Mood – 2nd Letter

My Angel and My Shadow

My Angel and My Shadow
Best friends these days become
Inseparable we three do march along
As by a single drum

Shadow and Angel buying rounds
For the House and Eye to Eye
Reconciled might say the Greeks
But we know better, you and I

Angel and Shadow at the Peak
Surveying all before them lies
In theory, though in truth be told
The height was modest from my eyes

My Angel and My Shadow
at this point interject
No need to wish the world at large
to keep us circumspect

We’re quite content we bosom buds
To meet temptation chewing cuds
Since winner Finished long ago
Ho Hum Ho hum and Do Si Do

Mood Morning

I tried to kill my mother
was dead, so all in vain
as if she sang of circumstance
endemic in our name

I tried to kill my brother
to live, he had the nerve
as if he juggled triangles
adroitly by their curves

I tried once to kill me
He died, but I died twice
as if I saw of worlds beyond
our world before the Christ

Evening Drivel Rover Red

I used to be the shadow on a bowling ball
Zoned in on any pin standing tall
The sight of humans well arranged
Left my mind and soul estranged

I much preferred the company
Of litter runt and orphaned bee
We knew then as they know now
The game is rigged if you don’t ask how

Two lines were formed a runner sent
To break the grip of the innocent
Those who failed were thus embraced
As lessons go, a total waste

Evening drivel rover red
The quarterback lives in my head
Calls every play in every loss
Until I learn who not to cross

Yes, there is a secret in a hole
That story’s mine, but oh so old
Childhood trauma, childhood shame
Finish the poem but ever the pain

Lawrence Immemorial

I was born in Babylon
Time stamped three a.m.
Maternity was packed and jacked
With what we knew as men

The fog was thick in Babylon
The day I came of age
It broke three hearts when I climbed the stairs
As the ink dried on the page

I’ve booked a trip to Babylon
To shush up chatty tombs
If I’m not back by Easter’s Day
Have Mother rent my room.

The Mood This Morning

Will it keep my mother in my mind
Or hold me down until the shadows pass?

This thing I do in slowly pulsing light
That finds the center of black

*
If in this room I had the say
I’d cut it surgically around
Place it glistening aloud
On my wobbly lusterless tray

(Preserving just the thinnest plane
As we must do for the children’s sake)
Then, honoring its toxic power,
Take it to some Holy Ground
And bury it in Flame

First Look

Alright, you’re broken
Say that much
Without the one fear you’ve never…

You know you have no choice
That much is clear
Say it once, straight through, as plainly as you can

Let pain provide the high relief

When I was a small boy
my mother found me irresistible
and so did not resist

*
She herself was a luckless carrier
a gene borne
along the dingy rivulets
of heredity
by a sin so old
it may be aboriginal

My mother, sitting on our porch
a rented farmhouse in Orleans, France
summer dress crisp and clean,
with a memory I make in this moment,
watching the sleepy road as I bury my head in cool linen
and my mother strokes my hair with fingers that smell
of cigarettes and a splash of spilled wine
or so it so vivid seems
the afternoon free and secluded
for mother and child

That Mood Again

I’m dead, but needn’t say so
so sleight the hand
sleight of hand
sleight of His most grievous hand
eyes that meet mine never know

Pry the purpose out
Is that a Clock?
No, that’s a Cross.
Yes, that’s a Clock.

Sweet wave of Christ wash over me,
these sad sack bones, this sun-cracked rock

Two More In A Mood

Should I peek around the corner?
Does that convey?
Ratchet the neck bones up to a hole in the brimming dark
and with what I have for eyes now blistered over
summon in pantomime the blinding awe?

How can I pitch you this idea?
This terra infirma of the Solid Rock
The there and not there of the thing

It lifted, for me, once, the curtain, veil or circumstance
As if I saw the air punched out from every living lung
and on the inhale breathed every living lung the Light of God
All creation like a cosmic sleeve pulled right side out
Made perfect sense in perfect Peace

Then just as quick the curtain fell, for me
the veil or circumstance of my deliverance apparent to the purpose
And God, with other eyes to fry, moved on

Two Poems In A Mood

So long, goodbye
Adios
Final call
For the Final Coast

I’m expected
Rest assured
What’s in doubt
Is the Temperature

A room is ready
Built by me
In alarming
Specificity

Who loves me
In aggregate?
On balance,
I’m unconfident

A shadow fell
When I was young
And as I grew
It grew a tongue

And whispered
Solely to my ear
Things everyone
Is meant to hear

(At least that was
The shadow’s claim)
That light is light
By any name

And all of light
The shadow said
Is dreamt as music
by the dead

Shut your eyes
The shadow cooed
I will put you
In the mood

Song About The Family Sin

Woke up feeling lost at sea
Dreamt i saw Him walking ‘cross a cup of tea
Woke up a feeling in a missing limb

Father Mother side by side
What’s between but a tide
That carries back and forth that missing limb

Brother Rob and Brother Ed
Locked our shadow in the family shed
But i would peek in every now and then

Mothers’ grave in disrepair
Sister’s buried God knows where
Does the Liar sing this dirge as hymn?

God in Heaven, Life on Hell
Hand me the axe and a wish me well
Next time You come calling for a limb