The Veterans

This morning I woke up
Easing out into the feather-fingered cold
November air paintbrushing against my skin
Icy pointillism
Dotting across freckled arms

My feet hit the floor
Toes tasting the tendrils of heat
That silently pummeled away at the frigid leaks
Lying in wait

This morning I stood and looked out my window
Even the darkness was still in bed
Tousled hair now covered in a thin sheen of white.

I woke up this morning
Free
Free and alive
Free and grateful

This morning my feet touched wooden floor

As combat boots
Abroad
Marched through sun-cooked sand
And up scorched hills in lands where outward
cold and heat
Co-mingle with icy resolve
And molten courage
In the inimitable language that
Echoes in the actions of our soldiers

This morning I slid a finger between blinds
Glancing casually out onto a snow-sprinkled yard
Chalky white powder
Frosting a backyard thick with crystals

As lion’s eyes
Elsewhere
Stare from beneath world-painted helmets
Sizing and reacting
Pupils undilated by the gravity of the moment.
Those eyes
The eyes of men and women
Heroes all
That lock with danger in unblinking fortitude
And speak the whispers of forefathers
With actions through tumult

On a day purchased for me
By the blood that stains our very flag Red
I woke up this morning with gratitude
For those who lace up and strap on
Stand up and step forward
That oath-holding few with broad shoulders
And volcanic hearts
That battle still to allow me life
To give me liberty
And to allow me to pursue my happiness
That I hold so dear when I wrap my arms around
Son and wife
I woke up thankful above all

I woke up proud
And humbled
And hopeful

That those who serve us
Those talons of the eagle
Will continue to believe that the first two letters
Of USA
Is truly “US”
And that we may not be at their side
Making that ultimate
Bold
Astonishing
Declaration that they have
But that they are never far from the heart of the people
They give to so freely

Today we give thanks
Today as with all days
Let us bow and salute and applaud
Let us find silence
And let that silence echo in the canyons of our hearts
As we remember all who have given, all who give still
And all those fearless warriors who have yet to give.

(*Author’s note: To all who have served, continue to serve, or will someday serve our great nation: Thank You.  From the bottom of my Red, White, and Blue-beating heart. . .thank you.  Stand today, so we may give you thanks.)

FIN

The Veterans

In two thousand and thirteen
Truth can get garbled,
Jumbled under a pile of 140 character shrapnel
And digital soapbox clangor.
It can get smeared from keyboards
And keystrokes,
Across blinking mediums
From see to shining see.

But there are certain truths
That we hold resolute.
Certain truths that neither waver nor falter
Nor shiver in the depths of the coldest hearts
In the coldest of winters.

These are the truths of the soldiers;
Of our soldiers.
These are the truths that snap,
Snare drum sharp,
To attention,
As a crisp flag raises
In the Dawn’s Early Light;
A Red, White, and Blue
Tapestry
Unfurling to a north wind salute.
High and proud.
True.

These are the undeniable truths that pulse within them,
Driven by courage-firing bellows
In the chambers of flame pulsing hearts.
They ride and they charge and they march,
To the edges of the last human frontiers.
Always ahead.
Always forward.
No blackness too dark,
For they are the light.
And no heat too scorching,
For they have been forged
In the white-hot embers of
We the People.

These men.
These women.
These Talons of the Eagle.

They hold these truths,
Carry these burdens.
Sprint uphill through blood
And through sand,
And when reaching the summit
Merely shrug their camouflaged shoulders and
Push once more.
To the brink.
To the edge.
To the truth.

On this day let us give thanks.

With salutes and handshakes
With hugs and with tears.
By standing up for those who never back down.

Let us give thanks.
From crackling speaker systems
And trumpeting remembrances,
To the whispered prayers spoken on bended knee at the tombs
Of the fallen.
Let us give thanks  to those
Who have purchased our freedoms with immutable resolve.
On this day,
Let us give thanks for these truths and all who hold them still.

(*Author’s note: To all who have served, continue to serve, or will someday serve our great nation: Thank You.  From the bottom of my Red, White, and Blue-beating heart. . .thank you.  Stand today, so we may give you thanks.)

