Saturday, March 26, 2011

Shadows Lit and Fled



The shadows lit and fled within the cave-
The hole of past iniquities piled high
And packed closer than stacked Parisian ’combs
Of bones on bones; mixed neighbours friends and foes
Till numbers disappear with all the names.
Yet when the crack of earthquake, pain and trial
Broke through the granite roof of strong facades
And split the cave in two down to the roots
The sunlight shone on bones in milling piles
Where darkness once held uncontested sway.
And in those dry and dusty bones within
That cold Platonic cave new life begins
To spark a fire in marrow stiff and old.
Life from death; a life renewed as phoenix
Wings and lasting beneath the phoenix star.
For now a valley is where once a cave
Held its crowded prisoners beneath dark,
Heavy earth and rock to dry out and wait
For what they did not know. These bones they have
Memories but no knowledge and hoping
Not much for futures, they forgot the hopes
In pasts. Before the end they grew as they
Now appear: cynical and hard and lone.
They saw only I’s and me’s and not we’s
But each a king, each a queen in their own
Reckoning, till parched and lost they became
All indistinguishable pale, dry bones.
The names and titles and wealth and everything
They once were and thought and fought over was
Forgotten; nameless heaps in an arid
Valley. There they should remain, forever,
A hidden mystery of death and woe.
Yet despite everything that lives and seems
And all that had ever lived a whisper,
A voice, a word arose beneath the sun
To light the still burning fire in these bones.

Monday, March 14, 2011

What Silences Say

This poem can be read in several ways. It explores the theme of silence, among others. The brackets can be read in many ways: emphasizing the words within, as if the words have been removed, with no audible difference, etc. Each way of reading the brackets alters the meaning and sense of the line but keeps the main theme/message whole.


Enjoy,

- F. L.

Are you listening?
-Listening to what the silences say;
The (gaps) between words
And (spaces) between glances
Between (the seen and) the heard
Between (pauses and) second chances
Between what is and what may
Are you listening?

It’s in the flutter of autumn leaves
It’s in the floating winter’s flakes
It’s in the patter of distant spring
It’s in the summer and in the wake

I’ve been listening-
I’ve been listening for (all) my life
To authority’s (steady) voices
To the rambling of my mind
To the plethora of choices
And through (the wastings of) my time...
And the hollow (music) rife
With silences
I’ve been listening

In autumn’s floating leaves
In winter’s fluttering flakes
In spring’s distant patter
In summer’s shadowed wake

Listening
To what the silences forgot;
To past (and present) tied
By ponderous (muted) string
To noise and shouts belied
As another (dumbshow) thing
(The sounds) signified as rot
Are you listening?
To decaying

Pale leaves mouldering
White flakes congealing
Black drops pattering
Red sky mummifying

Are you listening now?

Between
And in-between
The silences
There is much to hear.

Sunday, March 6, 2011

What happens when?




What happens when

that little, growing light

at the end of the tunnel

seems less enticing
than

that

familiar

darkness

behind?

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Broken Spears


Dropping old tools;
Last of
Our recourses

Laid heavy so
In our
Letting arms

Matchstick shafts snapped
And scattered
Like sparks

To light warming
Fires in
Cold hearts

Never to burn
Eyes like
Molotov fear.