Bartered Breath - Poetry From My World

This blog receives no revenue from any source 

The poems are solely the work of W. R. Griffin

If you like what you see, scroll to the bottom 

And Click "Like"
********************************

My Hills - by W.R. Griffin

I wandered lonely through the wood
Till high upon my hills I stood.
Dusk dotted low with starry frill,
Burnished skies and lakes with flame, 
As golden trees whispered my name.
And echoes through the hollows still.

Eternal as the stars that shine
To dance inside our Milky Way,
To stretch in a never-ending line
Across this darkness vast, divine.
Ten thousand stars in just a glance,
Sparkling the night in sprightly dance.

The waves below me prance, and they
Mirror the dazzling skies with glee,
Close down the heavens come to me,
Awestruck by God's blue infinite bay,
I watch through night till it turns day,
To awake in the dew of eternity.

I span the heavens, suspending thought,
Measure the wealth new dawn has brought,
For when upon my bed I lie
In vacant or in thoughtful mood,
A flash of lightning streaks the sky
To spark my bliss of solitude.


Then when my heart with pleasure fills,
I dream again of my loving hills.


******************************

   After You are Old - by W. R. Griffin (a nod to W. B. Yeats)

After you are old and have felt life's thrills in sun or rain,
When you have kissed, in morning mist, every leafy dance of Fall,
When you have felt the pangs of love found, lost, and found again,
Then you full known the cost of life well lived and bare the scars of all.

When you have basked in the glow of your child's sweet face of love,
To ache with an ache so deep as only parents, and saints can know,
When you have seen the snow-capped peaks from far, far, far above,
Then you have lived and amassed the wealth only true, true love can show.

When evening comes and stellar dance blankets heaven's heights
When mornings seem so far behind, and dreams grace only nights,
When all your joys seem memories, when all that's best seems past.
Then you will dance upon God's dome where all things loved must last.

As all the suns, all the moons, and all the stars above, 
Proclaim throughout the heavens their universal love.

               

***********************************************************

"The Human Race" - by W. R. Griffin
(an informal Petrarchan Sonnet)

Image - "Frozen Time from "fine modern art.com"

      We never know how much is left, 

              As obsessed we are with time.

         But when each moment here is gone,

              Every poet ends their rhyme.

          As minutes, hours, days march on,

              Last call, last light, draw nigh.

           The hours, the years, disappear - are gone,

              And all stories end with "Why?"

            Rushed youth sings songs into the night,

             Races the sun and moon in flight,

           Swims the seas, soars above the skies

            But is too soon old - too late wise.

             All we create will turn to rust, 
             As night's fingers close our eyes.
           Tome on tome dissolves to dust -
         But love's poem never dies.

***********************************

              What of me remains? - by W. R. Griffin                                                   

Too quick the time has come and gone, 

a lash opened, closed - a wink. 

Moments here, a night, a dawn 

Child to man in just a blink.

The glow of a dream is fading fast, 

without the hoped for ending.

Time disappears - the mist can't last, 

there where the road is bending.

The realms of night are drawing nigh - 

no coda, rhyme nor reason, 

The clocks tick down,an unremitting why, 

to fade this final season. 

The road once stretched beyond the stars, 

now shadows mark the way,

The veil of time is fading back, 

to reveal an endless day.

Suns rise and set, and set again - 

Ebb and flow of dark and light.

Mornings come, in the endless glow, 

of an ever-knowing night.

Sight without seeing, 

To Exist beyond being, 
A being without breath, 
"To be" beyond death.

A million suns to rise and set, 

A millionth moon now wanes.

A million words now penned and yet, 

                     What then of me remains?

                                     **********************************************

Morning Glory - by W. R. Griffin

The windows are flush with flowers, 

They're greeting the morning sun.

They're sighing the passing hours,

They're weeping when day is done.

Like we, the moments pass too fast, 

like we the petals fade.

like we, the sunlight cannot last, 

We must sing our life's aubade!

**************************

To My Grand-Daughter Molly - by W. R. Griffin

The Queen of Clover is reigning over,

the hearts of all who see,

The sweetest fairy of them all 

Is as special as can be.

All creatures answer to her call -

From mountain forests sweet,

Every creature large or small, 

Will gather at her feet. 

From the dense forests to mountain peak, 

Gnomes and elves play hide and seek, 

while birds on branches meet.

The Queen of Night and the King of Day,

Are her parents near and dear - 

 The fairy world is her bright sphere,

And a giant mushroom is her seat.

 The winds and leaves sing out her song, 

The birds in chorus praise.

And, she shall reign in all their hearts, 

For a thousand, thousand days!

**********************************************

A Summer's Sun and Rain - by W. R. Griffin

I ran down the hill in darkness nearing dawn,

Past the gate in stormy mist where you had gone,

To find there on the ground the scarf I gave to you, 

Sultry, silken, diaphanous birds of gold and blue. 

When first we climbed that hill, the day we met,

We marked the time with kisses, long and wet.

Now, that summer dream is dust as if we two, 

Knew that summer's sun would turn a darker hue.

But more than we arose from out that dust,

Anointed in the heat of summer's rain and lust.

And in those days between the now and then, 

We've something sweet to smile upon, and when,

That summer's storm keeps repeating in our dreams,

As the ticking clocks move faster than it seems -

Long, long after we have gone, and life is done,

The lasting of that summer rain and sun 

Will be our memories again, again -

Those when we loved in Summer's sun and rain.

*******************************************

Twilight Snow - by W. R. Griffin

(Image by Jill Battaglia)

Lightly falling to the sod,

Upon the blade, the pine, the leaf
Gods graceful testament is seen,

Softly soundless blessed bequeath.

Wisps of white, feather light,  

A scattered shawl, a tatted wreath.

Spotted, dotted, white on green,

Billows to us here beneath.

Flawless, fragile, frail, unspoiled,

Clinging softly to the clay,

Serene, surreal, wet, unsoiled,
In the hush of waiting day.

Wholly perfect, holy there,

lowly, fragile, fleeting, bare.

Ballet grace and angel powers,

Morning greets these downy flowers.

Deep in reverence, to please,

Flitting, falling for silent hours.

Lightly whited, frosted bowers, 
Dressing white, the forest trees -
A whispered, wafting winter freeze.

***********************

Morning Prayer - by W. R. Griffin

And with the rising sun each morn,

in the glory of God's hush,

I know to stand in awe of all,

to slow my heart, not rush!

Then when the lanes of life fill up,

and crowd away the still,

I find a quiet nook somewhere,

to ask "What is your will?"

Oh, come faint voice and calm my life,

that I may glean your plan.

Crowd out discord,

block out the strife,

So to live as best we can.

*********************************

The Woods, by W. R. Griffin

(a nod to W.B. Yeats and Robert Frost)

Time stops in a day,

Like a flame that's snuffed out,

As mountains and seas fall away.

Who of us in the end,

As we enter these woods,

 Will never travel this way?

   The journey is quick, a second or so,

   The blurring of stars fills the night.

   This journey is us, it's all that we know,

   And, the stars fill us up with their light.  

Only one who has been has ever come back.

    Only the one who has been knows the whys.
The answers aren't there in logic or math,
They come as we sing to the skies. 
Each step that we walk, each breath clears the path.
We've traveled to all there will be. 
When the journey is ended, 
All the broken are mended
And, we shine like the sun on the sea.

*************************

I, Mankind - by W. R. Griffin

A billion pardons I have begged,

All insincere, all soon reneged.

A billion sorrows, I have caused,

All selfish acts and seldom paused.

Unnatural havoc I have brought,

To alter the world with little thought.

Mother Earth has cried in vain

To a Universe that's not perceived,

Unfathomable death, abysmal pain,

As heralding angels are not believed.

And all the prophets wisdom impart,

While profits and pleasures capture the heart.

All the glory and all the spoils,

Triumphs assumed - no pain, no toils.

Without regard, without replace,

Careening through life in the Human Race.

*************************************

Sing To Your Child - by W. R. Griffin

- An informal Petrarchan sonnet

(Dedicated to my daughter Allison and 

My grand-daughter Molly)

Singing songs lasts a lifetime - echoes well after,

Songs in the morning, songs in the night, 

Songs that bring tears, songs that bring laughter,
Songs that pierce darkness, songs that bring light,

Sing to your child - like Spring rain on roses,

Singing brightens their day, brings light to their eyes,

Singing tickles their toes - wiggles their noses.

Singing sweet songs lifts their lives to the skies.
Singing makes children happy til ancient and wise.

Sing to the heavens, sing to be singing,
Sing to the clouds - to the mountains that rise,

Chiming and rhyming like Christmas bells ringing.

Sing to the rhythm of breathing and sighs,
Sing from your heart, the breast they are clinging. 

Sing softly at night as they slide into dreams,
Sing so they wake with smiling and laughter,

Sing so they glide on melodious streams.

Sing all their lives, sing from the Hereafter.

                         ******************************                                     

In Memoriam  – W. R. Griffin 

How long in plangent waves

Sighs the wind o’er rows of graves -

Those now in darkest tombs’ eternal rest,

These many solemn souls, our silent best,

Found bright, sacrificing, selfless, giving

To save this ideal, this dream we’re living,

This thought forged, hand-made, processed

From all the history of mankind’s epic test.

They charge us with their burgeoning losses

To make their deaths our cause, our crosses,

Lest they be lost to hollowed distractions,

In a world divided by faiths and factions.

Do so that all the selfless acts of our past

Do not die with their final fervent gasp.

Let each generation pick up this baton –

Carry our grandest freedoms – on and on.

The grounds around each shrine and stone,

Have been christened by their blood and bone,

On deserts, mountains, and in jungle mire

To keep the eternal light of our freedom’s fire

Reflected in the eyes of those who seek it still

To live a life of deliberated thought – united will

Illuminated by one grand cause ignited long ago,

Marked by stoic sentry stones guarding row on row.

****************************************

Winter's Plain – by W. R. Griffin

 ("snow bound"- art work by Jim Phillips)

When comes the snows of winter’s test,

Blanketing all once deep green dressed?

The icy winds gust hearths with cold,

Soon musky logs burn bright and bold.

Wafting white billows on sweet black sod,

Where a week ago the plow horse trod.

Wind whips westward from northern climes,

Rattles the roofs, tolls porch bell chimes.

The woodsman and the farmer grey,

Stockpile their crops till spring's blue day.

The livestock are huddled, breathing fog,

As snowbound hermits light each log!

Villages, farms and country homes,

Are now fortresses with downy domes.

The pace and pulse slow to a crawl,

In the humble hovel or the grand hall.

The meekest or the mighty blessed,

Now equal in winter, equal in rest.

*************************************

Illusory - by W. R. Griffin

Like a bird in the breeze

Like the chime of a clock,

Each wind in the trees,

Every tick brings a tock.

The pond turns to marsh.

Every river flows on,  

Every word coldly harsh -

Moments now are then gone.

A thought turns to pen,

Might it last beyond time?

Only the grandest of great,

Form the boldest of rhyme.

Time moves like the wind,

Time melts like the snow,

Time runs out when we find,

Nothing's certain to know!

Every warp, weave and weft

Gives shape for a while,

Tho, what time is there left,

When time moves to beguile?
Time leaves as night follows day, 
Time is an old gypsy, 
And a gypsy can't stay.

