Play and Interplay

A touch of bottled light reflected

Across the eyes

A dance of undulating waved

Into the ears

A breath of crisp air

with the clean decay of leaves

The play and interplay of what goes in

And what bubbles to come out

Let it out

Don’t fear

Lest it be bad

Let it be bad

Or at least, let it be not good

Not yet

Still frothing, growing, changing

Let it out

Let it breathe

Let it leave and become

Let the play and interplay not end

With the black hole of your eyes

The vacuum of your ears

Let it free

Let it back out

Teach me your play

And interplay

Where the blue glow ends
 And the slick dark begins

Where the lean and hunch
Becomes the cower and drowse

Where the time slips
And comes off the axel
And rolls away
And we watch it go

Though it travels as fast as we walk

Meet us there
And save us from it.

The Crescendo

I rage, I toil, I cower and sweat.

I have not met my maker yet

and if I meet him I shall say,

‘Please come again another day.

I am not ready. I am not ripe.

The times not right!’ I’d wail and gripe.

I’d beg of him right there some sign

that he was fair; that fate aligned

and gave me all that I deserved

not less and from the path I swerved

by some dark power ill beset

to full crescendo of regret.

And in the whisper there I heard

the tempest break at silent words.

I knew, and he reminds me now,

that I deserved much worse allowed

for fate is held by piercèd hands

that save each one from fair demands.

From instant darkness, ash, and flame

and takes upon himself the blame

So God the Father please forgive

my angry heart; my will to live.

Teach me—slowly—how to die

that I might live for more than lies—

not what I see but for the hearts

That beat for thee—in distant parts—

a tune you love to hear and share:

The music of the lives you cared

enough to bring out from the dark.

And each that beats and stills you mark

as yours—this orchestra of strings.

So take my heart and make me sing:

Now in life and then in death,

may all I do; may every breath

be all for you my Elohim—

the Ever Greater Than He Seems.

The Grand Risk

And I said that if they don't
then you will
leave...
but I knew that the truth doesn't
break
down so simply,
because there
at the breaking
and in the moment of
retreat
the tale of the steps you took
and the hearts that
meet
are lost in the blur of the 
momentary.


Before the smudging
of present sufferings
there was love and
hope
smiles and
laughs
and eventually
those things that will last on
into life and memory. 
And we look back
and see
and know
it was worth it to
go past this 
flickering hesitation. 


Go past this and don't
build those comfort walls
of fluffy cells
in the cold institute of your 
self-embracing solitude. 
Go past this into that
grand risk
of a heart open to 
greater loves than this.

My Choice Draught

I’m inebriated on life

And all it has to offer

I keep taking big gulps

—Coughing, spluttering, spilling—

Rather than sips and swallows.

There is so much music

Sights, smells, things to try

Tastes to taste

Feelings to feel

Thoughts to think

There are so many books,

Sports, jobs, games, skills, responsibilities

And the people!

The people!

There are so many of them

So many of us

So many stories,

Tales of families, sorrows, joys

Of evil, good and all that’s between,

Friends, acquaintances, lovers, and all who could be...

Why is it that so few will touch my life?

So few... and so many...

I am drunk on presence

And thirsting for presence

I vacillate between extreme loneliness

And a desire for solitude

But the people

I wouldn’t give them up

I wouldn’t go sober

For while they kill me, enrage me,

Love me, challenge me, seduce me,

Question me, inform me, teach me,

Learn from me, touch me, strike me,

Enable me, analyze me, judge me,

Forgive me, kiss me, speak to me,

Destroy me and rebuild me

I know that I would not be me

Without you.

Let us get drunk on our presence

On our very being, and that being

Together.

In the Presence of Greatness

IV. The Diving Post

Lone and jutting from the wave brushed sea

I waited long for him to climb up me.

Once a summer he’d make a single trip

To my lonely beach to take a dip.

He would swim a hundred feet from shore

To take a single dive and not one more.

III. The Pier Column

Barnacled, I raised my load so light

In my row I stood so true and right

And once a month she’d be coming down

To the coast by this fast dying town.