FIN

The Veterans

(*Author’s note: I understand that I’m a day late, but I needed to make sure to get my small, minuscule “Thank You” out there for the members of our Armed Forces)

At the edge of the incoming tide they stand,
Boots toeing darkness’ precipice
Flinty eyes locked in the unblinking stare
Of a fighter’s gaze.
When carnivorous fear bellows,
Echoing from deep inside the canyon walls
Of human hearts
And instincts tug at our feet to flee,
They stand resolute.
As iron sharpens iron
So, too, does courage sharpen courage.
These sentries to freedom
Hold torches alight
Shoulder to shoulder
And back to back.
As smoke from a candle,
They steal away from light
Easing silently into harm’s way
Like wolves to the hunt.

These brave few.
These warriors.
Turning palm to fist when fists come to call
And tucking us in under a blanket
Woven from courage
By courage.
Steady hands and steady nerves
And a belief that justice will prevail
Even during the most charcoal black
Midnight hours.
They stand a post,
Keep a watch.
They have pushed their star-spangled
Chips to the center of the table
In the ultimate act of courage and defiance
And stood up when the call was heard
With no hesitation and no qualms.

These men.
These women.
These red, white, and blue
Brothers and Sisters
And fellow Americans.
These heroes.

Stand today,
You fighters.
Stand today,
You keepers of the peace.
Stand today,
You willful,
You proud,
You majestically unafraid.

Stand today,
You talons of the Eagle.

So we may give you thanks.

(*Author’s note: To all who have served, continue to serve, or will someday serve our great nation: Thank You.  From the bottom of my Red, White, and Blue-beating heart. . .thank you.  Stand today, so we may give you thanks.)

FIN

All Hallow’s Eve

Bones for the Boneyard
And the Reaper’s sickle sharpens
And creeps creep lithely
On the catpaws of night.

The gates, they swing open
On bloodrusted latches
As clocks tick towards blackness
With pendulum swings.

Midnight’s jawbone unhinges
Lurching hungrily forward
Scythe-hanging moon
Grinning a pallid white smile.

Bones for the Boneyard
And the Reaper’s sickle sharpens
And candlelight shivers
Guttering light wobbling drunkenly against darkness’s tide

Tremulous whispers
Let fly phantasm breath
Chill air sinking fangs into lungs
With malice undeniable.

The fingertips of fear slip silken across the flat of your scalp
Hangman’s knot easing gently over your throat
Tightening, constricting, contracting
Something stirs in the shadows between real and imagined.

Peripheral demons
Dance like flames licking flames
Terror sharpens to a point
Whittling rational to insane.

Bones for the Boneyard
And the Reaper’s sickle sharpens
Down we all spiral our drippings
Turned to drops.

Cadaver silence hovers thickly
Mortuary still
Leaves brushing leaves
By wind of by foot.

Echoes are stolen by sneak-thieving ebony hands
And the arterial treelimbs achingly inch
Hovering above with unknown
Ill-seeming intent.

Tonight is the night
Of All Hallow’s Eve
That Autumnal breeze
May be breath on your neck.

Bones for the boneyard
And the Reaper’s sickle sharpens. . .

(*Author’s note: Happy Halloween, everyone!)

FIN

When. . .

When the learning curve
Is a downward spiral
That too closely reminds us of flushing from porcelain to pipes
And the mechanism that runs us
Is run ragged
Terra firma turned rugged
And disillusion is a character-limited
Virus gone viral.

When youthful vigor
Tastes like vinegar
On the lips of leaders
And spews from their mouths a choked on cocktail
Of venom
And frustration
A firespitting sideshow with no circus to cling to
That has three rings that look more like shackles.

We watch long division
Divide us too long
Until mathematically we’re closing in on imaginary numbers
Not ball and not chain
But decimal point prison
Solitary confinement
Confirming entwinement
Boas constricting with predatory precision.

