Twenty Four Hours

To Ian,

frail, pale, with vapid eyes,

baritone, brother, born child of God but backboned by the Devil:

I lie down when I listen to you, keeping the tears

swirling in saunas of effervescent emotion: Marco Polo,

drip-drop, hopscotch, child's play – recreations from yesterday.

My joy is not the next man's: from Maryland to Macclesfield, mundanity.

I'm forever obsessed with the sunrise because the new dawn fades

into a perpetual autumn sunset with free-falling foliage,

fumbling towards the ecstasy of ash and dust,

sun holding sway until the final moment.

So, this is permanence....

July 15 – May 18

Firefly

You come to me

on summer's first eve

as a limited edition toy

You come to me

defective—nite lite

flashing fortuitously

You come to me

as a beacon born

before the longest night

You come to me

I grab, squeeze you:

my lucky star extinguished

Stonehenge

We used to be holy

holding hands at the Heel Stone

as the sun rose on summer solstice

a silhouette of stability

Today we are pagan

with primitive pursuits like

mimicking old magic of our first May

a mirage of a megalith

Days of Heaven

The seminal fire

Quiet, quelling the querulous

Nature's nurture – never casting shadows

Where crickets count sheep

and cousin locust never clouds our point of view

The eye in the sky twinkles indomitably

but burns too intensely – illuminating imminence

Innocence gone like days of polar winters

Leaving us frozen with the nostalgia of not knowing

The Great Gig in the Sky

winter

roaring nightly but drowning daily

spring

staking its claim deep in the dirt

summer

skulking away into a solemn sunset

autumn

arriving as a peacock in disguise a crow

GOD

sweating profusely

with

each breath a gale of exhaustion

as the

seasons seek dominion over the other

Killamanjaro

Dark urges mixed with passions' flare:

my relapses come frequently recently

as seen by my foreboding fumaroles

Mawenzi on the right and Shira on the left:

the demon and the angel extinct on either shoulder

Kibo: hardheaded with ice and inactive

but my body is hot and bothered and pressured

Molten moments create wanton waves

that at last flip the lid and it all spills out

leaving countrysides and towns languishing in lava

with the sun's answer as to why concealed in billowing ash

***

You'll view this on TV in a faraway land when my

caldera's collapsed further and I'm half a day dormant

Black History

I am descended from pharaohs

I am wild but royal from the chin up

I slept in the shadows of pyramids

I spent a sleepless night swirling in a Sea of Reeds

I was sold by my fellow man into foreign familiarity

***

Spent sleepless days parting seas of cotton and cane

Dogs at my heels

Sleepwalked for freedom through locust-plagued darkness

Dogs at my heels

Spent summer days cool as hoses parted my clothes

Dogs at my heels

Marched for freedom with my fellow man on the Mall

Dogs at my heels

***

Wild, royal, chin up, crawling success' pyramid

Looking eastward to Egypt's ancient wonders in ruin

Each effort as ephemeral as the last