She’d walk the planks past me down to the end

And watch the sea pass by just like a friend.

II. The Evergreen

A blaze of green I stood so proud and tall

Until that day when my turn came to fall.

A man came with an eye patch and a brace

And looked at me with sun upon his face.

He felled me there, in land becoming stark

And took off his glove to touch my gnarled bark.

I. The Sapling

Awake with waiting till my time would come

To be between his finger and his thumb

And from his bag of forest he grabbed me

To place me in the soil to form a tree.

Upon a stump nearby, he sat to eat

And shed some silent tears into his meat.

V. The Carving

Now I stand upon a shelf austere

With memories in moments through the years.

She found me there along the beach one day

A chunk of driftwood, weathered, dried and grey.  

She carved and whittled something out of me,

Something always waiting for her to see.

I Made Myself...

I made myself an island

And carved its edges mild

I made myself an island

But It still became the wild

I made myself an island

Safe from all the waves

I made myself an island

Where I’ll dig my grave

I made myself an island

And it stands here still, alone

I made myself an island

When I really want a home

I made myself an island

And my walls became the sea

I made myself an island

Oh Lord what’s become of me?

I Defy Despair

I defy despair

till the moment after my last breath

takes me elsewhere.

I defy despair

in the midst of turmoils

economic, environmental and emotional

I defy it

when all I own is dust

when all I know is gone

when all I love has passed

away

I defy despair

I defy it when

those in charge act like children

when suffering spreads like a wound

when the rational seems defeated by madness

when the voices of children

starved and helpless

go unanswered

I defy despair

And I do not defy it with anger

I do not fling impotent rage into the wind

I do not shout at the sky

Or rail against the stars

I defy it quietly and simply

serenely and constantly

persistently and resolutely

with that powerful

four letter word...

Hope.

Just try to defy that.

She Walked Between

Who walked between my winters
And left a warm impression there
Who walked between these islands
Reminding me of bridges fair

Who scaled the walls so frozen
Who added life to all the bare
And plain facades I'd chosen
To mask me from a luring stare
Of eyes that keep their secrets
While calling one to care

Who left before the winter
Could freeze her anywhere.

What Creeps By My Bedside

Self-pity crept in by the bedside

Laid a languorous hand on my back

And pressed me into smothering covers

I fought back not a bit and sunk

Into the soft, motionless depths

Of a savoured sorrow

That tasted dry and overwrought

Bringing me back to restless immobility

What tossing and turning did this ship—

Myself—endure upon the sea of sleeplessness

I fought with rage and pride against a foe

That dared to offer out a hand to save me

“Grab hold and live!”

He cried from the deck

And still I screamed futile rage and sorrow

Gurgling against the waves

“Give me this!”

I shouted

“Give me one wrong to remember;

One grudge to nurture.”

But he stole the dead weight from my hands

And carried me to shore

Back to my bedside

Where self-pity lay defeated

Then instead of weeping

I gave in to sleeping.

The Wreck

The waves of the sea flow unknowingly

Where graceful ships once sailed

Where swimming backs glistened in setting sun

Where dolphins and turtles swam

            And still the waves come.

The waves have no memories

Not like the land and the sea-floor

Memories can’t be written in the waves -

Like they are in the rock -

Or strewn across the water

Like they are in the sandy bed of the ocean

            And still the waves come.

The ocean keeps her secrets below the surface

Men get caught up in their reflections

While beneath lies something greater

In the shallows or the depths

More mysteries are hidden

Than the ever-undulating surface tells

            And still the waves come.

Near the white sand shallows
Of a palm speckled beach

Lies a secret there for any to see

Anyone who looks deeper

And has an aluminum lung

            And still the waves come.

Past a carpet of timid garden eels

And schools of shimmering jacks

And flashing barracuda

Is the waves’ hulking secret

Weighed down by bright orange fans of coral

And the black, yellow and green of feather stars

It is the wreck

            And still the waves come.