*(My thanks to Shirley Elkins for inspiring this last line)

*****************************************

"Christmas Ideal" - W. R. Griffin

I remember when Christmas meant more than we know,
I remember when Christmas meant a warm special glow,
I remember when Christmas was the crisp crunch of snow,
The sparkle of a bright star on the Earth far below,
I remember that feeling that hung in the air,
I remember the stockings by the chimney with care,
I remember my parents, who somehow are there.
I wish and I wish to feel it all on that day,
When the spirits of Christmas come out, Out to play,
And all of our loved ones come home, home to stay.

***********************************************************

"House Mouse" – by W. R. Griffin

The week before Christmas - there's a guest in the house,

Our dog's food is missing; we think it's a mouse!

Or a chipmunk or squirrel that empties his dish,

Dog nuggets are scattered - a varmit's best wish!

So furry, so fast, it's in, and then gone,

Raiding at night - disappearing by dawn.

He or she has set up for a long winter's stay,

And likely will be there til a spring milder day.

Now the moon on the crest of a new fallen snow,
Matters not to this creature burrowed below,
Balled up in a nest of leaves, twigs and dirt –
Dog food is purchased; what the heck, it won't hurt!
We moved the dog's bowl to our kitchen inside,
Another set out so our guest's not denied.
If our friend stays the winter, and under the ground,
There's kibble for triple - enough to go round -
So let the spirit of Christmas and crunching resound!

*******************************************************************

Journey - by W. R. Griffin - an informal Petrarchan Sonnet for John Davis, artist of photography, a good person - who loved all meandering and whitewater streams in scenic mountains

Oh, that I could soar beyond these skies,

And know the ins and outs and whys,

Of all there is that's left to know, to go

Where only brightest, flaming comets dare,

Beyond the sun's scorching, searing flare,

Into celestial night with upturned hands,

To see the heavens near, above eternal lands, 

To find my deepest depth, my highest height,

To shine, to dance upon the hills through night,

To start again, again ... but this time, right! 

To see my way far, far beyond - so true, so clear,

To know that all that's good is now and here.

And, only then to feel the silent trod above,

Of all those sweetest souls I dearly love,

To find the peace that cannot, cannot end,

To see, to be from where all gods ascend.

 

*****************************

Reluctant Rhyme - by W. R. Griffin 

Far from the fields and greenest wood,
Beyond stonewalls, on rocky hills I’ve stood. 
I’ve climbed sheer cliffs for views suspended, 
To paint the boldest world, and then descended, 
To my quaint old shaded fortress cottage home, 
To find demigods in marble halls offend my own.

Now all my leaves are scattered on the ground, 

Except for those the mighty oaks first found, 
So thus, I thread and mend them one by one, 
Only to let them go, flying, leaping to the sun, 
Upon the fitful wintry winds, and gusting snow, 
When a world asleep in dreamless fits can’t know.

Now these gilded leaves lie huddled in my yard, 

Waiting till soft spring thaws - the heartless hard. 
The latest ones have learned - less bluster show, 
Brighter flowers from softer grounds do grow – 
From this old heart once overgrown with brier, 
Now knows the difference twixt a flame and fire.

Then when those who see and sing a different sky, 

Find it’s not treason to march an older tune, and why – 
This dance, this waltz with lilting words is not wrong, 
To seek the silver chimes of sound and dance-like song, 
The beat with rhythmic grace in time is rhyming reason – 
The bright delight of words shown light, in a sun lit season.

****************************                     

Dearly Departed - by W. R. Griffin (a nod to Poe and Hardy)

When you left, I heard; I heard you call!

But now you’ve gone beyond this place.

Once you were here, my heart, my all,

But each tick, each chime’s a fading face.

Why is it when lost souls depart,

In stillness, drums a beating heart,

We hear each sigh, each pulsing breath –

Do they wait for us beyond this death?

Or is it just hapless wind we hear,

Over soggy fields and rainy moors,

Do they cry beyond those airy shores,

In the bitter dark so far, yet near?

Yes, I have faltered, failing, falling,

Now with each leaf I hear you calling,

As north winds bring the winter in,

With each beating heart, each mournful sin.

 

                      *****************************                            

                    Why Now Our Troubled Times?  – by W. R. Griffin

Why now is there such a divisive diatribe?

Why now do many their own home deride?

Why now do we ourselves divide?

Why now is our united cause defied?

Why now do oppositions roar with pride,

How the other will not bend nor abide?

Why now do those who should dare, just hide?

Why now can we not see the other side?

Why now do we ignore this changing tide?

Why now our faith and wisdom must not subside?

Why now can’t we set our stubborn self aside?

Why now do not more of the wise and wary chide?

Why now are some leaders still curt and snide?

Why now does so much of our discourse excide?

How long can this country last without its honor, pride?

How long before we find this once great nation, died?

************************

**************************

Saving Time - by W. R. Griffin

Suffice it to say, this is just another day,
And all the laughs and all the tears,
Put end to end, construct the years,
And all the time piled higher still,

Goes on and on to where life will,
Then bends into the underbrush.
Instead of taking time, we rush!
Until the nights come end to end,
And light no longer rounds that bend.
Then in our darkness comes new light,
To guide us through eternal night,
To a day that lasts eternities,
A home beyond all galaxies.

*****************************

Winter Came on White Robed Wind – by W. R. Griffin

   

  

A frost-bearing zephyr one late fall night,

  Clouded over the moon, veiling its light,

  Glowing on roofs on a steep wooded crest,

  To buffet the eaves above a barn owl’s nest.

  Wind rustles the curtains behind windowpanes,

  Awakens the children along farmhouse lanes.

  The moon ghosts the fields, with a shimmering glow,

  The stalks have been stripped, all activities slow!

  Now life hunkers down, hard breathing subsides,

  Like the foam on the back of the receding tides,

  Slipping away like the years, disappears like the sands,

  Gone away gone, to far, far away lands.

  Reds, rusts, and bright yellows, dance on the leaves –

  As the wild callings of quail are heard in the sheaves.

  The last shocks are now emptied, crops stored in the barns,

  The workers smoke pipes, laugh and spin yarns.

  God’s canvas now done, as Monet’s, and Van Gogh’s,

  An impressionist master with the first falling snows.

******************************

Winterlude - by W.R. Griffin  (a nod to T.S. Eliot)

A cold and rainy day moves in,

With the smell of leaves upon the wind.

Winter is slow to impose its ways,

At the fading ends of pastel days.

A gusty shower soundly taps,

On twiggy, mossy, grimy scraps

Of withered leaves under my feet –

And, tattered papers from a vacant street.

The shower drums its staccato beat

On shuttered panes - on chimneys; roofs,

Soft echoes waft where the corners meet,

A solemn horse steams and scuffs his hooves.

Then slowly with the lighting lamps,

Comes all night people; beggars, tramps,

The souls still searching for their loves -
Pigeons fluttering like tainted doves.

                            
 ********************************************

                           Until Our Now Is Gone – by W. R. Griffin

The ticks and tocks of a million clocks,

Moments now, are too soon gone.

Time is not bound by ropes or locks,

Mornings, days and nights move on.

They once were here, so near, we thought.

But our dreams are past, they faded fast,

Ephemeral time, like rain won’t last –

Time soon dries up; in the forever caught.

We had much time not long ago,

It seemed an endless day,

We did not fear the setting glow

Nor cry as it went away.

Nights were our dreams to hold, hold fast

So into the dark we’d play,

That with each night we thought new day

Would supplant our fabled past.

We thought the night was in the now.

That with each dark - new sun

That boundless time would have its way,

So our endless now could run.

*********************

Bitter Turn When You Are Old – W. R. Griffin

Why does God plant us in a field so ripe, so rare,

Only to leave us there till fallow, burned and bare?

When only crows of life circle to cry our names –

All our loves are gone, little of our youth remains.

It is the fallacy of love that burns our leaves to bronze

To dry brittle crackling spines amid green mocking pines,

Beside bright ponds love whispers through the perfumed fronds,

In summer air, carefree then, now with bitter prickling tines.

Why does He not just allot the number that befalls our fate?

So from first breath we know the where and when of death,

That with the waning light, all love is felt before that night,

Then all the words we’ve said and said again too late,

Echo, Echo beyond the dark, long after our last breath. 
Then, through the silence of our fate all sweet bells must toll,

For this parting life, the memories rich, to ring, to sing, our soul.

*************************                    
                  Only In My Dreams  - By W. R. Griffin

She left, and where she is, only her spirit knows,

So tell me again I should not waste a single rose,

On her, when I do not know why she has to flee,

Where in my dreams, I know how so she comes to me,

And so sweet and fair in sleep she seems to be.

I tell her how naive I am and so foolish old,

And how she has “glad graces,” keenly spied,

That she must blush and tear when I am cold,

Tho, had she sprung in wastelands, where none abide –

In raw heat, she too, would have shriveled and died,

And in my sleepy sacristy of dreams, the angels cried.

Sweet is the worth of beauty that swift in night expired,

That I must bid this apparition, come back, come back again!

Love suffers to be real, to feel the warmth of flesh desired,

But, as each season’s suns, so quickly dry the rain,

More so in dreams, a swift and tragic love is much admired.

Sweet love must die - the common fate of everything so rare,

Made greater still by so small a part of time these lovers share,

Fleeting, passion’s love will forever be so wondrous fair!

 


*******************

Echo - by W. R. Griffin 

Can you hear the silence of your soul,

Or does your world get in the way?

The din of discord, "pole to pole,"

Some pass as routine day.

Can you tell if you create your own

Frenzied, frenetic, hurried tone,

Blinded by your fluttered dust,

Crying at your stark distrust,

As you raise your crested throne,

Weeping bitter tears of your own salt,

Are your woes cut from denial or fault?

And blinded,  you see only husk,

Instead of sunshine - only dusk.

To stow, to hoard, to pile, stack-heap,

Your jeweled junk, as if replete -

To cough, to choke on your own pill,

Screaming fate, but declare it will, 

While no one else besides you hears

The noise you make in your own ears!

**************************

Tempest Lost - by W. R. Griffin

On rocky shores, beside a raging sea,

High above the din of the ocean’s roar,

From this tempest scene, the clouds cry to me,

“I am the dark, I am all, I am me, I am more.”

The echoing sound of this night implores –

“Oh sleepy-eyed captain on tempest shores,”

“Come out, join the souls that haunt this place,”

*At this point of time, at this point in space.

You are the guest of these words penned, and lined -

Words of woe, words aflame, words darkly defined.

Words of youth, words of old, words of love, words of hate,

Words of regret, words of hurt, words shouted too late.

Come out screams the ocean, come up cries the sky!

Heaven and Hell know our sins, before we all die.

*"An August Midnight" by Thomas Hardy

 
*************************

Love and Lies – by W. R. Griffin

Bouquet in hand, clenched white gloves,

She strides the grounds, scatters doves,

With somber gate, but timeless grace,

Her eyes search the past, and tear her face.

The grassy path through stones is dewed

Her mind’s a maze, her thoughts, a feud,

He lies deep in sleep beneath cold sod,

Where once they strolled, as lovers trod.

This soul that breathed, now is cold, alone

As the dismal rains caress his stone,

Where he's concealed from scorn and lies,

While her beauty fades around veiled eyes.

She escapes to the shade; she shuns this day
Feeble and weak, all her excuses shred, 

Her heart knows well what her mind won’t say,  

That truths are buried -  lies are never dead.

********************

Youth – by W. R. Griffin

Dawn rises, a storm despises

The swelter of this day.