When civil wars are fed by silver spoons
And civil tongues like slivers jab
And politically correct
Is political rhetoric
As the pendulum swings
We find we might be in the pit
Eight feet long by six feet deep
On eight arachnid legs the truth scurries from light
We sit back and stare with bloodshot eyes
At the bloodshed
We’re bleeding out and this bloodletting
Is more like letting blood spill
And our hands are stained
With the brooding ink of unwritten promises.

When we’re a nation of narcoleptics
Operating heavy machinery
Against the doctor’s orders
And hoping our Matador’s dance with Red Bull
Will keep us awake.
When we tune in for primetime
And watch podiums clash
And throw our hands in the air like a stadium tsunami
In frustrated
Growling lung drum rolls
Of disbelievers.

When white noise
Turns static
Turns echoes
Turns thunder.

When tradition get bucked long before
The eight second mark
And hope erupts deep in the minds of the young
And blood-pumping hearts
Take heart
And take heed
And the spin cycle motor burns out
To find home in a hearse.

When them becomes us
And us becomes we
And one becomes many
Tyranny goes cadaver in the night
And morning breaks like a silky Atlantic wave
Licking at the toes of freedom in the sand.

FIN

11 Years Later

On this day, 11 years ago,
Darkness kicked open the door.
Spilled from under our childhood beds
Like the crawling monsters we imagined at a quarter past Midnight
With our night lights off.
Sticky.
Black.
Viscous.
It stained our country,
Hot metal flames kissing the edges of our
Declarations
And our constitutional beliefs.
On this day, 11 years ago,
We were attacked.

But on this day, 11 years past
The viciousness
That felled two towers
And imploded the innocence of a generation
Into a twisted metal carcass
Of steel
And concrete,
We do not shy away from the tears
That well,
From the flood that is dammed behind
The now-grown eyes of men and women;
Brothers and sisters.

For on this day, 11 years past
The insidiousness
That caved in one of five sides,
And collapsed too many lives,
Has yet to buckle our knees,
Has yet to force us down,
Has yet to lure us in with its opiate promises of blackness
And despair.

11 Years ago we clung to our flag.
A safety net of Stars,
A life raft of Stripes.
We held onto our one nation
Indivisible.
We reached out and found the calming hands
And tear-wet shoulders
Of loved ones,
Strangers,
Rivals
And lovers;
Brick by brick,
Person by person,
Mortared together by tragedy and strength.

11 years ago we rose,
Our battle-drum hearts pounding
Our eyes looking East
To the rising of the sun.
To the dust we had gone.
From the dust we had risen.
As Phoenix
And Eagle
We climbed as they fell
Dug deep in our sky-scraping hearts
And from fires,
Forged resolve.

11 years ago today,
America was attacked.
11 years ago today,
America was staggered.
We steadied ourselves with hope and with love.
With freedom.
With heroes.
With hands holding hands
Holding those who would crumble.

On this day, 11 years past tragedy,
Let us join together once again.

To thank those who charged in,
Where some would retreat,
To salute, with untrembling hand
And unweeping eye,
Those who protect us still;
Our talons of the Eagle.
To the people who knowingly,
Willfully, added their blood to our flag,
And those who still do.

Today let us join together once again.
To remember.
To always remember.

FIN

The Phoenix

Kiss the lips of the phoenix and rise from the ash.
Turn your ear to the South-Wind Muse,
Cradle your head in her whispers;
August-breeze fingers running through your hair
At ninety eight point six degrees
Of separation.

Lick salt-cracked lips
And speak prophetic.
Tempestuous tongues,
Vocal chords
Turned ripping ripcords,
Nimbly pirouetting through trip wires,
And snags,
And snares,
And the grinning metal grimaces
Of wolf traps unsprung.

Kiss the lips of the phoenix and rise from the ash.
Unbend your knees
From the cramped posture of the idolatrous
And lurch to a run.
Charge,
Don’t retreat.
Rally to the clangorous sound of victory,
Spilling outward as spark to flame,
And plant your flag to the hilt;
Colors unfurling,
Amphibian’s tongue
Lolling in the Jet Stream’s rapids.
 
