The 100 most recent posts
Alabaster Fields - Ascend to alabaster fields
Where breezes rustle petal clouds
With their hoards of golden nectar
There to rob the gold
And leave the flowers fallow
Frailty - To frailty
There is a power
Borne of compassion
When compassion fails
Frailty is where the boot comes down
The hardest
Time ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #242 - I often wish
That I could perceive time
Like a hummingbird does
Slow the world down
And watch the air ruffle its feathers
On every delicate beat
Hear the swish of its wing
Rather than the hum and blur
Of time compressed beyond imagining
Star Chamber - Within the chamber
Starry light
Small portals fill
The darkest night
With glow enough
To see my way
Then find again
The light of day
Stone ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #241 - This forest of stone
Rotting on the desert plain
Rain the destroyer
Moonglow - A promise of possibility coming
Here the night made bright
Though by no small trickery
And patience
Moonglow breaks the darkness
While the stars take flight
In the cool blue of winter chill
But for the warmth of amber hearths
The Turn that is not Return - The world begins
To turn again
No longer still
Though somnolent, still
The long exhale
Following the deep, deep breath
The moment which moves
Between the change
And knowing
There is no going
back
Line ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #240 - Such exquisite line
Forms an art without figure
The face of Islam
Winding ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #239 - The road winds down
To valley floor
From there the way
Cannot be known
With scant resource
For alternates
My faith is firm
No other course
Now heart resolved
Courage mustered
With just one step
My fears dissolved
Stovepipe - Stovepipe is a planet of two suns
Rarely seen whole
Through dense clouds
Which never shed rain
The stone marker
A memorial to those who had come
But otherwise left no mark
After the third colony failed
The only visitors would be
Passersby and tourists checking off a box
The Bar & Grill of Passing Thru - It was one of those American small-town off-the-main-attraction tourist bar & grills papered with dollar bills, George Washington in all his unemotional placidity staring back at me from wall, pillar and ceiling. Off-season empty but for a pair of locals playing darts and a couple passing through on the way to somewhere relatives and presents waited for them. It was hard to tell whether the twinkle lights were seasonal or permanent, but there was no other sign of the holiday. So, permanent.
Snake - Power snakes through epochs
Scale lost in time and space
Human stands on canyon edge
diminished
Vagabond ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #238 - To move
Through time and space
By act of will
Undeterred and
Undirected by
Duty or responsibility
Led not by
Leash or force
Nor beholden to another's wish
But to stay
In just one place
So long as restless heart desires this
Then move along
To some place other
There to see what I may find
Linger - Nearly lost
In a palette of greys
The little heron lingers
One-legged in the winter chill
With a meditative peace
I only dream of mastering
Weekends - Sail the slate sea
On friendly breeze
Which powers me
Hold the tiller fast
As grey gulls surf
The unseen wave
Leeward of the mast
And I at peace
In my dead reckoning
Far between the harbours
Of duty and burden
Riding the tide of release
Androgyny Domine - Under androgynous sky
Sun or moon
Father or mother
The camera never lies
But the photographer
Knows how to fib
Pinnacle Obscura - There is a path
To distant peak
Though peak itself
Remains obscure
And should I find
A mountaintop
Who's to say
I find the one
Reserved to some
Refused to those
Who've never known
The pinnacle
Grunge - On every beauty find redress
The film of some small discontent
Such that those who can't possess
May pose desire circumvent
But I this beauty's grunge perceive
Projection of my ego's fear
So let such love that cannot be
Reveal my weakness to be clear
Disturbing Beauty - Many layers deep
The serrated edge cuts
Through the camouflage of bullshit
Reveals a jagged truth
Painful and disturbing
Integrity's challenge
Never are we more beautiful
Than when we conquer
The falsehoods of our fears
Winter Capture - Wind and whitecaps swish about
Sounds as crisp as winter air
My near frostbitten ears select
Imagine gentle warmth
In sunlight's amber hue detect
I linger here
Instead the heated hearth of home
Frigid fingers upon my camera work
Until chill moment captured thus
By an eye that cannot shirk
Out of the Nothingness - Before the sun ever rose
In the time before time
Or consciousness
Or biology
In the infinity of moments passing
Before a moment could be noticed
What choice was there but to be
Though such was not a choice
In the next infinity of moments passing
Before a moment could be valued
What choice was there to be good
What choice was there to be evil
So I wonder if
Somehow
The more we choose to value
The less we choose to be
The more good and evil we create
Out of the nothingness of being
Which preceded time
Transition ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #237 - Departing crippled harbour
As night approaches day
Light fails on near horizon
Transition now at play
Some might say
Dark times ahead
But unknowns
Are not darkness
One hand holds the chalk of light
While the other clears the slate
Upon the dark revealed we write
With clarity our fate
A Present I Still Remember - I remember the litter before "Give a Hoot! Don't Pollute!"