It must hide to abide, just a hint away.

While the peeking sun disguises.

Summer welter forces shelter,

So we bide, deep, deep inside,

To escape this torpid, ruddy air;

To deride this garish stunning glare.

Crowds dither, helter-skelter,

The very earth welds up a welter

Yet my dreams to dreams appealed,

Once I ran, Oh ran the field!

Young heart – but youth must yield.

Now with each clouding day,

Deep inside myself I stay,

And, the world’s a smaller place,

Without us there.

*****************************

Creation’s Flames - by W. R. Griffin

 







 




The burgeoning mind catches fire,

Creation flames light the space,
Sparking, each word rises higher,
Glowing embers alight, crack the pace.

Pulsing hearts, rhythmic rhyme rings along.

For soul’s sake, poems quake; march the song.

Poems speak,  poems peak, cast their spell,

Soothing souls, healing hearts – spirits swell.

Poems soar, loudly roar, “This is me!”

Poems toll love and pain – Set us free.

*****************************

Waves - by W. R. Griffin

Tides pulse in to ebb again, 

Thundering waves demand!

The pounding, sweeping out and in

Turns great rocks to sand.

The pacing, patient sweep of fate,

Moves seas, and transforms land,

Wearing down all the obstinate,

Cast by winds, or shaped by hand.

We cannot undo our waning days

But hope our best were deft.

We cannot change our yesterways

Or how much time we’ve left.

We set our sails so long ago

The sea and sky are all we know

We cannot unwrite this final page

No qualms, No fears, No rage.

***************************** 

A Star For Your Sky – W. R. Griffin

 
There’s no greater joy on all the Earth,

Than a baby in your arms.

The magical sounds, the greatest mirth  

In the spell of an infant’s charms.

God’s greatest gift is to us alone.

No scepter, crown nor gilded throne,

Could make our hearts fly higher still,

Than when a baby’s in our home.

This miracle brings such sheer delights

Happy tears fill up our eyes.

We are complete with our ‘good nights.’

When this star lights up our skies.

*************************

The Paradox - by W. R. Griffin

My heart, my soul -

I'd rather wrap into a gift,

Set upon a raft adrift,

To sail the oceans, pole to pole.

My life, my tears, burned, turned to

Darkest ash over a million years -

A million years of constant night,

Cold, cold the heart that sheds no light.

This nightmare myth that turns, returns

Out of brightest blue, unfathomed eyes,

A heart disguised; cold, cold she burns,

Flaming the moon, torching the skies.

Sirens call - men dare not obey

Caught in a web, diaphanous chains,

Lethal and beautiful - Venus reigns!

Death, Death by love, we turn to clay.

Death, Death by lust, makes evil play.

*********************

Sojourner – by W. R. Griffin 

Some day we’ll all journey to lush lands afar,

A sojourner's flight to the brightest bright star.

This journey, our journey to all that is known,

Where all truths prevail, only reason’s light shown.

We start out on horseback, our cart worn and old;

The sea spreads beside us, where soon we behold

A schooner’s white sails billowing bold

To sail through dark skies to kingdoms foretold.

We journey up mountains – o’er craggy cliffs tall

Soaring scenes rich and mystic; full vistas enthrall.

When weary we rest in fields flush with flowers,

Bathe in brooks, sun on sands, rinse in rain showers!

This journey, our journey turns toward the night,

The sun at our backs, to the source of all light.

In the warm glow of evening, no worry, no strife,

Our journey ends – there - in the midst of all life.

**************************

Body Bags and Coffins - By W. R. Griffin

The sun had turned the tarmac tacky black

As coils of heat rose in waves and shimmers.

An army green winged behemoth’s engines rumbled

A drum beat tattoo – as the solemn procession,

This cargo rolled up silver stairs of straining

Chains and wheels, on a final journey home.

In the windy acrid rotor blast, a Captain stands

With a clip board in his hands – tolling cargo,

To make sure no box goes unaccounted,

Or is left behind – His duty done, much too benign.

His mind far off from field and fray – a routine day.

There, beside him, a weathered, leathered tough

Stands stout – chevrons and stripes from sleeve to cuff,

Making sure his men moved out.

The sun slips them slowly into the shadows –

Into the humming beast – a steady last retreat

Before their final leave – then the clacking pulleys strain

And snap – a single coffin falls to the track,

Its cargo crashes to the ground, a routed shattered tomb -

A ripped and tattered womb.

The Captain shouts as one white solemn face

Stares forlornly to the sky, asking why?

“My God," the captain prayed, "he's just eighteen!”

Slow, cold and plain the sergeant softly said,

“Sir, he's as old as you get - this soldier’s dead!

**************************

Night Patrol – W. R. Griffin 

This low light night the winds do rise,

To blow out another rock desert day

As reluctant clouds slowly stray,

A crescent moon stalks the skies.

Stark darkness moans, a dust storm seethes

A mottled squad huddles on genuflected knees

The lookouts peer from craggy hillside posts

Night-vision scans for pale green ghosts.

The mission goal will never change —

To seek the seekers as they stalk

Slipping through rough, rocky range

To kill the whispers as they walk.

Darkness makes all blood run cold

The sweating fear – the daunting foe

The wild unrest as thoughts run slow

The silent gut check, the rise to bold

The waiting ends, the rush clatters higher,

Out and upward drag these ragged best,

To meet a millennial foe, in an endless test,

Buried in a dust storm ringed with fire.

*************************

Rolling Thunder - by W. R. Griffin

I still hear the rolling thunder,

I still feel the melting heat

I still smell the flesh and fire,

Feel the pain of soul's defeat.

I still feel the distant rumble,

Flashes, roaring, rain-dark night

Smell wet stench of rotting jungle,

Sweat-stung eyes squint from flare-light.

I still hear the rolling thunder,

See the green, the brown, the red

That drape the mangled mannequins,

Hear the songs of those now dead.

I still hear the rolling thunder,

Speak the chant of sing-song names

See those faces in "rock" blaring bar-rooms,

That fade in the crack of lightning flames.

I still am the rolling thunder,

I still am the living dead

And still walk the mire and rice fields,

Where youth and blood were shed.

I still feel the rolling thunder,

See the pocked and naked land

Hear the roar of rolling thunder,

But not of crowd nor marching band.

I still see the sand-bagged trenches,

Feel the pain of fear-burned mind

I still hear the rolling thunder,

But no cheers from those behind.

I yet hear the rolling thunder,

From the clouds and cloudless sky

Raining death on bamboo huts,

And still ask the question.... Why?

*************************

Rote - by W. R. Griffin

In the late spring, early summer heat of youth,

His smiles were like chariots parading.

A man-boy – his eyes sparked, made trumpets sound.

His chin was notched in youthful triumphs.

Now on that tarmac, the end of a path traveled twice before,

He found it—a fate set with his first breath—

Worn under his grandfather’s, then his father’s boots:

A trail etched in stone and fire.

Into Babel’s breath he walked, into Khan’s

cradle, where Alexander had passed

Long ago, where Britannia had foundered,

Where the Russo-Union failed at last.

With his brothers, seared and bound by smoke,

Peering into darkness, up blinded hills,

He met that winded myth, mirage, and legend—

And there the fable, fleshed, destroyed him too.

Shell in a velvet box on that ramp.

He is not there; he is beyond our seeking.

He is a memory, an echo of a boy once loved.

Lost now under whispers and bright chest ribbons.

******************************

Partings – by W. R. Griffin

The last long pulse has severed from his heart,

The passed low wave has ebbed and life is shed.

The once gray skies of constant storms have fled

The final spark escapes it’s well worn part,

In this dark dead-end so opposite its start.

Amid bright flowers on both sides outspread,

She stands, white rose with her pursed lips burnt red.

They loved each other once – life ripped apart,

Now he drifts on those final tidal dreams –

Such dreams that left him when she slipped away.

Once souls have left to wander on the gleams.

In the last glow of light or first blush of day,

All flows until some merging of life’s streams,

Brings bitter wonder why as there he lay.

******************************

Epitaph - by W. R. Griffin

For Mrs. Willis' Pre-AP English Classes 

Bell County, Kentucky H. S.

The frigid willful braying wind whisks away the graying clouds,
And every hurried breath is frozen but this hour upon the air -
To forge the blackened ground wrought iron hard, yet bare.
It is a friend to night when the webbed light tatted snow enshrouds;
The crystal ice keeps all flesh fair till spring’s kind thaw allows.

The howling herald’s life’s retreat to fairer climes,

Flocks have flown to balmy limbs leaving the hunter to his whims,
Upon the scurry from the crevasse or the crag to ferret out the day,
for a single morsel of some abandoned grain of temperate times,
the mortal price, the coin of death every man or beast must pay.

Whether rodent, fowl or we can stay until spring’s blessing thaw,
Unveils half the cruelest meaning of all things, 
and yet is the all of all.
The dash from when we’re born then die 
becomes the answer to our – why?
The math of life, the sum of we, the day to day, 
the total of how well we try
– Our storied rhyme, each breath by breath 
is etched by hand from birth to death.

*************************

A Poem Is Our Echo! – by W. R. Griffin

A poem is the dream within our deepest dream

A poem is much more than it could ever seem

A poem is the calming calm after every silent scream

A poem is the relief that’s felt after our darkest storm

A poem is beyond the sum of all its words and form

A poem is that jagged edge far out beyond all norm

A poem is that precious breath of freshly rain-cleaned air

A poem is your in-most self, your secrets, foul or fair

A poem is your rage, your song – it’s everything you feel

A poem is salvation; our desperate need to heal

A poem is that searing shot, white hot, into our soul

A poem is that blackest black we feel from pole to pole

A poem is that brightest light of every rising sun

A poem is that inner peace when every day is done

A poem is your bane, your love, your hate and worse

A poem is our deepest peace, and our violence in verse

A poem is the abstract you, your essence out of air

A poem is your love, your hate, erupting raw and bare

A poem is that final plea, that final halting breath

A poem is those buried words that fester after death

A poem is the sum of sums of all our billion parts

A poem is our last wish to those final beats of hearts

A poem speaks in whispers, shouts or sings or cries

A poem is every waking thought, until everybody dies.

A poem is the sound of sounds that we’ve have never heard

A poem is our echoed self, not knowing word for word.

**************************

Keepsake – W. R. Griffin

Upon the parted sepia pages,

So frail, so firmly pressed

By youthful loves' fevered iron –

Like her pair of paisley pants,

Rests sweet petals of their romance –

Perfumed envelope, stamped; addressed –

A pale but fervent echo of the ages;

Not Keats, nor Shelly - not from Byron,

But a simple earnest waltzing dance,

Not from a seer, scion or some sages,

Though his heart leaped within his chest.

He could not fathom through fears and fates,

If beyond this temporal veil - she waits.

But there, through tears, and memories’ mist

After so many years, lay the sprig she kissed.

Rory – by W. R. Griffin

An old man sees his first Grandson – a tiny king!

1st Prince of a new clan, another line to flow

Through time’s stream, another bud of spring –

This universal child, that all must see, must feel, must know.

Cosmic clouds are in his tiny hands – he’ll grasp, and cling

To this universe – to dry his tears, the solar winds will blow.

Those close will see this sprout grow strong, to never yield,

To command the angels, armed with a herald’s sword and shield!
Each cry, every murmur, each word is our command.