What was once a ship, now a secret garden

Flowing soft corals and multicoloured hard corals

Darting gobies and ponderous groupers

Fish of every colour on a painter’s pallet

Grazing turtles

And slowly patrolling sharks

Tired out from a night’s hunting.

And still the waves come.

This secret garden

This Atlantis beneath forgetful waves

Is hardly touched by man and rarely seen

An oasis in the underwater desert

            And still the waves come.

But if you go where the waves can’t remember

And where the storms have long passed

Where the turtles and the white-tips roam

You will see a slice of Eden

Buried from man forever

Beneath waves with no memory

            And still they come. 

Even Pinocchio Knew His Maker

The puppets mock the puppeteers

not noticing their strings

They dance and hop and raise their voice to sing...

All they know are peers

of wood and wire

of paint and polish

of termite hollowed ash

of ventriloqu’d voices

and mimicked choices

that with their pride does clash.

“We are the kings

We hold the strings!”

They obediently say

not knowing who in the air

above holds fatal sway.

Don’t you see the enemy?

He wishes you to dance

your time away until you say

it was nothing but mere chance.

Don’t you see the enemy?

He wishes you to hide

him behind a myth or blind

tradition that you deride.

And what if sin and evil

are more than dated words?

What if they hold meaning

more than the absurd

notion of a god that acts like a child—

notion of a god that is anything but mild—

For what does this race earn

if not cruel death

by turning on itself and ignoring the rest?

We rape and burn and pillage

We steal and break and kill

A child takes a village

But one father has no will

We sow our own destruction

And arm our future foes

We revel in corruption

To what end? No one knows

And all us so-called-people

Who think ourselves so good

With hubris higher than a steeple

At the wayside we all stood

The spectators are guilty

The watchers did the crime

The reclining ones have blood-stained hands

We all live in the grime

Not one of us is sinless

We all hold equal share

We can make ourselves all kinless

Or admit there’s burdens to bear

When we see that we’re all brothers

And sisters straight from birth

We’ll be halfway to discovering

Our purpose here on earth.

When Your Eyes Are Green

In the dim light

Or the rain

Or when you’re looking away from me

And I gaze aslant into your eyes

They appear to be green...

Not the bright green of sun kissed grass

Or the dark green of alpine forests

But the green at the surface of deep waters

I want to lose myself in those waters

I want to dive into those eyes and never come up for air

I want to explore the deeps that the surface hints at

I want to find all there is of you, there, in your eyes

Find it

And embrace it as my own

But who can own the sea?

What man can claim the waters he treads as his?

No,

The more he watches the sea

The more he pursues her

The more he dives in

The more he finds

That it is the sea that owns him...

The sea embraces him

The sea holds him up

The sea threatens to drown him

And the storms of the sea can always cast him on some deserted shore

Never to find home again...

No,

Man does not own the sea

Though he may claim her

Though he may sail across the surface

And gaze at the shores

Though he may hunt the deeps

And find the hidden places

Though he may declare his love for her

He may never own her.

For the sea is free

And fair

And unfathomable.

So it is better not to quest for ownership

It is better to make no claim

Or conquest

But to remain in awe

And wonder

Swimming

And hoping that the inexplicable may be:

That when that dive is taken

That dangerous dive down deep

You find yourself in the fathoms

Not needing to breathe

The History of a Book

I love used books

with their crackling spines

and musky scent

their easily turned pages

and caressingly rough texture.

But most of all I love it

when there’s a name

written with care on the front inside cover.

Or when some handwritten note or dedication

remains like a precious artefact

speaking of another place, another time

some memory of a person I never met

some legacy of one I may never know.

I wonder where they are now

What kind of life do they live?

Do they have children?

Do they have a warm place to call their own?

Do their friends call them often?

I wonder what caused them to get rid of the book

Did it get accidently thrown in with garage sale items?

Did they grow tired of the words?

Or did it simply mock them from the shelf?

—Saying, You’ll never read me again

you never have the time to read anymore.

I wonder if perhaps they died

and the book was sold or given away

and passed from hand to hand

until it found its way into mine

to share with me some piece of that person’s life.