I remember the smog before the Clean Air Act
I remember it sung "the world is a ghetto" all the truer now
Left to wonder how so few can remember
From where we have come
To where we'll return
And where we are stuck
Come - This is not a place for the faint of culture
Or order
Or hygiene
Or poverty
Nonetheless, they should come
This is not a place for those
Who dislike the crush of a crowd
Who want a fresh coat of paint
Or a breath of fresh air
Nonetheless, they should come
This is not a place for those who believe
That people's conditions reflect their choices
That there is one right way to live
Or one way to think
Nonetheless, come
Death of the Narcissist - He erected a balustrade of excuses and lies
A weak defense overcome
By firing rounds of fact
Between the spindly balusters
The entire structure collapsed
Under the weight of culpability
Leaving him, finally, exposed
Had he any integrity at all
Such a rampart may have protected him
Buttressing his image sealed his doom
Blocking Point - I tried to find the words today
But the words would not converge
Themes and thoughts that did emerge
With promise of infinity
Then vanished at a wall
Leaving not a word at all
Instead I wrote this deathly dirge
To writer's block I fall
Freedom ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #236 - She told me why the caged bird sings
She told me of the rage
That the pain creates
How it colours everything
I can't perch where the caged bird sings
But to her fearful trill
Take up harmony
This free bird sings so to keep her wing
I cannot perch where the caged bird sings
But I hear her song
Take up harmony
This free bird sings so to keep her wing
All Details Great and Small - Pristine
Meticulous order
Black chairs on black tables
White chairs on white tables
Perfectly placed
Deliciously spaced
Every detail attended to
Clean lines and sturdy grace
All reflected in polished stone
But later
I notice
A chair is missing
Crumbs scattered on a table
In a lifetime dedicated
To observing the nuances
Of all details great and small
I wonder
What is the larger world
All that I've seen?
Or all that I've seen
But never saw...
Suddenly
The world I know
Seems very small
Being in the Grey - Sometimes I prefer the grey
Shadows can be too dark
Highlights can be too bright
In the grey all is line and texture
I see the form of what is
Without interpreting darkness and light
Breathing the Moment - In an alcove of my mind
Tucked away from memories and desires
I find this moment
Of nothing but breath
The sensation of breathing
Awareness of the necessity
Of nothing but breathing
Breathe in this moment
Breathe out the past
Breathe in this moment
Breathe out the future
Breathe in this moment
Every inhaled breath
Overflows the alcove
Expands into every aspect of mind
Every exhaled breath
Empties the mind
Allowing the moment to flow into it
I breathe
Until all that I am
Is this single moment
A spectacular place to visit… - Architects sometimes
Appeal mostly to mind
No love for the heart
In masterful lines
Don't misunderstand me
Such exquisite abstraction
Just lacking romance
A place to admire
A picture to hang
But to live there no chance
Mouse & Cat - It's cat and mouse
The endless game
Which we all play
Except the days
The cat's away
When's not the same
Around the house
Now should you stay
Here on this day
Might we not pray
The time has come
For mouse and cat
To mellow some
And end this spat
Rant ! Pic and a Word Challenge #235 - "It's like it's Earth but it's not Earth"
She shook a little with her distress
Speaking between tightened lips
Just barely containing a primal scream
"I don't mind the old-Earth tenements
Their utilitarian simplicity
But why does every other building
Have to look like the cover
Of an Arthur C. Clarke paperback
Couldn't we come up with
A more interesting 'future'
Than one dreamed up by hack illustrators
Over two centuries ago"
Jinessa was just getting started
When she goes full rant
You can either cower and exit
Or saddle up and ride it for the eight count
I struggled to get a foot in the stirrup
As her exasperation rose
My Favourite House - Inside God's House
Awed by the ode
In the company of worshipers
Some for God
Some for his house
But I think on it
And in the reflect I see
I prefer Love's House
Which is any house
Where there's you and me
On the Finer Points of the Grandiose - I like to imagine a society
Which would erect such grand monuments
Only after the eradication of
Poverty
Inequity
Subjugation
Though I rather imagine such a society
Would have little interest
In erecting such grand monuments
Perhaps such a society
Would be too busy building
On its commitment to
Love
Compassion
Generosity
Tears - Tears flow golden
Down her cheek
Then fall to ground
Where forms a pool
From gentle creek
There streams and rivers
Come to rest
Display the sorrows
Which some detest
"Wait for the facts
You can't protest!"