Against this soulless world where he and the angels stand

Against this tattered book that’s seems so set, so sealed.

Yet, his dreams are firm – set resolute and must not be repealed.
We declare this child shall have a chance to thrive,
To strive, to burst the sun – to illuminate all that is alive.

***************************

Our Winter's Song - By W. R. Griffin

Winter billows her downy veil,

As dim mists come and in waves, arise.

Those who listen, can hear her sighs—

In the glen under her moaning gale.

Beyond, these airy shadows pale

Soon flee before our sallow eyes.

With soulful sounds, they mourn demise-

These emptied souls, all sins bewail.

Then at the peak of the coldest hour,

Those now gone, and the graying meet,

Their deep sighs swell this saddest kind,

In the din, and darkest waves of dour.

And yet our shadows' dreams are sweet;

They soothe the weary, woeful mind,

Heard above the wind by all left behind,

As our last minutes, the dusty fates devour.

**************************************

First Cathedral – by W. R. Griffin

Grander still than all the monuments of man

Stands the first forest under night light divine – His plan!

Trees and leaves that filter, focus light

Colors of the spectrum dance and glow His might

In shadowed depths where few of us have trod

Cedars sigh, from canopy to forest bed, a reverent nod

Ferns and pines lift limbs to all grand nature, wise,

Up from vale to hills - unto celestial skies.

A billion, billion lights look down, no word is said

But, in a single moment all the universe is read

In His cathedral spreads a deep retreat

With emerald choir lofts on branching crofts

Where feathered choirs meet.

And, there, under the starry evening vespers light

God listens to this sweet - sung peace of night.

************************************

Eden Reborn - by W. R. Griffin 

We can only hope each child that's born

Comes to a world that's not forlorn

But brighter still than our best recall

Yes, a fairy tale to enchant, enthrall

With the hope that they will blossom bright

Under sunny ski and starry night

I know that this is much to ask

Far grander than God's greatest task

But if He controls the heavens grand

Then He can wave His mighty hand

To turn us back toward Eden's way

When we knew no evil thought or day

To cast out the evil that cast us astray

Eden reborn - here to stay!

************************** 

That Final Eve - by W. R. Griffin

The air is crisp and cold this dawn,

The frost's not far behind.

The fall’s arrived; the summer’s gone –

Now winter comes to mind.

Another year is winding down,

Another age is near.

The never ceasing spin of time

Moves God's celestial sphere.

We hear and hear when we are young,

That life will travel fast.

We hear that soon we will be old –

That youth and love can't last.

We hear so soon that night appears –

Bright things in life must end.

We do not listen behind our tears,

But cling to the dreams we mend.

So sooner still the days are done,

And quickly fall must leave.

Each rising dawn, each setting sun

Brings on that final eve.

*************************

That Hour, That Day – W. R. Griffin

The family “we” must celebrate all that they have given,

The gifts of love, of flesh, and blood sent to highest heaven.

The horrendous mystery of it all, the gloried, painful sight,

That trumpets selfless bravery, celebrates each life.

Hold these dreams for times that come, the hours, days and years.

Carve each step, each soul, each word, the loves, the tears.

Celebrate each echoed life, and we must never be

In too much hurry not to stop, to smell, to touch, - to see.

Celebrate all these souls; the highest gifts they gave

The love, the hopes, their sweetest kiss, must last beyond the grave.

**************************

Last Journey – by W. R. Griffin 

How dark is the night, how cold is this coach

The clouds have departed; The stars now approach.

Beyond the pale moon, through stellar mists we have flown,

Winged horses, hooves silent, the only breath was my own.

The gates are soon parted to eternity’s door

The sun’s now my ceiling; the sky’s now my floor.

The walls are eternal, with marble columns in air

A City of Scions, creatures grotesque and fair.

Whence came I, I hold now in memories’ trace

Some will mourn me, others scorn me this mystical place.

My life's now a measure of all memories deep

Till eternity’s ashes, the winds away sweep.

**************************

The Last Breath – by W. R. Griffin

 

Their ragged breath was shed

The rasp that none can fake

On that black, roiling edge

All coming nights forsake.

The weary, burdened trail

Marked by their brooding sum.

Their clenching teeth, skin pail –

Hushed beating of life’s drum.

The air’s now dark and deep

They’ve waved their final wave.

No one can stop this sleep,

No one can mask the grave.

***************************

Biblical Summer - by W. R. Griffin

The sun has overpowered Earth, it steams in fiery air,

The forces of the cooler climes have shrunk away afraid.

Only the darkest sheltering nooks and sweeter shade

Escape the swelter of our star's unremitting glare

That burns upon the earth’s cowering, bending plants.

It drives small creatures under to their burrowed maze

Or they fall to die on fields amidst the torrid haze.

The beast beside the forest fountain, gazes, grazes, pants,

Forced to exodus his hills and valley’s shriveled brown;

The bird hides in darkest tree, the snake into its den,

Gasping, muddy fish wallow in hot streams, and men

Cringe from heaven’s burning every city, village, town.

God’s kept His promise and from the darkness sent

Instead, a warning breath down from His firmament.

**************************

Epiphany - by W. R. Griffin 

I listen to the sound of a straight down summer rain.

There is no percussion, only the gentle strains of strings.

The crash of cymbals, drums and the blare of brass are missing.
I hear only low and distant whispers; a soft waltz of memories.

Yesterday, the flash and clash of duties done,
Eclipsed the velvet songs of earth and heaven.
Though, now a pastorale rises from the winds and reeds,
And the deeds of breathing have become the breezes singing.

Gray skies are nature's compromise; a diminuendo -
A flowing coda - animato to adagio - rising softly on a solo clarinet.
While my chorus chants: It is much better late than never.
This Opus is ending as I become the ground I will inhabit!

**************************

Growing Invisible - By W. R. Griffin

Yeats wrote that when we’re old and filled with sleep,

Nodding by a fire, we’ll recall those loving thoughtful streams,

Nudged by a book, filled with sweet desire, to feel love deep

In aching enthrall, our reverie before those everlasting dreams.

It seems he spoke of grace, a sorrowed face; love false and true,
The pilgrim soul, like you, who stole this heart and mind entwined,
With such grace and beauty only the classics long ago imbue –
Lost in all the years of sweet silent tears and thoughts of all divined.

Truth is we fade, dissolve long before that final halting breath

To not be seen lest we remind them all they too will face that death.
They fear to care beyond their own moments of this now and then,
They too will leave this world long before their end.

***************************

That Perfect Day – by W. R. Griffin

To have one perfect day again to play

In fall’s crisp leaves, it’s bright chilled air,

Or perhaps under those breezy azure skies of May

Where once again we are all there, a perfect scene

Just as we were back when, so long, so long ago

And no one knows there’s been that dark between.

Would it be as we loved it, and was it really so?

Could we capture the prism of that perfect day?

Hold on and on to that dreamy light, to pretend

This life will never die - that we will never go?

Could it be again, and if we could, would it never end?

Oh, to capture all those moments, held in one bright rhyme.

A chance to say and say again - we wish we had more time.

Be there no end, but an in-between, a doorway from our past,
Where moments live to live again - can our dreams forever last?

**************************

Summer Songs – by W. R. Griffin
 

We feel the warmth of sun and wind-song play

On grassy waves and late leaves of May.

So quick the moments passed since frost was here.

So soon is gone the springing of each year.

Nature sings its pleasures dark and light,

Holding firm to each day and brightens night.

Songs flit from flower to flower with such ease

Over dried and mossy ground, under starlit trees.

June’s cicada choir sings this ode to life renewed,

Rising from forest shade, echoes to moonlit hill.

Sparking fireflies flitting, dancing, softly hued –

Sweet breezing beams of light, waltzing and still.

All this brings love or nothing can bring love,

Drawn from fertile Earth; quenched from clouds above.

Nature sanctifies this life with all she wishes; wills.

If we but watch and listen – all fulfills.

**************************

Poets - by W. R. Griffin

Skittish, twitchy, flighty birds

And squirrels that hide their secret

Treasures deep inside an ancient

Twisted tree, where they abide

To scratch the walls and hide

Some etching of their worth, whims and wounds -

Shells, dried leaves and trinkets in their tombs

Mocked by "Them" - Those gods they fear.

They gather in the pantheon of night sound,

To host, under the moon, a Bluejay on a throne

That brought some shinning bead they worship

In the pale white of lunar light

And a graying shadowed wisp of cloud.

They mask their craven need to enshrine

A single tiny silver, silken tear, a droplet

In a golden leafed-lined holy goblet,

Yet afraid to intone a single word out loud.

A bell not rung, a song not sung - a shroud.

**************************

Unsaid – by W. R. Griffin

I do not see with just my eyes

Divining into all souls instead.

In there, rife echoes crowd my head

Flowing from beyond my skies.

I hear hum buzzing alive and dead –

The ringing roaring of all not said.

I step slow softly inside dark glow,

Walk slight lightly and shadow slow,

To fathom the frenzied, frayed and fraught

To burst wide open with all I’ve caught.

I will not decipher all this I fear --

Noises not mine, past echoes, I hear.

Unspoken words find wings all their own,

Painting stark pictures, we soundly bemoan,

Every quick slight, all the barbs, bites and slashes,

Rekindle the past from our cold scattered ashes.

Flip words unspoken, the echoes of past,

Grow a life all their own, to fester and last.

**************************

Is Love Still There? - By W. R. Griffin

                            








As the summer moon plays, 
plays on these darkening skies

And wistful breezes weave 
from branch to branch in sighs,

I hear your magic murmurs slip and rise 
from their silver streams
To this darkening world where such nights 
are dared in lovers' dreams.

I’m here from the last of setting sun 
to the rising dawn of each new day,
Here in the midst of winter’s snows 
through to the bowing flowers of May,
But soft, soft your words and gestures stole away 
and now my days are few.
You are not here with me to see this masterpiece 
that heaven makes for you.

So now in my aging silent nod 
I see your faded silhouette and hear

Your breath upon my neck 
as we beg all stellar light to reappear

Yes, this near hollowed shell seeks the love, 
the love I know we knew,
When you gave me all my dreams in dreams – 
When you gave me you.

 ****************************

 On Our Own – by W. R. Griffin

 

Our whispered wishes cannot stave the night,

Litanies cast like spells won’t save this light.

Mortal distractions merely mask our gloom,

Extol your truths – unlock this final room.

Suspend your breath – capture your life in rhyme,

Delay your death in dreams extending time.

Fear not the ride around that final bend –

Poems make our words immortal – forever penned.

They’re on the page to see our sight bright black,

Full troves among the tomes from rack to rack.

Some may forget us – some may miss us here.

To sing the songs of all that we held dear.

You will not find me changed from what you knew—

If after death all this I write holds true.

**************************

Ruins - by W. R. Griffin 
- Dedicated to Mrs. Willis' Pre-AP English Classes 
    at Bell County, Kentucky H. S.

 

Time flows as we ebb from tide to tide

But can’t remove, or wash away our pain,

Nor blot our tears as sun dries up each rain –

And can’t revive the love that has long died.

Snows melt to rivers down the mountainsides,

Leaves burn in piles like pyres in the fields,

While throughout the years love’s loss never yields:

Suns rise and set and yet love’s pain abides.

There are a million places one can hide

To keep until this memory can blur,

Relief, freed from every thought of her –

Where memories of all can be denied.

I tell myself, "There are no markers here!”

To plague and pock me from a love once dear!

