Mount Pleasant

 "But in the grey of the morning 

my mind becomes confused

between the dead and the sleeping

and the road that I must choose"

The Moody Blues Question 

I remember a secret place behind new house construction

still untouched, with a little brook; I knew the hidden entry.

It was September, yellow leaves nattering on thick birches

with impossible blue sky behind. My solitary sanctuary.

I've not been back but know

that a sub and casino took its place.

SUVs, neon signs, leaf blowers,

but in my mind it's still my private place. 

My wandering discoveries now unfold in recurring dreams

of curious, fey, deserted neighborhoods found just beyond a rise.

The streets are new, but the homes deserted and crumbling

with just a face here or there behind a curtain, calmly waiting to die.

In these latter years, one seems

as real and compelling as the other.

I once saw a pheasant burst from a bush

and a grackle's lost feather flutter.

___________

for Word Garden Word List--Autumn. 

Music: Frank Sinatra The September of My Years

Episodes of Sea and Sky

 

Often,

I sleep on a tightwire

with a balancing pole

rising

falling

like a pair of oars.

Often,

I am busy organizing,

counting, ordering

items

that only

exist in my dreams.

High,

wearing shoes with grooved soles

making my way to a 15th floor window

all  I 

so want

is to get it all down 

on paper and set in boxes.

Awake,

it all reduces in an instant

to pointless nonsense.

Ah me.

Impossible

and silly besides. Sometimes,

someone loved me--they're gone too.

Often,

this splitting of my mind

is like an updraft out of my everyday skin.

My useless

looping tasks

give me purpose, and comfort

and favored faces alongside.

Often,

morning makes off

with these impossible pufferies

and I

rise

but it feels like falling

very fast, from height.

_______

for Word Garden Word List--Let the Right One In. 

 

Music: Bronson Know Me

They Are Marching

 They are marching

where the red flowers bloom

They are marching and sometimes stoop to gather

the white and fallen fragments of the moon

They are sleeping

and dying with the hours

they are sleeping and hallucinating sweetly

white swans and lilies in their bowers

They are falling

where bones turn into pennants

They are falling like the spines of dusty hymnals

where angels count forgetfulness as penance.

Evening

I am brushing butter and garlic across slices of bakery bread,
but also resting my cheek in the crook of your arm
a thousand miles from here.

There is steam from a green ceramic pot
in my kitchen with sunflower fields in ruffles at the windows,
but there is also your skin as warm as a sunned quilt.

I am leaning for your lips like a willow over water,
but also standing on Italian tile
with a plate forgotten in my hand like a dove from a distant dream.
_____

for Sunday Muse # 90.

Psalm For Students Out of Windows Staring

It's yours--that spot of sky obscured.
Dream aviary day and night.
It's yours, that blue by distance blurred.
It's yours--that spot of sky obscured.
Woolgather wing, woolgather bird
with astronaut for acolyte.
It's yours--that spot of sky obscured.
Dream aviary day and night.
_____

for Sunday Muse #66.