What have we
But video
And patterns written
Long ago
To actions spoken
Our words will out
If some won't listen
Justice shouts
Hollowed Halls - Beneath the stone of arcing hollow
Echo footfalls of the hallows
Seep through time long silenced whispers
Fall on ears inclined to listen
Bishops under Cardinals
Princes of the capital
Too all manner of celebrity
Still I prefer simplicity
Whose condition leaves them most to gain
While every pittance rendered unto greedy hand
Far too much where hope of sustenance is lain
Yet they, it ever seems, offer most without demand
Dimming Light - The light which skylight glass admits
Be grey and dour as such the day commits
While just as dim our life in quarantine submits
Then random seem the ones for whom disease remits
Their darkest hour
To bed confined
For none the power
To stall the march of death's decline
And so alone
Souls pass away
While not a hand
Is offered they
But latex glove
The touch at end of earthly stay
First Responders - She strode from the chaos
With an extraordinary self-possession
Intent on some minor stain or damage to her frock
As if all that mattered in this world
Was her appearance in it
It was impossible to know
If her composure reflected disoriented shock
Or disdain for the physical danger
She had not yet entirely escaped
Until she let the hem fall down her thigh
Turned her attention toward her destination
Function Tags Along - Form follows function
The prophet, Sullivan, preached
Writing the gospel of
Purpose Informs Art
On landscapes and city streets
Ah, sighs Calatrava
And erects his Mona Lisa smile
Its contrarian pulse
The blood flowing through Valencia's veins
As form takes flight
With function on its wing
I revel in dreamy whimsy
With purpose in the wake
Presence ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #234 - We didn't come here
For the beer
Or the snacks
Or to share a cigarette
Once we'd finished those
It wasn't for the words we'd speak
Or to look into each other's eyes
(You never took off your sunglasses)
To see or be seen
Or for a breath of fresh city air
In the chill afternoon
Leaving The Grey Between - We are these incredible creatures
Of both darkness and light
We keep buried so very deeply
So we might never know how full
Is the pain of our despair
Or the beauty of our spirit
Or the strength we might show
If we could but release ourselves
From the grey we have created
To keep the best of ourselves
And the worst of ourselves
Beneath the skin
Beneath our consciousness
Beyond our capacity
To love
Before… - Before the sky
The peaks
Before the peaks
The hills
Before the hills
The valley
Before the valley
I must leave
This place of numbing
Before I die
In the Hollows - Branches of darkness
Reach out for me
But I resist
If only just
Still...