*************************

Crossing The Void - by W. R. Griffin
  

To rage, rage at the dying of our light

We need the seen and all the sound

Of night must be heard, must be our sight.

Sound on sound to pound where air is gone

Turning the routed shout into this muted Babylon,

Speaking the speech they cannot know to hear.

The raving lunatic turns the sanely sick to seer.

The silent scream in space turns to a distorted face.

The inane noise becomes the humdrum of the sane.

The freighted weight of hollowed words once dense

No longer resonate, and cannot, cannot make sense

To those who unlock the gates for the bored annoyed.

As the old men cry out in a drowned down silent shout

That no one can hear nor see these once bright flames

In the rush to push them out, to toss them to the void.

The withered women cry for all the silent with no names

Who are not there in all the eyes of those eyeless stares,

The silent din drowns out the shout of anyone who cares.

**************************

The Death of Reason - By W. R. Griffin

 

Have we strayed that far?

Once our thoughts expressed,

Heart-felt, peacefully confessed,

Gauged our minds, told where we are

As a people, society – a civil nation.

Now it seems it’s open season

On those who speak for unity

Not of self, but of the whole of we;

For that common sense that made us free!

When did peaceful discourse turn

To blood lust, insanity and treason?

Have we killed the age of reason?

Words well-stated and with foundation

Once ruled our minds and hearts, made us learn

When we were one, yet of disparate parts,

More of one mind; much the same of hearts,

To earn our place in the vibrant civil discourse.

Revive the fountain of thought that is the source

Of humanity –the best we know of God’s creation,

Solidarity that forged our precious nation!

**************************

Doppelgangers - By W. R. Griffin

Unknowingly, we meet divinity hailing:

A Ragman – tattered soul, unveiling,

A pushcart brimming with trash,

A Bag-Lady with an umbrella, railing

At a world gone mad with hatred’s rash.

Churchgoers roar by in SUV’s

For weekly blessing, to get in lines,

Beating wallet breasts, confessing

Sins measured by the money disease

As our TV’s list the latest signs.

Bag Lady and a Ragman dash to cross,

Absent reason in our senseless cloying.

Hitting them is no one’s loss –

Hand wringing sad but more annoying.

As paper prophets declare "The End of Time,"

Pharisees note reason's death - a Caiphus crime.

***************************

I measure every face I glance - By W. R. Griffin
 

I measure every face I glance.

I gaze to fathom eyes.

I delve to see if there’s a chance

Their soul unmasks all whys.

I wonder if they feel alone,

Or if they feel at all.

I cannot tell if it is known –

Time chides; The Fates enthrall.

I wonder if they live to live –

Or if they cannot cry –

Of if they could they’d gladly give

Their souls to never die.

I know that some would hold on long

To life at any cost.

An imitation of a song

Where all the notes are lost.

**************************

 Ways - By W. R. Griffin

Sons of Time, walking your swaggering ways,

Stuffed, numbed – casting desperate, feckless seeds,

Marching single file through your endless days,

Bringing bangles, flames for your callow needs.

Each offers his soul, fills a single plate,

Clings to paper stars on a crepe blue slate.

In my garden, I watched your ritualistic play,

Forgetting my wish, gone one early morn.

I grew lilies; roses, hoping against hope to stay,

Then turned, bowed and departed silent too late.

Beyond this solemn realm, lays my mournful scorn.

He chides me, forgetting, regretting my echoed fate.

**************************

Dreams - By W. R. Griffin

Hold fast, hold fast to all your vast dreams

Hold onto them in spite of all the bad that seems

To drag you back down, down into this muddy earth

Dries up your life, your hopes, anything made of mirth.

If you allow your dreams to turn to dust and die

They’ll blow away; turn into song-less birds that won’t fly.

Hold so tight to your dreams the bones in your fingers hurt

Plant them back; water them, in finer, fertile dirt.

Cause when your dreams are gone for good,

There’s only The Hood,

A barren field

Hermetically sealed.

So wherever you go,

There’s a lot of nothing

And it’s frozen in snow

**************************

Metamorphosis - By W. R. Griffin

Not like our crafted paradigm of fame,

With dimpled pride astride; worked by hand.

For our coastal, sea-washed, sun-kissed fate-filled land

Where brilliant men esteemed this dream aflame.

Is this Lady Liberty’s’ land of freedom’s name?

Horn of plenty and beacon we command?

The glowing words all weary-eyed demand?

Now sneering minds cry out cut off her mane;

Bind her hands with frantic wild-eyed glee.

Hear our snarling lips, “Keep your tired poor.”

Don’t send your wretched refuse to work free –

Those anxious dreams from overburdened shore.

Return them home or cast them out to sea.

Turn out her lamp and bar the golden door.

***************************

Aphrodite - By W. R. Griffin 

She is ethereal but neither faint nor frail,

She is essence, not easily yours nor mine.

She did not earthly learn from some sultry-tale,

But those lips do grace her - a goddess valentine.

Her long chestnut hair is full, more than any woman needs.

In the sun her amber tints hint, glint bright at me! 
Her voice is song – a siren’s sultry string of dulcet beads,

Airy tones filtered through a conch shell by a windswept sea.

She loves with all the otherworldly love she can,

As our impassioned dreams turn all earthly love divine,

Although, she was not made for the dust of any mortal man,

Sweet ether – she can never, ever be all yours nor mine.

Yet, we regret: Men still drain their blood for a single smile,

From that ripe mouth, those hypnotic eyes - only to drown in her denial.

***************************

End Dream -By W. R. Griffin

I lay by a pond on a winter day,

Under the sun, in snow only I had trod –

A few clouds wafting, the rest ran to God.

I had fallen and turned ashen gray.

My eyes were the eyes that in youth dared

To unlock riddles – left silent long, long ago,

And of words thrown harsh; sabers bared.

My quest for truths now - a dusty, empty row.

The light in my eyes faint, a dimming ring,

Alive enough though – too, too soon to die.

Dark, dark that grim visage has crept nearby,

Like the ominous bird of Poe’s silent wing.

My book is now written; lessons, loves, deceits,

Rife stark images, shapes stacked in sheaves.

My face is burning as my mind retreats,

By the pond, ice-edged, among cold dead leaves.

**************************

Immortality – by W. R. Griffin 

When I have bowed silent and left this stage,

Will some recall sweet memories of mine?

Aged essences distilled from some brown page,

Hardy spirits transcending death’s black line.

Who will pause awhile in a brief aubade?

Who will sigh upon an ode sad yet true?

Who will know my regrets and debts unpaid?

Who will bring this sum of my life to view?

Late, late reflections, there in ranks parade,

Late sighs now wishes this sly world denied,

Too late bold in this fitful masquerade.

Much, much too late, with everything I tried.

Beyond my fate, these phantom-thoughts I mime –

Scribbled words of old strive to last in time.

**************************

Late Fall – by W. R. Griffin 

Leaf psalms and yet we cannot grieve

Though dancing seasons come and leave.

The things our constant God renews,

Revived by endless morning dews.

Only the heart does not grow old,

Beating boldly at sights bright cold.

Mind’s light sparks with passion’s sighs

When earth under white blankets lies.

Some weep, some smile and some now wise,

Know endless roads rise to sapphire skies.

Tomorrow’s spring: May knows the same –

Of Love’s face, soul’s grace, and fickle fame.

No soaring lyrics can song express

What the heart has heard, none can guess.

For bold lighted man is born to rise

Beyond fall’s vivid ever-changing skies.

************************

Christmas – by W. R. Griffin

Did it happen as they say?

A child, divine, born in hay,

Descended from a line of kings,

Manifesting the creator of all things.

Were there shepherds in a field,

Watching flocks of sheep, to keep

Them safe, only to be blinded, to yield

To an army of angels in the sky,

Telling them not to fear, and why?

A savior, they said, was born that hour

To save mankind from Satan’s power.

A mystery, a conundrum, a paradox –

Hegemony – until mankind unlocks

Its own chains; An eternal test:

Saecula, saeculorum, scripturus est!

**************************

Mentor - By W. R. Griffin

How does one thank

The chef who cleans and pits

The peach, removes the blemishes

And bruises from beneath;

Leaves the juices full, allows

The aging essences to mellow,

Knowing just right when’s ripe?

We serve our fruits lush to all who crave.

Serve with flourishes, garnishments,

With music, trumpets – and all praise –

A rich bouquet of flavors and your compliments.

Whitman wrote – In the teacher’s eyes,

Proof is when the students rise - like cream.

No one grasps a star, reaches or dwells

Higher than on the shoulders of a dream,

Where, through you, our poem never dies.

Lifted into your learned journeyed skies!

And, higher still we’ll be – come our farewells!

************************* 

First Kiss – by W. R. Griffin

First kiss – yet Eden’s garden was a dream –

Satan’s serpent sought her ripe mouth to bruise

Forbidden skin, a sin beguiling ruse.

Adam slept alone – She, the serpent’s scheme.

God’s given mate, his rib – her knowing eyes,

With sunlit air around her, hair abeam –

Low lash gazes in glowing sunsets seem

A soft shaded world to seek, that turns lies.

First kiss. This foolish man God did not wake,

Nor did her salt tears wedge his lids apart,

But cast out into darkness of the heart.

Thus mankind is plagued; still we’re all the same

Blinded by her life’s light he can’t forsake.

Love costs him all, yet he still calls her name.

**************************

Dissolution - By W. R. Griffin

When we dissolved, resolved our one –

Final, yet never final, final tears –

Ending ended, done but never done

Lives over, yet not, bending 20 years

Pale gem grown weak, old stone cold,

now only kisses in a dry fragmented dream

I did not see the end now ended, but twice told

Black and white, dim light on a silent retro screen.

Coffee alone, gone, at home each morning

Dark, rancid, thick, yes - bitter in a dirty cup

there – there, that was, that was my warning

Words once said, never dead; but thrown up

Neither either speaks the other’s name;

only lists of needing things teeth spoken.

Some say it will be fine, others, it’s a shame.

Broken is a trite dark word - but it was broken.

Give it a year, a year – then, then you’ll see,

This knelling, telling toll, shrill, still in my ear;

you’ll live, you’ll live, they say, they say to me

some day, some day, they say, it will be clear.

They know, they know and yet they don’t,

I don’t know to know, and never will

long, long I have not, and still, still I won’t,

But, yes – had I listened then, I might listen still.

**************************

The squinty face - by W. R. Griffin

My mirror shows a squinty face

Where once a bright-eyed youth

Stuck out his tongue, flew into space,

Pulled out his broken tooth.

The squinty face seems out of time

Not the shallow kid

A metered verse that doesn’t rhyme,

An elegy from his id.

The squinty face still dreams at nights

Still hears a youthful name

Imagined heights, now lowered lights,

Echoes in halls of fame.

Mirror man’s got a fallback plan

Playing it all by ear.

Now he gets by as best he can,

Knows more of love than fear.

**************************

First Sigh Brings Winter - By W. R. Griffin

The sough of russet, fragile leaf

From breezy whisper, easy thief

On night-wing wisp is too soon lost

Gossamer jeweled in ghostly frost.

Slight blush of hushed, reddened gold

Hues out to edge on grassy wreath.

Last light and dance come naked cold;

Blanket the ground and all beneath.

The must of weedy, seedless thatch

From crisp, once vivid, vibrant patch

Is stemmed at the hem; wetted white,

Firmed and set one frigid night.

