In The Shadow

in the shadow of the burgeoning rose of the nucleon

the truncheon bludgeons the escutcheon 

behind the curmudgeon’s luncheon of gudgeon

paean to the surgeon’s smidgeon of dudgeon

and the echoed pigeon’s wings from light to the dungeon

ELE

all it would take is out of the blue

a mile wide slamming down

any moment

open the sky raining down fire

boil the oceans

do the things you love

be with whom you love

and be grateful

Hide and Seek

in the shade under a willow tree full of summer’s green

the branches hung like a curtain all around

as a child it was like a shelter

he sat there smiling waiting

he heard the children gather saying

“We found everyone. Do you want to play again?”

and then they ran off

had he hidden so well they forgot him

or had they never thought of him at all

he remained there for hours until night

head bowed

when his parents came calling

Force Without Thought

gathering at the border

a force without thought

following an order

to end fabricated threats

the threads of narrative

woven with words on

a government media loom

rise and climb death

blood of the chessmen

falling on stone-faced strategy

score by score the only winners

the numbered dead 

In Darkness Grinning

on the ruined castle floor

is a rusted iron ring on an iron banded door

in the darkness underneath

dusty stairs of stone descending

the rat-gnawed bones of a foolish thief

beyond the bones and down below

cold dungeon dark the whispering waits

where shadows weep in fetid pools

that ooze toward the sewage grates

in one dark cell where even light won’t go

there lurks a grinning creature mad of eye

with strips of leather stuck between his fangs

bent clasps of gold from armor lay nearby

he guards this growing trove with greedy glee

awaiting more adventurous fools 

to spring upon and eat before they flee

Walking Home On A Rainy Night

the rain fell up sting sharp as rice

in sheets stabbing the streets twice

poor flowers beaten in their beds

pink petals pouring from their heads

while trees dropped leaves that pelted down

a waxy patchwork on the ground

and i out walking headphones in

paid no mind to the screaming din

half mile from home did naught but grin

soaked through to my sensuous skin

Acceptance

aurora twine your alluring fingers in my hair
sea wind combed and wild about my face
pick your eye up over the gray waves and
shine your grace and play that soul freshening song
the singing has me besotted barefoot in sand
in love alone illuminated 
by the golden salted dawn

Miserable

today i floated through the window out

over the grass into the sunlit sky

and saw myself in passing looking low

behind my desk with misery welled eye

so i kept going up toward the sun

into the heart of starry brilliant fire

and lost myself for minutes on the run

returning to the burn of dead desire

Proxy "Magic: The Gathering" Lands in Watercolor Panels

I painted these using watercolor pencils over the last three or four days. 

The mountains were my first attempt. I used a mana symbol cut from a land on the first panel. For the others I used stickers from a gift box of old Magic Cards. Then, I used Mod Podge to seal them and add durability.

I just finished the forest panels tonight. I haven't mod podged them yet, but intend to. They are still taped together, but when I am confident they're dry, I will separate them and apply the sealer to front and back. I won't be using stickers or putting mana symbols on these at all.

I enjoyed painting these quite a lot. I think I may do more paintings on small panels like these, and include them as unique art pieces in copies of the Dionysian Blunderbuss zine I am planning (if people request to have copies sent to them).

Let me know what you think. 

Be good to each other.

~ MS

Haiku: Winter Blooms

Blossoms bloom as steam
between holes in the lattice
of hot pie cooling.

Another Missed Day

I missed posting yesterday's poem (02/19/22) ... so here is one I wrote this morning:

In the winter noon light,

the house is all sharp edges

and deep angles.

Cold air whines in through cracks,

no matter how tightly shut the windows.

The cat finds a patch of low sunlight

and sleeps fitfully on the rug.

The kitchen tile is uneven, and

there’s a bulge in the ceiling that’s been there

since we moved in.

The neighbor’s flag makes sharp flat flapping sounds

like a coiled towel snap on my ears.

My son, angry with me for asking what’s wrong,

takes his breakfast to his room.