That is enough
To stave the pain
In this hollow I've carved out
From tendrils of deepest sorrow
I find resolve to carry on
Deep Valley - Azure the lake
Azure the sky
Then in between
The verdigris
And igneous
Within them all
Find I
Glorious Fail - Enthralled by failing sun
Or so some poets have defined
As if a star could somehow falter
In none but cataclysmic time
Composed in peace at daylight's end
And with this thought remind
That failure rarely renders
With such glorious design<
Choices - I make choices
Sometimes they're wrong
Sometimes they're right
Sometimes I know
Which way they're going to go
Even before I make them
More often they go
The way they're going to go
Long before I see the right or the wrong
I make choices
Sometimes I realize
Sometimes I don't
Until they're in the rear view mirror
Harvest ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #233 - Fields emptied
Silos filled
Soon the loaves
From flour milled
Golden - The wheat goes ever on and on
O'er the hill and far beyond
In row on subtle row it grows
The fruit of heart and hand and mind
The gold beneath the indigo
Hold & Reveal - Dark Island
Tide recedes
Amber glow
Inner light
So long as I hold the one
Let the other be revealed
Cloudy, Cloudy Day - Cloudy, cloudy day
Paint your palette blue and grey
Look out on a winter's day
With eyes that know the darkness in my soul
Horizon's changing hue
Power in the waves come due
Dashing on the shore that's you
In aqua on the broken rocky land
Now I understand
What you tried to say to me
And how you suffered for your father's deeds
And why you'd need to set me free
I would not listen, I did not know how
Perhaps I'll listen now
Buffeted - Islands in the sky
Buffeted by the winds as
The sea upon the rocks
And I in the storm
Enthralled by the beauty of
Violent nature
Moved to pondering
The nature of violence
Buffeting within
Desert Highway - Desert highways
Strips of empty pavement
Crossing expanses of isolation
Lifeless seeming, lonesome
Stillness, quiet, patience
Reveal a vibrant pattern of life
Just as for the terrain they cross
Just as stillness, quiet, patience
Reveal the vibrant pattern of being
Within
Emergent ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #232 - Sometimes the flow of events
Runs across the prevailing currents
Revealing both in high relief
Some will argue for the flow
Some will argue for the current
I remind myself
Step back to appreciate the whole
Evaluate the emergent patterns
Given an opportunity to observe
Beyond the confines of existing paradigms
Seek the possibility of a new way
The Gateway - It appeared as a gateway in the sky
A portal to other possibilities
Though, perhaps, few saw it that way
Panic gripped much of the world
Keeping them inside, locked away
Sharing their fear and uplifting messages
Of hope and determination to see it through
Sharing their confusion and conspiracy theories
Simplistic and simple-minded explanations
Of a phenomenon clearly no one understood
Rolling onto Shore - The swells roll in
An ever presence
Like you my friend
Always there to come to me
Even when I turn away
Perhaps I am your shore
The solid ground
You'll always find
Always there to welcome you
Even if I've turned away
Lockdown - Upon the rocky shore I stand
Curvature of Earth pronounced
By band of amber sky beyond
Horizon's edge I cannot reach
Nor sail for regions yet unseen
Confined am I to stony beach
And yet my beating heart's content
Relies on dreams which circumvent
The confines of this covenant
Worlds I Create - I create these worlds
Of personal sanctuary
A beauty and calm
Cloaking distress and fear
Palaces of chilling warmth
An argument with reality
Which cannot be won
I remind myself
The world of distress and fear
Is also a creation of mine
The cloak only gives it power
The palace of true warmth
Is the light of my own heart
Which cannot be sundered
Narrow Passage - Narrow passage
Some small hopeful light beyond
Fades on toward the night
Though wide the sea
Destination obscured
Departure long overdue
This specious sanctuary
Where murk grows ever deeper
Even as hopeful light diminishes
Beyond the narrow passage
Start the engine
Provisioned stores and buttressed heart
Set rudder's course through narrow passage
Bound for hopeful light beyond
Nothing ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #231 - Soft light and silhouettes
Ambers and muted blues
Islands adrift in calm seas
And I in deep repose
Enjoy the gentlest of scenes
Bask in this moment of succulent nothings
Molten Star - Molten star upon horizon
Lava flows across the sea
Saviour's beacon
Rendered feeble
Until the night
Calls out to me
Viral Smoke - The smoke rolled in
From a distant fire
Down the narrow valley
Not so stealthy as a virus
But with a smothering effect
Which would someday seem
Not so unfamiliar
A dis-ease
