Pagan Wisdom from the Bible Belt

With voice heavy in the sultry air

Or clear in the cooling crisp

Gods and goddesses speak,

As is their nature,

Through stars, signs, and seasons

Barely heard in the disintegration of a meteorite

Or fall of a leaf,

And so easily eclipsed

By digital billboards.

Our longest day is brief

The shortest briefer.

Live each moment expecting to hear

The voice of an immortal

Lengthening your soul

With at least a brief glimpse of eternity.

By a pagan Christian who cannot deny the existence of other gods and who loves Jesus Christ because he departed unto a mountain to pray (and because he took to his grave the bloody sacrifices).

Prompted by Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Light and Dark.

Mother on Notebook Paper

Who is this a picture of?

This hollow soul is me.

There's room for God

And room for love,

But grief has hallowed out the eyes

The ghosts to see,

And tea too strong, philosophy,

has sallowed me this way.

How can it be?  Who sees me thus?

On fallow field of notebook paper grew a mother,

Some secrets can't be kept.

He said, "I was just doodling,

And it ended up like you."

The Heaviness of Thirteen

Four haiku on the heaviness of thirteen:

Superstitious weight

Convenes Friday with full moon

A witches’ coven

Atomic number

Of most abundant metal

Aluminium

Amendment Thirteen

Abolished the slavery

After civil war

Thirteen is heavy 

Another hole but more glaze

A baker’s dozen

Prompted by Poets United Midweek Motif ~ The Number Thirteen

The Quiet of the Morning

The first few steps pounded out on the pavement
Are miserably hard on the soles of my feet
And I ache all the way to the top of my head
And I feel like a jackhammer not a jogger
With legs as heavy as heavy machinery
And breathing loud as a logging truck
Belching out carbon monoxide.

I intrude upon the quiet of the morning.

Then the road is softened by one fluffy cottontail,
Her nose twitching with curiosity
Until she exits into the wayside brambles
Where dewberries abound and one is found
Sweet and tart on my tongue.

And a squirrel follows along in the canopy
Forming an overpass over my path
And becomes a distraction from the ache
Working its way out of my body.

And clearing the nettles in the meadow’s fast lane
A deer pronks and shows his own mettle
And I show mine as my legs are lightened.

And my breathing at first obtrusive
Intertwines with the breathing trees
And my soul sings with songbirds
And my sweat distills as dew on wild roses.

I am the quiet of the morning.

Where the Last Tree Fell

Where the last tree fell
The tree of life grows,
A fractalization of the last tree’s essence,
Intelligence and immortality.
From seed so small
The cosmic tree expands,
Sending roots into black holes
And branches to the infinite heavens.
How can such a tree be guarded,
When everywhere I see
Songbirds, raptors, vultures
Perched among its leaves?

Personality Test

Which would you rather drink?

Cool, clear water

Or primordial soup?

Which would you rather think?

Cool, clear water

Or primordial soup?

Into which would you rather sink?

Cool, clear water

Or primordial soup?

Of what would you rather stink?

Cool, clear water

Or primordial soup?

Depending on how you answer you may be:

A - An ecoterrorist who doesn’t use bleach or soap products.

B – Born to be a deep thinker.

C – Catfish noodling next Saturday

D – Damn if I know and neither does your shrink. 

Musical Fallout Shelter

Music is fallout

That wrenches the soul

From the moment

To post traumatic,

Collecting memories

And compounding them,

Succussing to potency

The dissipating waves

Along the stress disordered shore.

Music is shelter

That protects the soul 

From its storms,

Two eyes keeping watch – 

The window of the soul

And the eye of the storm –

Envisioning shapes in the air

Only our ears can see

Of a postcard perfect shore.