What influence did the book have on them?

Did it make them cry?

Did it make them angry?

Did it make them want to share it with the world?

I write my name

right below theirs

never crossing out the history of a book.

The book is mine now

but it will not always be.

It could pass down generations

leaving only the fading list of handwritten names

the yellowing pages

and the creases in the spine

as memories.

I hope that one day someone will pick up an old book

see my name

and wonder who I am.

His Legacy

They say he took his own life

Like she once tried to do

But where she was saved

By miracle or luck

(I’ll take the former)

He succumbed

To leave that everlasting question:

Why...

He passed on

Like we all must one day

Leaving too soon it seems, too young

Leaving children behind

Children old enough to have given him grandkids

But too young to have tried.

He passed on before that empty-nest-hope for grandkids could sneak in.

Yet she

Who once tried to take her own life—

She who got a second chance—

She lives and begins to feel that empty-nest-hope stir.

She lives and dreams and hopes and plans.

She works and suffers and fails and cries.

She calls her son at 1 a.m.
                                 With tears in her voice
                                                               Asking if he heard the news

He, who was close by after she met those bright unblinking eyes

                                           On top that unforgiving asphalt

He, who came on that horrible task to pick up her car

                                           Abandoned at the side of the highway

He, who came to talk to a baffled husband wondering
                                           What did he do wrong?—What signs did he miss?

He, who came to talk to a father with no way of explaining impossibilities

                                           To children confused and afraid

He, who offered to help in a situation most would flee from,

He, who waded into the incomprehensible mess of it all

And offered a warm hand,

Is gone.

His hand is cold and sapped of strength

He has left his family and this world behind
                                            But he is not dead.

For he was there for a man at the height of a freefall

A husband who had left all he understood behind

A father falling through thin air grasping for something that makes sense.

He was there for a family in the disarray of impossible chaos—

The impossible that somehow was

He reached out and was there.

And there he remains.

His legacy lives on

In the warmth of a father’s hands

In the tears of a mother’s eyes

In a son’s trust

In a daughter’s love

In the family he helped to heal

He lives on.

His death is still a heavy thing to bear

A weight too large to understand.

So shed your healing tears

And wail out your confusion—

The whys that heave out your chest—

But after the rawness passes

When the memories still remain

Remember he still lives in my family

And in all who he touched in their pain.

Blindness

They say, "love is blind"
Well so is hope.

Hope is blind.
Unafraid of darkness
Unperturbed by danger
Unmoved by failure
Hope is blind.

And there in the darkest night
There at the pinnacle of failure
There surrounded by enemies
Hope lives on.

Hope is defiant and lasting
And for as long as you hold on to hope
Hope holds on to you.

No tunnel goes forever
No valley or gorge is without bottom
Every ocean has a shore
And the sun will rise
For a million years more.

Ne Me Quitte Pas

I was walking through a blasted grove

Of figs and berries burnt to ash

This land once full of green and growth

Now brought that memory down to crash.

And in that land of blackened pillars

That seemed a Hades temple cold

I saw a flash of white above me

Too bright for prematurely old

Eyes that squint against the gleaming

Inside a world that has gone grey

Oft miss a beacon’s guiding

When from the path their feet do stray.

And here despite my squinting wonder

I saw alight upon a tree

A dove as bright as morning’s splendour

And brighter still than memories.

And there I froze awake in awe

To see so near such beauty live.

Why his pause and hesitation

Where life so long had ceased to give

Its hope and splendour at its being

It seems now just a heavy weight

But yet that bird came down alighting

As if defying seems of fate.

And here he stays nearby beside me

Though he seems so out of place

He should for every ’visioned reason

Take flight from this our burning race

Perhaps because he came to meet me

In this unholy blasted waste

He may remain right here beside me

To guide me to a better place.

(Ne me quitte pas)

You’re all the hope that I could find.

(Ne me quitte pas)

Without you I’ll just wander blind.

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.

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.

What happens when?

What happens when

that little, growing light

at the end of the tunnel

seems less enticing

than

that

familiar

darkness

behind?