Kiss the lips of the Phoenix.
From ash arise anew.
Turn your ear once more.
Listen to the whispers.

FIN

Spiral

If it’s the blind leading the blind,
At least we’re holding hands.
At least our fingers are gloving together
In knuckle-aching guidance.
At least we’re not alone.

Not blind.
Just tinted.
Tainted.
Dirty stained glass,
Refracting,
Reflecting,
But obscuring the view.
Offering up smoky
Half-truths
And quarter questions.
When did our deductive reasoning
Get deducted?
When did our novel
Novella
Get redacted
Into soundbites and local news anchors
Quipping and ripping?

If it’s the blind leading the blind
At least we’re holding hands.
At least honesty doesn’t fall on deaf ears,
Like a hollow echo from canyon’s bowels.
At least we’re hand in hand on Braille.
At least we’re not alone.

Our senses have not abandoned us.
Sensitivities
Wildfire through parched
Sensibilities,
Hungrily devouring
Like hot-air-fueled,
Oxygenated flames.
We know that the long division
Pulling apart these 50 states
Isn’t algebraic
but formulaic,
And that these attack ads
Add up
To an irritated aggregate.

Indeed,
It’s the blind leading the blind.
Take my hand.
You’re not alone.

FIN

Fireflies in June

Edison’s filaments,
In no-man’s firmament,
Skate star-ward on thick-cut night.
Our tongues Shakespearean,
Hearts drumming a tribal beat,
Swarthy night
Swaddles us deep.
Her eyes hold fire.
Her lips hold love.

The embers hang on buzzing wings.
On wisping currents,
And wayfarer’s breeze.
The trees echo.
Green
White noise;
A current of leaf and branch
Slowly easing downstream.

Thrumming,
Muted
Flashbulbs
Not popping, but warming slow
Like oven’s pre-heating.
Starry preamble ambling skyward.
Levitational lethargy.
Our hands twine together
Fingers slowly looping-the-loop;
Human cursive.

Low-hanging constellations,
Ebbing and flowing
Under the moon’s dilated eye.
Darkness tucks us in,
Side by side,
All the way to our chins.

FIN

Monday

It’s 9:20 A.M.
And time burns slow,
Like a long fuse in an old western movie
Snaking towards the bundled up TNT
Before being snuffed out with a trail-hardened finger or
The fifth lead bullet from a six-shooter
In an act of John Waynesian marksmanship.
 
It’s 11:21 A.M.
Caffeinated sizzle
Drank hastily
By the dawn’s too-early light
Has fried down to blackened grease.
The knot’s noose knows
Instinctively tightening
Boa constricting
Two loops with a cinching undertow.

It’s 11:57 A.M.
Outside the leaves shift
In June warmth
Each humid bluster
Diverts the branches like an indecisive flock
Of green seagulls,
Lost in the Midwest
The branches stiffly swim
Barked salmon heading up the Gulfstream.
The whispered hiss of conditioned air spits
Down my neck from an overhead vent.

It’s 1:43 P.M.

It’s 2:07 P.M.
Time lurches
Churning
Fitfully spiraling
Down a partially clogged drain

It’s 3:06 P.M.
My fingers flit from key to key
Letters spill from key to screen in a clattering
Splattering mess.
Cathartic
Cathodes
Forming thoughts
That spread like ink-filled brush to water
Droplets spreading
Like sci-fi amoebas under
Sci-fi microscopes.

It’s 3:42 P.M.
Ctrl P
CPRs my page to life
Electronic hum
Iron Lung-ing
The flat map of Times New Roman
Twelve point
Twelve step program
Out. 

The page is hot.

It’s 4:38 P.M.
The page cools.

It’s 5:15 P.M.
My tie loosens.
My pupils dilate.
Top button unhinges and silken snake
Drops like a too-soft drawbridge
Easing down from my throat
Like a stay of execution;
Governmental pardon as high noon approached.
Even as the Sun clings iron-fisted to the day.
Hot June air kisses me good night.
Home beckons.

Home.

FIN