist of earth’s scheme.
Their compost holds kernels of mealy toil,
micro teams, tiny mules carrying molecule dreams.
This war marches on. The drama rolls fresh
with each rising and falling of seasonal flesh.

I used to gently cradle those leafy twigs,
pining within their rhythmical trance.
I fiddled and darted, lost and ready
to control that volume of verdant folly.
I toiled from dawn to dusk to cage this romance.
I staked stems, preened buds,
willed red berries on holly’s branches.
I beamed with delight at delphiniums blue night
but daily squished aphids with horrible fright.
Hinoki’s form would finally reach balance,
necessitating tragic hacking of nearby Hamamelis.
Trailing Nasturtium must ramble freely
over carefully chaotic, mossy patio.
Cardinal Richelieu finally gave up the ghost
after five uprootings to aptly pair
his wine purple rose with more heathen hosts.

I strove to capture kairos*, embed its seething flair.
This chimera dwindled with thousands of hours
of pushing days in a stubborn wheelbarrow,
driving my load to pattern and style this living
sculpture into rank and file soldiers of my lair.
Time ground me down with its meticulous power.

As I feared, things went wild. They flattened
and ruptured and cheated my rules.
The Lungwort blasted forth, had its own way
and colonized insouciantly with its spotted tribe.
Autumn Clematis scrambled over trellises
and basked in the sun, surveying the fool’s
game down below, laughing at all the fun.

Then, tough rubric knots let loose their tether
as my life became twinned by other urgent events.
Watching from afar, the garden seemed closer than before.
And Plumbago’s happy scurry beneath
pink Asters fence seemed their own private
dispute, their outcome to pass sentence.

Five years have passed since I relinquished power.
Ten years before that I clutched at this stream
while its crumbled message sifted through my fingers.
From my rough hubris sprouted this quiet lesson:
The constancy of change remains new for the ages.
I come away sage, having learned not to confuse
dreams of perfection with nature’s carnival muse.

*From Wikipedia- Kairos is an ancient Greek word meaning the "right or opportune moment". It is now used in theology to describe the qualitative form of time. In rhetoric kairos is "a passing instant when an opening appears which must be driven through with force if success is to be achieved." (E. C. White, Kaironomia p. 13)