The Sea

The shipment of gold pours

onto the deck from depths

of cargo sludge in a hold of cold gold

riveted with holes from machine gun fire

that tries to stop its docking

in ports too dangerous to even dream about

where pirates stalk and kill entire crews

before tipping the bootie into smaller vessels

with pockets in the bow that spill bilge

hiding smuggled bounty

a perfect place for magnets to hold

gold in sealed cases with jeweled tops

as just beneath the drugs sit

until divers submerge at the end of the trip

to retrieve the precious resources

which hide in a ship filled with molasses

concealed in deep wells below water lines

undetected by cameras or dogs

or whoever might try to board and look

for illegal shenanigans in coastal waters

far from real terrors of ports not sealed

with captains drinking Stoli carrying goods for barter

to pass through the locks of Suez just to gain

an edge so as not to be behind with each day lost

more than twenty thousand dollars as the crew moves on

never to be heard from again with the small ship sold

in another harbor after skillfully changing colors

a crew screwed into the chain as it rips and pulls

each man into the dark sea one two three

they disappear and all along their ship stays afloat

with gold solid gold sold for a man’s soul.

Culture

He was thought to live on sovereign land, a fallen prince whose ancestors scraped mud from boots laden with spit and sweat, but grifters claimed a distant portion on the hill and called it home. Squatters set tents to glean from progeniture’s fields, desperate, they dreamed of a place of their own, a space to lay claim with blankets and food scraps carried on their backs. The man whose lineage built from the bottom up furiously defended his land, invigorated with righteous weaponry.

He now knows he has no eternal claim, has had choice and favor through his advanced years, proclaims God as source for each sunrise, for bread and wine. He rests under the starlit sky, watches the moon drop next to the overreaching sun and marvels at how they can occupy the same space. He tastes raindrops outside his shelter, builds protection from violent storms. He sings in sorrow, overcomes in grief, and reflects on the abundance he’s lived, the gift of life that sustains through peaks and valleys of living, breathing, birthing and dying. He understands the limited time of being, pauses to reflect in all his doing, repents in all his self-seeking greed. Like deciduous trees, leaves fall on the clock, a timetable for changing seasons, he can grow, plant, sow, move or be still. He claims earthly terrain, his head lays down in peace each night, even as the nightwalker and thief, murderer and mercantile cheat continue storming the ground.

Stars

Light sparks in the moving cleft of a falling star, streaks to blue-black as it shoots earthbound and disappears from the sky. Creatures scatter in the wooded grove, as if they sense the star has them in its sight. City-dwellers, stroll through dew-dropped parks near cement-based drinking fountains, yet barely know that stars are there, stars that seem to spin as the earth does or perhaps they circle and twirl around galaxies. Knowledge is superseded by earth-walkers whose degrees and diplomas are framed by the trees they walk among. Botanist-taught with ecological stealth, their feet snap twigs across untrodden paths covered in rust-gold leaves.

Deep darkness covers the mountain peak as the pilgrim crawls into his cave seeking silent, contemplative rest as the star is falling. He knows the omniscient source as much greater than he, listens as sounds of the night fade to a dull hum and earnest coo, as the owl and the fox mix their tunes and night predators stalk bigger game than a man in a shelter. Though it smells him, its red eyes pass quickly, gaze up to the falling star in a brief pause before dashing to its den. All the while, the pilgrim sleeps in the symphony of the terrestrial domain, aware of the stars above. He dreams with a smile.

From the fall, the people knew horror, the famine of words, the elimination of connection. Communion was almost extinct since love was quenched. It amazed the New World traveler to understand the mystery of how they went on, how only a handful of the living scattered about the dry land could replant and bloom where weeds and bones were buried.

 Abutting the New Land were green glowing spots, reminders to not touch these fluorescent scars but to rebuild around them. The damaged green trees reached high into the sky beyond the rolling hills where they chose to lay down to rest. After years of wandering.they gathered together in pairs to work and bleed new life from the land. With the constant light of day, the bright sun on the purple of the new horizon, the husband’s blades scooped the soil. There was no more darkness and the birds returned from across the sea.

WAR

The pastel banner tethers lines of youth, knotted from the mouth.

The yellow splash says, "hear me”, floats in dissonant pink above the fiery fervor

in the midst of rebel drapes.

Flames rage on purple grain blowing in the field of battle.

Blue sky over blue bloods who fight to keep a heritage.

Under the bright sun, rainbow streaks of promise

claim covenants as one, unite this land.

Hope holds the four corners high, the nation, intact, bold

one swirl of color reflects in the faces

of those who defend her.

Reflections on Sam Gilliam's "Relative" 1968

National Gallery of Art

Washington DC

2017 Writer's Salon

 Before

I rested in womb waters, nestled

in my spine’s arc.

A droplet of water, ensconced

In a rolling wave, I rode the tidal rhythm.

Suddenly, the waters around me

and I swam to the surface, gasping

air,

I hovered

over placid waters, the soles

of my feet skimmed the surface.

Immigrant

I am the shadow, fallen, into a crevice of stories around a corner of poets, on a cobblestone walk of invisible stars. I mark quick, blue strokes with my pen, a grace note slipped into my tattered book of travels, occupy new land of foreign song. Everyone is white here by the sea, a liquid stream of bobbing heads. They stare at my sleek snakeskin boots, at the faded green scarf that covers the scar on my neck, the scar that silenced me in the slick world of acronyms. My voice, once a tropical flow, now bleeds onto a white page in a white world of competition where words lack tongues, seed graves with overgrown thorns, pierced with nationalistic pride. I am the dark shadow they pass with eyes cast down. I am not of the white cup people yet slip into the black stone veil in the lull of white noise.

Abandon Ship

I never should have taken this assignment. Stuck on this frozen ship, I give the rope a tug for the third time, watch the raft drop like a rock, plummet to icy waves below the water line. The captain tries to reassure guests from his leather couch. We never dreamed to abandon ship in the North Atlantic. Ice forms on our Arctic jackets. We don polar gloves for touch, goggles for vision, protection from the wind of our breath, the frozen spray of words in legal mediation.

Jazz Time

Jazz had a legend generations ago
when mountains moved shadows like a smile;
surely those lips from ribs and diaphragm
opened the heavens to sing out.

The rooms of her mouth echoed rubies and diamonds,
a chalice of wine formed her vocals.
It wasn’t so simple, the sound that she rendered
to let it escape in a grace note, she ascended
between scat, inflections and rhythms.

Sarah learned smoothly, a richness like velvet
Each time her breath danced on air
to know the drum's beat, the brass and ivory,
the blues and the stories to sing,
embraced and transformed with goose bumps beyond
As she hit high to low in three octaves.

So take on the quest to learn from the best
With a sound and a score that’s eternal.
One day break glass with pizzazz and with class.
To stand on the stage, close your eyes and begin,
Sink in your toes and sing, sing, sing.

As One

Your head upon my breast

our synchronous breaths rest.

Your brilliant mind weary,

I feel the weight of time.

Will we senesce into memory

or be cut short on the mountain peak,

like hang-gliders crashed into trees?

Will love be stronger than death

and fear of separation be overcome?