This billow blankets yard to yard

On water spellbound, iron hard.

It coats on Spruces, crusts on Pines

Bends the branches with tufts on tines.

Feather froth, yet a frigid host

Transforms to vivid, wind swept ghost

Field, hollow, hill and forest keep.

A wintry landscape; a downy sweep.

*************************

Good Fences - By W. R. Griffin

It is a hundred yards of steel

Between me, the night and all it brought

With turf chalk markings on the ground

The murmured, whispered toothy sound

Enclaves where youth heat dark sought

Chest bump, head thump, acting tough

Gang talk, group sex, and stealing stuff

The early, surly primal twitchy urge

The flesh-to-flesh, the push, the gush

Why wait, too late, get grunt, let surge

To dog, to mutt, the primal rut, the rush

The airy wafting need of weed alight

In the blurry, slurry, earthy night

And popping junk to feel the reeling hush

Cop car passes in a hurried, flurried shush.

They’ll break free, they say to rule the day

What they want, or feel; a boasting bray.

They’ll more likely find a home

With junkies, thugs and thieves alone

Outside the halls they want, inside

The walls they don’t and won’t

Rise to the throne they feel is theirs

With a single finger raised, all defied.

Acting tough, to rip, run and rally

On their turf – but in my alley

Where they hide. Where they deride.

I wire, I hammer, I nail, I lift, and bend.

Yes, Frost is right.

A good fence makes a good friend.

*************************

Fireflies - By W. R. Griffin

A Honeysuckle summer evening hillside breeze,

Whispered to our Willows and the Walnut trees.

Wafting through our yard down to the river,

A cooling wake that made us dance and shiver.

We ran, caught and put in jars every glowing firefly,

As Poppa, in his cutoff khakis, leaned back into his chair,

His eyes glazed, his face tilted toward the evening sky,

Beer on his breath, tattoos on his arms, and wind in his hair.

His stout body strained the chair’s plaid plastic bands,

Stretched and squeaked with each twitching shift of its frame.

On his forearm, etched in Japanese, each of us by name,

On his chest was sketched two mythic gods of exotic lands.

He’d say he wondered what the poor folk were doing,

His children’s lilting laughs – both then and now – ensuing,

And, still these memories light in my mind’s eye, reviewed,

As if it were yesterday, so sharp, each scene renewed.

Bright images of that balmy night, forever keep

To dance in the mind’s sky, a myriad stars alight –

Fireflies for my children’s children when I sleep

Through an endless star-filled, summer night.

**************************

An angel in the Night - By W. R. Griffin

I dreamed an angel in the night,

Took me with burning heart’s desire.

Her hair was black, her eyes were white,

With opal breasts transcendent bright,

To lands of ice and lakes of fire.

I dreamed an angel in the night.

My angel rose through dark to light,

Her mythic wings stroking a lyre.

Her hair was black, her eyes were white.

My angel roused alluring height,

In ardent trance replete, entire.

I dreamed an angle in the night.

My angel soared in blazing flight,

With mystic notes the God’s admire

Her hair was black, her eyes were white.

We sensed the sublime, yet recondite,

Pandora’s whims like a centaur’s sire.

I dreamed an angel in the night.

Her hair was black, her eyes were white.

**************************

Sin Samba Salsa - By W. R. Griffin

Bells toll the hour - spires pierce the azure blue, pointing, praying.

Contrapuntal to the rhythmic undulation and the heat of couples swaying to a Latin beat – brown glistening fleshy hue in music and passion’s bend. Musky, fragrant bodies, samba salsa swaying and saying - there is no end.

Beggars tout their wares as women hold babies and chatter like rustling leaves. Their men sing the songs of sweat and needs – their music drowned in rusty rain - The sounds of doing what they do or bleed to fill the space and days between, As uniformed nuns in blue and white smile and laugh at this summer play, and look away
– their lives handed to Padre Dios to keep them safe from pain.

The whispering feet, circling sweet, shuffling sounds pulse, repeat.

Young and old meld to the music lost in yellowed haze
And cracking memories of days when their bodies moved
As one on heated winds and passion’s tone, when breath wisps away - All earthly care in dreams and sweat-wrapped limbs.
No sinners, nor saints are here - just salsa to a rhythm of its own.

*******************************

Eden Lost – By W. R. Griffin

I yearn to breathe the blackest dirt and richest green,

Of fescue and earth under bare feet - and between my toes,

To bathe in crystal rocky splashing sheen – an Eden retreat,

Where only, keen sensed, the wildest creature goes –

Lapping the founts before the stain of darkest spoils fill

God’s rain and turn the source of life into a poisoned swill.

I am the salamander - the toad in grass – musty and wet.

I live and breathe the same as all but sooner pass –

Murdered by this slow drip of nature’s blood, less red, and yet

Turned to carrier of all the glutton’s refuse until dead.

I am the canary, the last breath before the miner falls –

I am Troy and Rome, the fatted calf and crumbling walls.

Eden’s chance has long since gone as do Eve and Adam

Lay in silent dust – and thus man’s grandiose and greatest turn

To acid rust – while tattered tomes of wisdom mildew and rot –

The answers to all perplexing and yet the final question’s not –

What have we done with all that God hath gave,

That has turned once a paradise into our common grave.

**************************

Blood and Oil - By W. R. Griffin

Our universe is bleeding black and brown

The richest blood of ages from dark graves

Beneath an ocean – slow - in killing waves –

Turning ripe orchards into salted ground.

It is the blood of all that lived until

The heavens opened and God’s hammer

Gouged a hole that filled with pernicious greed.

And Babel rose again vociferous and shrill.

Cains kill Abels for the world’s thirst

To put the blood of ages’ powers first

And make a golden idle from this blood

Breath and thought now choked with bowel’s mud.

A child asks, “What is this place?” And we say,

It is where once we watched the sea and sky

At the end of summer’s day - where life thrived

Amid the bulrush and the verdant reed –

And, now it’s where our hubris costs us

All that we can bleed.

**************************

Now, The Past – by W. R. Griffin

It is here; and will not leave this room –

A dance macabre dream fills my blighted womb.

It rises from our darkest night;

From icy loves to hates burning white,

It screams and writhes in cold gray truths –

The past – our past - is alive and loose.

We dread, we grieve our bygone

But like amanitas it seedy grows.

It settles in each stretching yawn –

Each Destroying Angel shows.

Each path we choose our shadows last

Because the past binds us; holds us fast.

With tempest’s force, the past turns and twists;

Distorting drifts and day-struck mists;

The scroll of then becomes new lies

Scribed from distant blinking eyes.

A steadfast knot binds our past –

It will forever and ever last – it is alive and loose.

Past has not passed, but now is gone soon,

As each sun hides its face from a rising moon.

We dance, sing and cry out our closed diary.

We thoughtlessly weave, warp this last tapestry.

Each thread, weft, and cross in our final trial

Is a clarion trumpet or the tomb’s muted denial.

************************

My Kids - by W. R. Griffin

I wish I could be back in those delivery rooms,

And start again – but this is now, and that was then.

So many yesterdays, but I can still see you Kevin

Crowning, with an umbilical chord trying to choke you

To death, but quick, deft doctor’s hands gave you breath

To scream your arrival to the rooftops - echoes down hallways.

And, you Allison, cut from your mother’s stomach,

A C-Section emergency – as I watched – my quick glances

As sharp as bayonets, poised with a focus I had not

Seen nor felt since firing at and being fired upon, while

Crouched, looking over the edge of a rooftop in Saigon.

The crusty nurse yells, “If you faint you lie where you fall,

”I shot back, “Watch them, and them alone and that is all!”

I see you both clearly, three years apart, each rosy pink,

In glass bassinettes, your fists shaking at the lights and –

I imagine – at life: I, aware – and yet not – to be there

To help you through all your crying nights and fits of pique.

I see you both, so grown, so much of me, so much of you,

Your mom, your grandpas, nanas - their eyes and smiles, too.
Faces in faded photos, a montage, yet you unique, so bright.

Warm suns and moons have glowed, and shaded you with a prism’s blush. 

We try, yet we fail, we rush and yet so much is far beyond our sight.
We ask, what turns our fate? What drives us in joy or a stunned hush?

And I gladly nod to any or all religions’ gods or God above.

For proved is proof, we are shaped, now or late, by love.

***************************

To A Child Now Grown - By W. R. Griffin

Oh, that I could hear again that cry –

Your shrill charge into this indifferent world,

And, ask again – why I did not fully comprehend

The weight of your waiving banner yet unfurled,

Your clear clarion call to arms around you curled,

And ply my course safe before life’s sins to mend.

Now you’re near the age I was then when you were born,

And aching echoes all my life from brassy sorrow’s horn.

You are now the adult I so much hoped you’d be,

Shaped by the greater winds - divine and destiny.

Carved by so many streams beyond my meager lands,

And all the rainbow brush strokes of eager, artful hands.

And, beyond this late rocky ledge before my fate,

You’ve tilled the field from fallow to greener great,

I have learned again how life is not some simple straight,

That all the stars in heaven will not guide us to a gloried fate.

But, if I have lifted you a simple single step above,

Then proved is proof – we’re shaped - now or late, by love.

************************* 

Hang Ups - by W. R. Griffin

In the darkness they conspire –

Malevolent bent wire.

Their goal is my frustration

As they repel their separation.

In lines circumscribed and neat,

Closed closeted – they meet!

Wrapped, entwined and clustered –

My coat and I – now flustered.

Whether plastic, wood or metal

Their battle plan is to unsettle.

And with mute duplicity,

Their favorite target – me!

If God is in high realm,

And firmly at His helm,

Then they must be in The Plan –

Revenge for Eden to punish man.

*******************************

God’s People - by W. R. Griffin

I think The Lord makes funny people,

Because the rest quite bore him.

So, when you deride a homonym

Watch out for a falling steeple.


If “off the rack” is what you are

Don’t flail at quirky-made.

While average man may set the bar,

That’s not all God hath bade.

The world is full of quirky things

To liven up the rest.

Unless you’re perfect and have wings

Then far you are from best.

Whether Biblical or Freudian

We come in many shapes.

We’ve traveled far to where we are,

Still some folks think like apes.

Sinners, preachers – the lot of us

Every diverse form yet named:

From bees to swans – hippopotamus –

Odd or not – all creatures God proclaimed.

**************************

Scorched Earth - by W. R. Griffin

She rocked in the swing in evening air.

The reeling, rusty chains grating

With each word as the links scraped

The hooks screwed into the porch ceiling.

I stared at some feint early stars –

Each syllable she spoke is still heard.

When I left the company, she said,

She knew nothing would be right.

Then she left with them and a family

Turned to ashes; bamboo dead.

A soprano’s fiery aria that burned –

Napalmed in a monsoon night.

And, she was right, nothing was the same.

I was not there – much more than miles –

To see my children, blankets curled.

I was not there each time they

Posed with their same smiles,

Caught in a three by five world.

I was not there when they laughed

Their first loves and buried their eyes

Into secret pillows with each loss.

A life of moss-covered stories;

Each ephemeral sight made of air

And light, but she was right.

I sat each ringing, ticking day

In dim yellow light, listening

To the air passing away; bathing me.

Glistening horns and distant sirens

Wailed a name, and, yes, she was right,

Nothing was the same.

A friend came the next glowing night

To say my father was gravely ill.

We had talked before this sad height

To hear a cold had turned to worst.