From My Raft Among The Reeds

from my raft among the reeds

i see the moon penetrating the surface of the river

and its imperfect copy beyond the sky

Eidolon

wherever i go lately it seems it’s too late

the wine has been open too long

the food cooled and picked over

flies no longer waived away

age is a death sentence for friendship

work is a wailing wall

sleep is dreams of weeping

when my wife and children are in bed

i walk outside and stare back at 

the cold eye of the moon

my shadow walks with me in silence

my breath a phantom in the wind

like a child 

hands over my eyes

i have become invisible

i can’t put them down

Newlyweds/Parenting

1.

there was a single brief reprieve

in the weeks after the wedding

the plane made metaphor of 

two grounded lives 

and two birds flew 

to the mountains

out of the bounds 

of what they knew

 

2.

hell is worry of a parent for a child

who is lost in their bedroom

in willful silence

a beating heart eaten

in the abysmal dark

by a creature who believes love

is nervous devouring

Afterlife

peel back Greenland and that’s where I will lay my head

North America of heart and hunger for my chest and stomach

my hips and legs under the slowly depleted rain forests of South America

and my feet under the snowy Antarctic blankets

lay the lands back over me

i promise not to roll around too much

there i would sleep until it’s over

i won’t mind the dirt and the things that crawl

dark and warm in my burrow

burned sometimes by belches of magma

when i need a drink the rivers and streams will flow into me

and everything will carry on

until it is quiet

in the post human silence

where i am not welcome

i may rise and brush the dirt from my eyes.

sip the fresh clean clouds from blue skies

and then sit taking it all in

eagles will nest in my hair

elk will ramble and roam across the fields and forests of my thighs

until I am covered with dust and wilds

in repose

i will become mountains

Defect

abrogating and wasted 

awash in loss and cortisol basted

brain is on fire the light’s almost gone

out of choices no voice 

on the other side of my phone

been a lot of years out here enduring alone

harboring unpopular barbarian thoughts

about corporate sources of discourse and power zoned

at four am the ad campaigns stage a foray

to my shame into my worried mind lame earworm soiree

today it’s hard to feel the Marx card is worth pealing

in the dark night suburban shard light splashing

wishing for sleep but staring at the ceiling

knowing i’m going nowhere 

i got no shares and i’m pear shaped

i get blank stares i got no cape

for no reason I paint landscapes

from my desk chair i breath stale air

I stay inside ‘cuz I’m all hair like grape ape

people run rampant when frightened to see me

i tell them i’m no harm but nobody believes me

so i write to right wrongs

i sing songs in the shower

if you long for a cursed verse

give me a bower and

one 

silent 

hour

Sketchbook X

 

Watercolor - From a photo I took two years ago at a farmhouse upstate.

Winter Day Before Dawn

puffed clumps of snow breeze-borne float 

softly tapping on the morning’s coat

gray shadows lay and roll

none angled nor deep

while the cloud pink lid is closed 

our star still asleep

by the window laced with rime

steam hovers on warm bread warm cup

so quiet so dear this time out of time

before the house is up

Nostalgia Haiku

nostalgia seeks
like a hungry ghost needing

to feed on the lost

Sketchbook IX

 

watercolor & watercolor pencil

Until The Ground

it did not bring him low to love this way

he’d never groveled never scraped nor knelt

he did not understand how falling could

correctly be the word for what he felt

he felt a tug at heart like it was tied

with string to dandelion yellow kites

and near no clawing trees nor power lines

with gusts of warming wind to guide their flight

and yet in flying or in falling one

remains the same until one touches ground

for everything in air or earth is bound

like Icarus in wings beneath the sun

to earth where what goes up must soon come down

still in that briefest rise the goal is won

Purpose

when my body is all that’s left behind

unburden yourself of that bulk in the furnace

then when it is dark and cool and nice

use the bits of bone and teeth for clattering as dice

let the coarse powder turn your soft hands grey

blend it with some ochre river clay

fashion a bowl to ornament a table’s surface

or for serving soup or stew

savory or sweet wholly wholesome 

nourishing to you

finally i’ll have fulfilled my purpose 

[My Wife Texted,] "How's It Going?"

