Sounds of the Night

There is an incredibly subtle and powerful calculating industry of modern dislocation, where that which is deep and lives in the silence within ourselves is completely ignored. The surfaces of our minds continue to be seduced by the power of images. With the continued netting of everything, chosen images can immediately attain universality.~John O’Donohue

Instead of hectoring, I try patience,
a prodigious reveal of common sense.
Taciturn as my solitude reveals
miracles thundering these boxcar wheels

revolve on tracks I’d thought abandoned, dark
and echoing across the night, they spark
the revolutionary thoughts, inspire
the will to revivify my fire.

Inspired by: Taciturn, the Extraordinary in the Ordinary–listening to a train thundering through last night, Hectoring, Prodigious and the Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt “rev“. And the book Anam Cara by John O’Donohue.

Gives Us Those Nice Bright Colors

…And brought them all together for the night, I know they’d never match my sweet imagination. Everything looks worse in black and white.~Paul Simon

The third riverbank I perceive in dreams
before my mind ossifies how life seems
into a prison fear recommends. Black
and white and shades of gray, a fascist’s lack

of imagination: color sputters
fizzles, false premises clutter.
Where there’s smoke, there’s fire, so agile heart’s
aflame as false narratives fall apart.

Inspired by: Recommend, Clutter, Agile, Ossify and written for the Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt black, gray and white.

Kodachrome was recorded in Muscle Shoals Studios, Alabama with the amazing musicians The Swampers.

Bent Toward Light

It takes great courage for children to see their parents suffering and yet still obey the greater love, to see to it that they themselves succeed in life, and fulfill the desires of their parents’ hearts.~Bert Hellinger, Love’s Hidden Symmetry.

The tumultuous days of denial
grief-stricken doorways to past’s worst trials
infringe on my bountiful reception
seed insurmountable self-deception.

I weed and prune, root fingers in this soil.
Ancestral trauma lingers, I recoil
but back I go, determined to be free
claiming the mess as mine, evolving me.

Inspired by: tumultuous, doorway of past, bountiful, infringe and written for the Stream of Consciousness Saturday to close eyes and point (to the nearest printed material when I sat down.)

Music of the Spheres

In my body parts celebration, run
a tuning fork vibration, humming. Spun
cobwebs of fine energy electric
respond, settle all the places hectic.

Here I am new and vibrant. I can say
no to the dental X-rays; they don’t play
well in my balance. Not a working stiff,
I’m noodling my own creative riff.

Inspired by: Xray, Celebration, Cobweb and written in the Stream of Consciousness Saturday style to the prompt body parts. With a nod to the amazing balance tuning forks create in my body electric.

Featured image: playing “electric” guitar back in 1975.

If I Move

You come and pour yourself on me.~David Gates, If.

If I move to Montana’s star-spangled
nights, resolve all these dissonance-tangled
overcast skies, will you come, harmonize
with wildlife we espy? I realize

the brutal winters’ temperature extremes
will affect our dreams in ways unforeseen.
That’s the way of ifs. We, unknowing, leap
into the falls above icy streams. Keep

our heads above water until we’re thrust
into the consequences of blind trust.
You say we must discuss this, we’re too old,
believe there’s safety staying in the fold

crumbling mementos, breathing in their dust.
If everything is falling, then we must
imagine new, journey alone, return
the monstrous swindle group-think fraud unlearn.

I’ll write, I promise, every single day.
Present inspired intuitive arrays
outside the mainstream’s fear-mongering byplay
my derring-do and brave new world display.

Inspired by: Resolve, Star-spangled, Swindle, Espy and the Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt to start with if.

Featured image: Another foggy Indiana fall morning.

I’m Still Standing

You’ll wind up like the wreck you hide behind that mask you use.~Elton John

I cannot accept, reject your basic
premise. Remiss not to say you’ll stay sick
in this new normal, heavy metals plunge
past natural defense, your health expunge

willingly. Confused by equivocal
spin, the state you’re in choosing imbecile
to follow the crowd, loud, over the cliff.
Indeed, you sneer at my logic. The stiffs

who lead the parade mechanical toys.
I blow the lid off their obnoxious noise.
And still you march to the dead beat. Too late,
they drone. It’s play. Just breathe and you’ll think straight.

Inspired by: Indeed, Equivocal in Stream of Consciousness Saturday style using Lid.

Featured image: This great white heron loves to visit in the early morning fog.

Evolutionary Spin

Nobody else is gonna do it for you. You have to pick yourself up out of your dark moment; you gotta be your own source of light.~Kyle

I’ve been the scapegoat, carried the blame-wave,
aspired to be recognized, acclaimed brave.
My intrinsic value I clearly see.
The outcast’s role’s expired, doesn’t fit me.

And now I treasure me–dude, I’m all that–
my foes, exposed, call me insane, pick at
old wounds I healed, inspired to evolve.
Miscast no longer, their figments dissolve.

Inspired by: Figment, Blame, Intrinsic, Wave and the Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompts inspire/expire/aspire.

Featured image: Kaleidoscope effect on today’s sunrise photo.

A Far Cry

“In order to see birds it is necessary to become part of the silence.”~Robert Lynd

Far away his wise counsel laser keen
reveals the roots that constant drama screens.
I sit by lake and ground in dawn, attend
a patient great blue heron who can blend

as racing gray of this cloudscape conceals
the blue I’m always searching for. The wheel
of fortune turns. I bleed with each riposte
surrounded by the haunted, for their ghost

I love. The unmarked minefield of fresh grief
is marked by feathered messengers who see
my need. The spectacle earthward glides clear.
Mourning dove lands. The tears are ever near.

Inspired by: Attend, Cloudscape, Spectacle, Riposte and the written in the Stream of Consciousness Saturday rules with the prompt near/far.

Featured image: This morning’s constantly changing cloudscape.

Strain at Gnats and Swallow Camels

You advise me to soldier on, stoic
facing calamity, be heroic
in this nine-month gestation between stars
uranus retrograde, venus and mars

until the shifting skies will galvanize
me into right action, confident, wise.
But restless as impulsive scripts play out
–a heron scolds my porch light here, casts doubt

and so I puzzle in starlit predawn
swallow my pride, resist patterns I’m drawn
to repeat. Old wounds have broken wide–death’s
gift. I calm and ground, thankful for each breath.

Written for the Saturday Stream of Consciousness prompt Puzzle and inspired by: Between, Swallow and Galvanize.

Featured images: a glorious dawn and the heron who flew over, scolding me as I photographed.

Shall We?

Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.~Carl Sandburg

Where heavy-handed choreography
designed propaganda cosmography
stumbles, the ramifications tumble
each subsequent movement panic’s fumble

a constant stress of shocking illusion
no time to consider–such confusion
even when the truth’s exposed, the dancers
pirouette past all of logic’s answers.

Entrained by centuries of outright lies,
taught to question our worth, our very eyes
deceive us. How to wake inside the box
poisoned and gasping, have we been outfoxed?

Bare feet on ground, crowned by the rays of sun,
lucid, I challenge the whirl. I am done
being spun by narratives built on rot.
I dance my tune, reject the old gavotte.

by: Choreography, Kaleidoscope, Ramification and the Saturday Stream of Consciousness prompt where.

Featured image: Last night’s sunset on the lake, kaleidoscope effect.