The Mystic Chords of Memory

Unmoored.

    ...and drifting

                                        .shrinking to a fog-obscured 

               shade of what once was on

                               ...storming beaches.

Are you dreaming?

        Are you

 you.

                     ... i hear a cold 

and distant psalm

As mocking laughter

 ..the echo.

                of my hero...

      ..no longer in

                                        this empty vessel

       tied now...

      only by the blood

                and the mystic chords

                                                                 of memory

A Bird Took Flight

Kingfisher, Kingfisher

Spread your ghostly wings

I held a little bird

But the baby didn't sing

Blue feathers landing

In a clear, cruel light

Off a broken dock

A bird took flight

Kingfisher Kingfisher

Will you ever stay?

I held a baby bird

How can you fly away?

There's comfort in the wings

There's weeping in the night

Kingfisher flew away

And our bird took flight

Tower of Cloud

Frame of bone

corporeal home

colder darker shell

To a

Chasm of void

soul devoid

depth ne'er can tell

Or a

Valley of fire

hissing pyre

crimson pulsing hell

Is a

Tower of cloud

 His shining shroud

A wispy golden bell

?

Questions real

none revealed

ever fill this well

Birds of Paradise

 

Forged in the vast chasm of Kīlauea,

The blood of the Earth.

Pele's fiery angst, dashed upon

An inexorable Pacific chill.

Perfection in chaos.

Life born through death;

Verdant resurrection

On these molten wings.

The sword is removed; the garden is broken

Once more by God's own image,

Casually defiling divinity;

Through crimes of good intention.

Eden's lament echoes

Through Hawaiian valleys,

Warbling in extinct songs.

Ghosts of the birds of paradise.

Vacant Days

Let the air come fill your lungs

Words once scrawled, now be sung.

There can be no better way

To try and fill these vacant days

Precious metal, yet be wrought

With gleaming gems, light we've caught

Let whatever be displayed;

They cannot fill your vacant days.

Farmers call or curse the sun

Whether storm, or loaded gun

What'er your trouble, be not dismayed

It cannot fill these vacant days.

Time shall flow; words shall pass.

Kiss of death like broken glass.

When the Lord comes and stays

I know he'll fill these vacant days.