 

Untitled 2.8.22

the morning sun was a 

hot hammer on my bowed head

as I swung the pick to

break apart the rocky earth

the toil inspired only sweat

sopping brows that spilled over

into my stinging eyes

over my sunburned nose that 

dripped onto the soil

perspiration sealed my clothes

clinging to my corpus

stifled by the very air

that baked the landscape everywhere

but then a silver cloud shrouded the sun

and i looked up to that turquoise sky

and a cool breeze chilled my sweat

giving good feelings for my mind to wander by

so i laid that pickaxe on the ground

the boss’s calls were muffled by the wind

i walked to the well and drew cold water

to cool my sandpaper tongue 

wash the grit from my teeth

i found a shade tree a way off to sit beneath

and watched the clouds

and listened to the approaching horses’ whinny

before I fell asleep

Looking Toward Spring

the spade-headed tulip breaks through

the wet spring earth gives up

the leaf cocoon juts toward the light

sol shines on the cloak of radiant red petals

bursting forth in lustrous bloom

the gold-crowned daffodil bows its head

to the majestic beauty in honor and sadness

for the flare and strength fade

and are gone too soon

Conflict

in the dream 

two elderly people in robes

laughing and gasping

were trying to fuck

on the holy sepulcher

when like the voice of god

a crash thunder resounded in the tomb

the old man looked around afraid

the old woman pushed him off the stone

then rain pelted down

on the green-rust death mask of christ

as lightning flashed across

both sides of

the wet stained wall

One Fish Out

institutional morning shoal and school

grey sneakered feet crossing the patio

leaving prints in the dew

on the line

steam rising from hot laundry

in the early spring cold

bare arms prickle passing through

wide shafts of golden sunlight

between the budded trees still leafless

bright beams shove aside the fog

to the Appalachian shadow 

head in a cloud 

descending to the valley

to the forbidden river of the horn

Sketchbook VIII

 

Watercolor and colored pencil

Culture

the human-made web

or for some the chains

the overflow of art

into masses hands

painting on canvas

talons in the mind

transformational

hands’ oils on hard broth

in the dish growing

assimilation

the institutions’

tool to integrate

to the Romanized

Britains a process

to convince conquered

people to freely

accept enslavement

capitalism’s

unseen camouflage

an inheritance

from empire’s last age

Another Glass Of Gin

in the house of a friend

unfamiliar faces

in ill-fitting clothes

the fabric of minutes

stretches taffy minded into hours

the empty glass grows warm in hand

others’ conversation blends with music

the high laughter is loose and nice

no one speaks to me

i pretend not to mind

the feeling in my head is good

i slip away to the kitchen

where there is a door to the outside

for another drink

trays barely frozen

easy to break the surface ice 

finger shards from each well

return the shallow water to its freezing

the clear spirit sloshes in

a slurry rises floats

there’s no tonic for this

why bother

there’s dancing now in the living room

i lean in a doorway and drink

the moments crystalize

a wall of thin ice

Inoculate

the deep calming medicine of night

enters first the eyes

then the blood

darkness meets darkness there

day outside

heal

night within

heel

our dual nature some would say

but the cracks make many

and the night comes out

follow the bleeding of ink drops on wet paper

rippling open like an iris in the night

reflexive pleading for healing light

Upstate Sundown

sunlight tipped the tops of tall grasses

paint brushes drying in the slow summer wind

the canvas was the eyes of the children

on the second story of the farmhouse

at the window watching the sun set 

what the horizon now effused 

a radiance of colors unlike any spectrum they knew

from the city where the sky was smoke

and the ground was rust stained cement 

or rainbows from oil on black asphalt

a hot wind pulled along by faceless traffic

glinting glass on the gum gobbed sidewalk

white sun stinging off the windows of apartment stacks

that myriad-hued silent descent echoed 

even in their dreams

their whole lives