Confessions of a Story Teller
I am a thief, a stealer of moments in time.
I am a hoarder, clutching those moments
’til released in absolution.
I am a killer; sometimes someone has to die.
It’s nothing personal.
I am a masseur; stories improve with
pressure applied here and there.
(Stories are more malleable than they think.)
I am a liar; that fictional character
Is more real than I admit.
I am an exhibitionist; my words
reveal the innards of my soul.
I am a voyeur; your private moments
bounce around my brain until your story is,
at long last,
revealed.
Space
All the breaths passing into a void a universe wide
leave the stranger groping for home.
Sun-starred recognition in the timeless allness
comes hard by — and the airs are alone.
But a soul with a mind finds the faint
suction of destiny and follows the angels home.
Autumn Wind
Whispering “I Love You” it passes on.
A few leaves lie remembering,
colored like finished salmon having
lived and grown so much.
Drying veins curling into a
smile that tells of the first kiss,
or of the shyness of two
among lake-reflected stars;
These once dance living veins are
scattered by a freshened wind,
a pure sweet wind.
A romantic man writes of the breeze
as being enriched by the breath of beauty.
A common man might say it borrowed a spirit.
But me—I don’t know what
it was that just swept by. It never said.
But the grass, though browning at its passing,
promises to be greener next Spring.
All Bright Summer Days
All bright summer days, days of heat
and chrome glare, and splashes,
and crystal stars shining a brief eon
above joyous water; then I was
a dancer stopped spinning to leap.
All was felt and deepest portrayed.
I, young, breathed the hot
benches and joyous laughter, and shrill
decibels, and shapely forms, and the
communal click of new cards on hot pavement.
I, like soul’s gourmet, breathed heavy,
and whispered with eyes but to my kind.
Above me went stuffing from
an over-fat chair exploding and
falling—before the sun goes hope.
I envisioned H.G. Wells and green skies
and auburn suns, and soul-some spheres.
Even around me lay, undreamt, sands
as blue as summer water.
Why Do We Love the Water So?
When I gaze into your ageless eyes,
I remember the times we were together,
When your blue-green eyes
Matched the color of our skin,
And the azure water in which we swam.
I smile when I hear star-struck lovers
Oohing and aahing over their time
Together as soul mates:
It’s that instant attraction
They can explain no other way.
But if there are soul mates,
Need they be human?
I sense we have swum these waters before,
Webbed-paw to paw, strong legs to strong legs.
But I also know, this is not that time.
We are not frogs, and perhaps we never were.
But as we go our separate ways, I have to wonder
Why it is we love the water so.
Gorging on Black
Sleepy quiet on the roof peak,
Rustled, the bright black eye
For the bright black sun of night.
Night Hawk’s bed in Suburbia.
Scream, prattle, rattle on the
Streets below, kids glow,
And an eye cocks open for the
Crazy jay splitting air
Above, then closes.
In the evening he leaves
(He’s not there when I look)
Hawking on bugs in
The black quiet—a whisper.
Steps
The benevolence of an age
After I’ve fluttered weakly
Is disappointing. I’ve no
Pendant or sword, but a knowing
Where not to step in Jody’s cow field.
And the marbled canyons bellow
Boom,
And the marveled Scanlon fellow
Fool,
And this is what it is to be
Grownup.
I’m old on the asphalt and
I forget that steps once mattered.