I said, I love you Dad for I think the first

Time I could remember. And, yes she was right.

Nineteen years, nine months and sixteen days

From the end back to the start.

About which nothing was she not right,

That could not have changed my heart?

*************************

Odyssey of the Nightingales - by W. R. Griffin

The Nightingale sails his silken barque

With his wife Soignée and their young

Over Lake Long Gaze under Rainbow’s Arc,

To the dazzling ports of Song Sung.

Where winged lions glide, horned eagles sweep,

And scarlet fireflies beam.

Cherubim learn the bold rhythmic leap –

Golden unicorns prance in a dream.

The cargo hold swells with rich villanelles

Sonnets, elegies in burgeoning troves,

Rare as the Kingdom of Kells,

Silver-spotted gazelles –

Mythic Bresil with its emerald coves.

Surviving the swells, white caps and rocks

In each port this lush cornucopia docks,

Natives proclaim Un carnaval d'exotique.

With lexicon jugglers, wordsmiths and smugglers –

Festivals de poèmes fantastiques.

All blithe poems soar in oneiric flight

Seeking the supreme paean home.

Sailing the seas to empyrean height

Their blazing guides fill endless skies every night,

Over Byzantium, Athens, and Rome.

***************************

A Sonnet Every Sunrise - by W. R. Griffin

With rhyme, be bold yet gild the lining pause.

Strike keen the sheen-faced blankest paging whim,

And make the terse - this tower - chant the cause.

Transform all murmured humdrum into hymn.

Make glad or sad your brightest beauty chime,

For heaven here or sparkling afterlife.

Strain the shell, but abate unworthy time,

Weave silken lilt of quilted rhyming strife.

To be, or not - when soaring songs strive true -

Then swift the aim of hand and eye come right.

Let worthy words come forth from depths in you,

To capture all your angels in starlight.

Jupiter’s searing bolt affirms it so.

Decreed: Each dawn these golden stars will glow.

**************************

Epiphany - by W. R. Griffin

I listen to the sound of a straight down rain.

Today there is no percussion, only gentle strings.

Cymbals, drums and the blare of brass are missing.

I hear only low and distant whispers; a waltz of memories.

Yesterday, the flash and clash of duties done

Eclipsed the velvet song of earth and heaven.

Now a pastoral symphony rises from the winds and reeds

And the deeds of breathing are now breezes singing.

Gray skies are nature’s compromise; diminuendo –

A flowing coda – animato to adagio – softly on a solo clarinet.

My chorus chants: It's better late than never.

As this Opus ends, I have become the ground I will inhabit.

*************************

Sojourner - by W. R. Griffin

I have turned from frenzied, anxious ride,

To two-lane through my eventide.

Onto sweet country roads I rise, I glide

By muddy farms, ruddy barns where silos rust,

Emitting grainy essences and manure-warmed must.

Beams split-light this residue, powdered soft –

Earthen smells that breathe alive, aloft.

Along my quiet lane, pruned ash and pin oaks strain,

Distorted, to the soothing mother sky for rain,

And my arthritic hands implore the universe for grace.

Here where the curve of ice crisp, edges streams that race.

And snow has covered placid pools in awakened dream.

Icy breezes brush bucolic eyes and moist nostrils steam,

Where winded fields stretch and meld into the rising hue;

Eternal sentries spin and fixed truths dance in starlit view.

Till me back into this blackest, soothing soil and plow

Where toil is ended and life is firmer than ephemeral now –

Where everything interred exists again while heaven glows,

And my last breath becomes a frozen epitaph amid the rows.

**************************

November Corn - by W. R. Griffin

The stalks stand straight,

close-cropped and dried,

burnished in the setting gold.

Their fruits now stripped

and scattered wide,

to shudder in the early cold.

The shoots strain and cling

to dry crackling roots,

await the slow approach

of the plowman’s boots:

the plowshare’s singing ring—

Oh, that final, grinding blow!

Teams of beasts rock

West to East; the shocks

fall crisply left and right.

The fodder’s felled,

the stacks soon swelled,

and the plowing ends at night.

The field now cleared –

An earthy stubbled beard –

awaits deep winter’s snow.

For spring’s young sun,

when the dying’s done,

to rise with a dawning glow.

Then, June, be green,

sweep the morning clean,

your leaves to break the winter’s fast.

What was cut down rebirths this ground.

All that’s new affirms the past.

*************************

The Web of Time - by W. R. Griffin

When humankind looks up, it will find

A glimpse of immortality,

A glance of all divine, and refuse -

The Trapping Web of Time.

Beyond ourselves, above the fray,

Lays possibility, a transcendent, noble realm,

Where poetry and prosaic tomes, ripe wombs

Brightly dwell, with music, art;

All high, lofty, soaring songs

That swell toward heaven’s gates

And raise our spirits from the primal nod,

Away from - The Trapping Web of Time.

Unbend from death unto the limitless

And cosmic hall - undo man’s fall.

Rise up! Reverse the turn from mind,

Unwind - The Trapping Web of Time.

Look up! Look up unto the myriad stars,

Dispute decline, incline instead

To reach with head, heart, hands and minds;

Lift our spirits from the human state

Toward infinity, close to all sublime -

And escape - The Trapping Web of Time.

Reach out! Reach out!

Let human hands exceed their grasp!

Rebuke Eden’s rout, the sneering asp,

Replant! Replant the apple’s pod

To lightly touch the eyes, and heart of God,

To end - The Trapping Web of Time.

*********************************

Shi Shi - by W. R. Griffin

Helen’s hair, Diana’s grace,

Darkened eyes, cherubic face,

Bolshoi lithe and Grecian hind –

Ethereal spirit but puerile mind.

He sees a saccharin sensuous sprite

Long absent from his dream-swept night

She softly crosses the hardwood floor

The meal is ended, but he’d like more.

She stacks the detritus of cold meals

Smiles and spins on lilting heels

His eyes reflect her quick pirouette,

And capture her firmed and rounded set;

Her willowy arm, white linen drape,

Breezy wafted downy nape.

She’s lightly placed the billet there,

He lifts it in light; returns his chair

As the open sign dies another day,

And darkens the empty chairs array.

He pays; daydreams of long gone loves.

Later, she leaves in wrap and gloves.

So soon she spoons in waning light;

Love’s sisters held in affection’s night.

He leans in a steaming shower stall;

Watching time, soap and wishes fall.

**************************

Hobo - by W. R. Griffin

I was maybe seven or eight

When a man came on the porch

And asked my Dad for some food.

My father fixed beans, ham and bread,

Leaned down and said,

Don't stare, my son, it's rude.

The man ate as if the world would burn,

The plate tucked against his chin.

He’d sop, scoop and shove

The beans into his mouth then grin.

Dad said, my son, pride goes before the fall,

But, being poor is not a sin.

My father said the man had

Not a dime to spare.

I watched him eat as no one eats,

If food is always there.

His coat was dirty double breasted;

His pants had cuffs and pleats.

Food smells mixed with sweat soaked

Clothes wafted in on summer air.

My father smiled and asked the man,

As he returned the plate,

I hope you got enough to eat.

The man said thanks,

It was the best I ever ate.

*************************

Echoes - by W. R. Griffin

She slouches in a metal chair

Under a beach umbrella,

At a rusting table outside

A bustling coffee shop.

A slim lipstick-stained

Cigarette teeters between

Her fingers; her manicured

Nails are a matching blood red.

Her graying blond hair is

Rolled up tightly and comb-clamped.

Staccato coughing interrupts her haughty air.

Her furtive glances spark memories of Miami days,

Melancholy reminiscing in a wafting smoky haze.

Her eyes are a universe away.

At other tables, smiling couples lean close,

Breathe easy – he’s and she’s wi-fi’d to a

World now theirs – high def’d, digitally-reduced

to a single dimension.

A redhead with tight jeans and shapely ass sits

Pert and high, smiling at her table-mate.

He pretends to listen, but a wry smile and

Downward glances betray his real interests;

Her loosened buttons, full-fleshed blouse.

Three feet away, but 40 years apart,

The lady pains a memory of a man once-loved.

She draws a startled breath, snaps stiff,

And puts her hand upon once firm and glowing breasts.

A rigid grimace – we will know eclipses her face.

********

The Last Room - by W. R. Griffin

Demigods have deigned four rooms in life –

We grow, we learn, we task and then we wait

In the last room, for a chain of rain-dark nights,

To ask when lies this hollow, abandoned shell.

Unseen straps confine to this hellish place.

Wind whines, rain calls, and seeks your face.

There can be no paintings on these deaf, sterile walls,

No bright breathing ache of spring, no dashing

Dance of ribbons, no rainbow of children singing;

No ringing sounds, no scent of vibrant root or leaf.

They are left behind in previous stalls. There is

Only the pulsing heart and whispered chants –

Of those in haste who set the days as they divine

That some blind god has chosen.

The waiting ones are told to seize all thought by

Cadaver gods in sardonic masks of white,

To go gentle into their night; to bear their

Waiting stare; to depart on eased blood, to

Spark no flame, nor break the narrowed straits,

To make for pleased and patient waits, and

Relieve the burden of their urgent lives.

It would be a sweeter cup of water’s kindness

To place those who wait on an ice-flow – adrift

In snow; swift to journey all white barren seas

And quiet, calmly, blind-mindless freeze.

********************

The Blave Sang Twillig - by W. R. Griffin

“Gorple dang,” the Blave he sang

As the womper doff and fro

The wallagg clumb the stouty vale

As the gloomin dowdy go

Zander clame, the gorfull snout

Snorfing mon and oot

To worple blay the brillen bowt

Til wondo doon and boot

Wane ull zit bee, Wane willit doh

Err whampet blorflo whip

Ipple fran the billen moh

Wal manfray sully flip

En oonen noo en moren too

Iz manny framen soon

Forp ullen al, the toolin val

En urb en nigh the loon.

Til oonder momp and oonder zoh

Bove snaa fin erren gleye

Ahlen be, oot Alhen zee

En til the banfray fly.

*****************

Mindless - by W. R. Griffin

Babble we, and babble he,

When falls the end of day.

Chaff whirls with might,

A frightful sight,

on our floor of wicked clay:

It’s abstraction’s sneering glee.

Open door upon the moor

Beholds a stunning moon

The moods run hot, the mullein rot

As numbing chord lines tune;

It’s abstraction’s laughing loon.

The move to glean now blindly seen

An echo distant dark

The hippo steed is all we need,

Abstraction kills the muted lark.

A smell’s a sound, a sound’s a smell,

In a void none occupies.

Abstraction cracks its silent bell,

And speaks through unseen eyes.

******************************

Out of Time - by W. R. Griffin

In the mirror, I see a stranger’s face,

A stranger’s dark eyes, in a strange dark place.

I breathe; I walk through this transient air,

But, to youth I’m ephemeral; I am not there.

Youth reflects not my face nor my altering form,

As they run to the eye of each gathering storm.

They hear not the sounds of my echoing heels,

I hear – they ignore – time’s turning wheels.

Vines now entwine my once youthful throne.

Dark briers and thorns pierce to the bone.

It’s true, “When you are old,” everything dies

And, words from your soul – are treated as lies.

While “An aged man is but a paltry thing,

A tattered coat upon a stick, unless

Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing

For every tatter in its mortal dress.”

This glory once from graying sage,

Has waned on cracking, darkened stage,

Still, I will sing my song of every thread,

Heading Yeats and will not be dead!