From which none are immune
And all are infected
Reflective Fire - This blue
Twilit artifice
Sunset muzzled by smoke
From distant fires
Rosy sky
Pastel remnants
Of celestial fire
River echoes
Light and land and life
Fuels reflective fire
Creating the Divine - Sometimes
The beauty
Of existence
Seems not always
Beautiful
I discover the divine
Through the haze
Of muted tones
And hidden features
Seek the clarity
Beneath the haze
A vivid scene
Can be colourless
I remind myself
Create the divine
From the apparent
Mundane
The Amber Stream - I wend my way
Through life and all
Its myriad conditions
Oxbows and diversions
Rapids and reservoirs
Confined by circumstances
Wide and shallow
Narrow and deep
Always flowing toward the light
Golden warmth which fills my heart
Reflecting on the amber stream
Spirit’s Playground - Sunset and the Sea
Calms my mind
Like a deep breath
Frees my heart
Like a lover's kiss
Spirit's favourite playground
Proximate Intimacy - Proximate intimacy
The kinship felt by being close
Without touching
Even among strangers
It's strange to live day after day
Without the physical nearness
Of another human being
Fucking virus
One Small Human on a Beach - I love the places
That make me seem small
And that I so often try
To make myself feel bigger
By focusing on some small detail
One tree in a forest
One stone on a beach
One face in a crowd
Pastel Twilight - Day passes into pastel twilight
Atmospheric soothing sigh
Let the night come
Sonorous repose
Eyes closed
Sleepy
Sleep
Moon ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #230 - In the cold quiet
Of a winter night
Me and the moon
We have a chatter
Chunky frozen snow
Crunches underfoot
Shhhh, hisses the moon
Be still
Listen
This I do
But all I hear is the moon
Simmering on the snow peaks
Earth Day - The Moon reminds me
How friendly Earth is
To me and those I love
To all life
But friendship has its limits
The Earth has only so much to offer
So it's time to be a better friend
Give something back in return
Young Hustler - Softwood and salt
The smell's never more intoxicating
Than when a log boom's safely set to rest
At the end of a long week
Kyle heads out
To recheck the lashings
I like that about him
He never leaves anything to chance
Always stupid checks his own work
That, and he always buys the first round
A Momentary Lapse of Fiction - The energy pulse slammed into the car
Which quivered briefly
Before vapourizing with a flash
Brighter than the beam
Which destroyed it
As the momentary daylight faded
I hoped the owner
Of that formidable weapon
Hadn't acquired my new position
The mist which was once my Toyota
Settled into the crater
That had been a parking lot
The concrete barrier I'd hid behind
Suddenly seemed feeble protection
Night returned and I got the fuck outta there
Perfect - Every moment spent
Upon a rocky shoreline
Along the gentle sea
Beneath an amber sky
I am reminded
Imperfect as it is
Life is nonetheless
Perfect
No Poppies Here - They marched row by row
Trained not to question orders
Immunized murder
Their glory assured
Set against their own int'rests
Willing sacrifice
War's wretched slaughter
For lambs sent into mayhem
Fear large in dead eyes
Remains laid to ground
With white crosses row on row
Power's martyred souls
Softened Stone - Sweeping curves
And cylinders
I do not realize
Until I sit
With the photographs
How calming
Is the round
In a complex
Of rectangular and square
Though rich with gardens
Water flowing through fountains
This space of rounded stone
Softened by circular curves
Is the place of peace for me
Prisoner’s Mantra - Boxed in
And cornered
No way out
But to acknowledge
These four walls
Do not a prison make
Nor is the light
Ever extinguished
Beyond the windows
The sun is bright
Inside this cell
My spirit is free
Gateways & Light - In the darkness
A gateway
Beyond it
A promising light
I check my
Expectations
Proceed with caution
And readiness
Not all gateways
Lead to freedom
Not all sources
Light the true path
Choices ~ Pic and a Word Challenge #229 - In a world
Offering few choices
Of equal value
Either apparent
Or actual
Which is the better choice?
The options
Beg investigations
Which may or may not
Reveal the better choice
Apparent or actual
Should you choose
Not to decide
You still have made a choice
Life and Time - Photographs remind us
Of all the life we've lived
And all the time
Which passed between
Perfect Light - In a life
Of some many ecstasies
Epiphanies
And divine moments
Some linger longer
If only because
The light was perfect
And I had a camera
Keyless Entry - Some doors are open
Some are closed
Some doors should never be opened
Some should never be closed
Some doors are plain
Some are ornate
Some doors are simple
Some technically replete
Some doors are an invitation
Some are a barricade
Some doors are a celebration
Some are made to be despised