*****************

Bob - Bobbie God - by W. R. Griffin

Has God, I wonder, ever had a first name?

Just a thought – though perhaps it’s oddly profane.

But He/She’s in charge of this vast universe,

And, if I digress, the place sure could be worse.

Knowing a first name might give us an edge,

A doorbell to ring, or even a wedge—

To open God’s eyes, and cut through the din,

To erase this nonsense too often called “sin”?

Yahweh, Vishnu, Allah, Roberta, or Bob,

Just saying - Hey, you up there! You’ve got a rough job!

Seems too impersonal and not quite polite

An infinite being must have a name that’s just right.

So give me a hint, and I’ll go away

To kneel on a hillside and fervently pray:

“Dear Bob - Bobbie God, let’s both confess:

Your world and my life are a god-awful mess.

But if you’d only nod, or just wink your eye,

Perhaps this “Good” thing would be worth a try.

********

Sunday Dinner - by W. R. Griffin

Packed in tight, we’d fidget and fight,

Four brothers in the backseat.

In a borrowed car, it wasn’t far,

Through the sweaty August heat.

Above the engine’s roar and squeaking springs,

We’d shout, and sing and clap.

Pressed and dressed in our Sunday best,

With our sister on Momma’s lap.

Down a dusty rural route,

The car rolled over grizzled rock.

Uncle Lawrence swung open the weathered gate,

That had a harness for a lock.

We busted free when the doors popped wide,

We ran to the barns and sheds.

Dad shouted, “Stay close or I’ll tan your hides,

And smack the back of your heads.”

Nine cats in the hay, three dogs in the dirt,

Uncle Lawrence milked a cow.

The bucket twanged with every spurt,

And, we took turns learning how.

He’d spray the cats when they’d draw near,

Their mouths meowing wide.

They’d lap and lick their fur milky thick,

We wanted to hold them but they’d hide.

Aunt Marguerite made a ton to eat,

Uncle Lawrence churned ice cream.

Thick icy sweet, head aching treat,

Like the feast we’d often dream.

Chicken, beef and pork packed on a fork,

Our mouths stuffed bulging tight.

Aunt Marguerite’s culinary feats,

We ate and laughed ‘til night.

Now they’ve both gone to Glory’s dawn,

Each walked a double path.

They tilled two fields, each brought rich yields:

She ran the school and he taught math.

******************************

Bubba Cat - by W. R. Griffin

Dedicated to Irish Poet Eileen Casey

Our Bubba is a beefy cat,

Some twenty pounds and more,

A mound of fur and padding fat,

Slouched sanguinely on the floor.

Silky stretch accordion,

Imposing in full stride,

He unravels – a living Gordian

With yawning chasm wide.

He pads stealthily upon the bed,

Crouches without noise,

Stares then lowers his mighty head

To pounce on mousy toys.

Bubba is a mystic that

Sees what humans miss,

Seer, psychic, swami cat,

Conundrum with a hiss.

Tiger kitty, burning bright,

He stares at points unknown,

Tilted head, cross-eyed sight-

Your pillow, now his throne.

Prowess firm, his name renowned,

Unchallenged in castle house,

Bubba’s furrowed brow is crowned!

He’s the bane of rat and mouse.

******************

Westy - by W. R. Griffin

Royal recliner – King Rudyard the First,

Friend to the diner, just give him your wurst!

He thinks he’s an Airedale, a terrier, a Dane,

A bruiser, a boxer – a dispenser of pain.

His stands ever ready, a snarling rebel,

He thinks he’s a boulder, when he’s only a pebble.

No pig-scaring wolf, though he huffs and he puffs;

Still, he knows he’s a scion, descendant of toughs.

His ears stand like sentries, his sonar probes down,

divining your meaning, in your smile or your frown.

His head twists and turns, brown eyes piercing stare,

As he’s poised for the pounce on the edge of your lair.

The cats all disdain him, try as he might,

Aloof, they ignore him – they won’t even fight.

Much sniffing and whiffing; tails wag and they wisp,

Bessie hisses, throat-growling – Bubba mews – with a lisp!

He woofs, and he yips at the slightest of things

footsteps outside or the beating of wings.

When evening turns quiet and the TV is off

He knows it is time to ascend to the loft.

He springs to a pillow, and bounds on the bed,

Grinning and barking – then he settles his head.

Surreptitiously squinting, one ear’s cocked upright,

Fear not mortal humans! – Rudy’s primed for the fight.

**********************************

Raccoon - by W. R. Griffin

She’s older, meaner than was likely thought

And, bested bigger thieves than wisely ought;

Her sharp memory and nature’s mask outlast;

Pains forged in empty den and wounds of past.

Bold mates have ceased pursuits in fitful dreams.

Her weaned and wary kits ford other streams.

Intent to snatch a crawfish from the mud –

And dines upon its marrow, bones and blood.

When packs of dogs seek out her toughened hide

She wily, ranging rides the mountainside.

Blue Tick and Beagle,gangly Airedales strive -

In vain to tree and burn this witch alive.

But, in the dim dusk-light they’re far behind.

Barking a brier bush and do not find

Her cloaked bandit eyes darting cunning keen,

Hard-honed to parry any hunter seen.

Until she’s dead and legs to ashes turn,

Fury’s fires, her hatred’s hearth will burn,

And memories branded - soul-seared - will outlast –

Eclipsing all but darkest pains of past.

*******************

Ad Infinitum - by W. R. Griffin

My soul is damned, my mind askew,

A thousand thoughts descend

Of love and hate, birth and death

Infinity’s - the end

Of Life an anvil, sledge and fist

The body twists, He molds

Gnarled, jagged, bent and torn

He tempers all till cold

God’s hammer strikes, and heated hands

Shape, mold incessantly

And, on again, to forge and sculpt

Until at last we’re free.

********************************

The Constipated Pen - by W. R. Griffin

What can you expect of a pen that loves its ink?

Unable to deliver lines and words we think.

Brave upon the page, earnest, deftly sage.

Self love in creativity constipates - like age.

It's not like a baker, cake-maker, chef or cook,

Although, fruits of all creations do inspire, flow syntax.

Put down the pen this hour - devour someone else’s book.

Then in quiet interlude, closeted solitude – relax.

*****************

Age of Innocence - by W. R. Griffin

You do not know it's pain

Until it stops

Perpetual becomes a norm 


Silence becomes a scream


Shattering the night 


With a single light

Of new thought

Reality rises


And, truth deafens 


Eyes long open, see


And tears, long streaming,

Cease 
In endless drought


Knowing turns sleep to stark blaring,

Burning understanding


You are no longer a child


Lost innocence erupts 


Adult numbness consumes


You do not know it's pain 


Until it stops.

***************************

Man of Harlech - by W. R. Griffin

Father born of fire and ice,

In hell's kitchen and war-flung flame

Tempered by a strife-filled life,

And Ireland's cherished name

Man of Harlech in death's ranks,

With sword in scabbard's sheath

We gently lay a garland of flowers,

As stillness is your wreath

Where once was thunder now is still,

Where once a laugh now cry

For such intensities of heart,

So quick in stillness lie

Man of might and fiercest rage,

Yet poet's lilting word

Even as in shrouded realm,

Our lives, your life is heard

The hand that held my hand now gone,

The voice that rafters rang

Is stilled but we shall carry on,

In our lives, yours is sang

And as we see our children's eyes,

We gently see your smile

And as we sing your Celtic song,

We feel you near a while

Now gentle into night you've gone,

No longer rage, nor strife

Your children celebrate your soul,

And sing to all your life

****************************

To Benedict XVI -- Holy Week 2010 - by W. R. Griffin

Two thousand years of Roman rule,

Hence the end comes in minutes –

Upon the fetid winds of whim and nature,

Corruption from within:

From the miter’s missive that

Men should shepherd men

With divine indifference.

Since the fisherman’s feet

Stepped upon Christ’s rock, The Bridge

Has spoken – said one with God –

To cage its doves on religious roosts,

To harness fealty with whips of words,

And to fleece this flock with news

Of sins and sorrows.

The cloven hoof is prancing,

As its master smiles content

With knowing wiles that Man will be men,

Not tethered to the cosmic center –

Feasting primal on the muted lambs

Of all those silent sheep.

The sacrificial fires have turned the temple

To Ozymandias.

The perfect voice of the anointed

Is now an echoing scream

Caught in the sepulcher of flesh.

***************************

Beckons the Evening Mountain Breeze - by W. R. Griffin

Caught in bitter tangled brier

Soothed by lilting mournful lyre

Stalking shadows muffled mute

The sounds of baleful haunting lute

Pulsing wind blown tearing tune

From darkened hills to crescent moon

Breezy bashful sun shown blush

Full bloomed and languid lush

Dewy downy dank and dusk

Casting glow on row and husk

Blue light longing lingers low

Daylight fades in amber glow

Rolling ridges ripe darkened rise

Like rounded hips and willing thighs

Wisps of darkened sullen sash

On winded reedy thrilling thrash

Rising tempest torment’s tide

In hollow, hill and forest hide

Becomes the west welled winding whist

Herald of night and mother mist

Fading veils of white and blue

Give way to darkest covered hue

On night-wing rests the sentry trees

Beckons the evening mountain breeze

Through growing film and burdened haze

Echoes the wistful yesterdays

Hills and hollows faintly haunt

The migrant children tearful taunt

Till our lost and youth return

Winds call out with woeful yearn

Seeking all that desperate left

While lyre and lute the song bereft

****************************

Christmas Anthology - by W. R. Griffin

Christmas time in Appalachia

Rain and gray turn bitter cold and snow

Rolling, craggy mountains reach again toward heaven

Hard faces peering, longing, wind-whipped and seeking

Scrabble, brush-lined hollers, mud and gravel road

Lead to shack and double-wide, truck and plow.

Children walking, windward leaning

Coat clasped, voices keening

Will there be much with meaning?

This year? Ever?

Leather faces, hollow-eyed and hiding youth,

listening, hushed by the question and fearing hope

Mines played out or filled with grinding behemoths

Sucking soil and life, and leaving.

Bright-eyed faces looking skyward singing

Making wishes from television dreams, believing

Prayers go up and out and never seem to come home

Lost to the satellite prophets of Jerusalem and Rome.

Snap-purse and heart in hand they barter breathe for bread

While men weave lies on courthouse benches

And, demigods sing again the Songs of Solomon

To build an alter for themselves.

Truth lies somewhere else in warmer souls

With ringing hands and pounded breast

They hunker down to exchange their sweat

And give three pennies to an empty nest

Corner, uniformed bands intone the season

Bringing the money message without reason

To fall on parched lips and poisoned ears

Nevertheless receiving warm solace for their fears.

And on and on the cycle spins like windmills grinding

Churning out the refuse of man’s unbinding

Belief, in spite of naked land and empty well

Hard love, faint hope, for poets to tell.

*************************

River’s Edge - by W. R. Griffin

Black ooze pulls at your feet, steals your shoes.

Legs coat with slimy paste and oily smell

Crusting under summer sun.

Slurping sounds with each precarious step;

Zebco rod and reel on shoulder,

Can of worms dug fresh and musty

On the trek to river dwell.

Muck, sand and weeds give way to boulder,

Cloistered beach hidden under willow bend,

A fishing sanctuary.

Slate and shale skipping stones

For flipping rippling river ripples.

Only riverboats, catfish, carp watch you there.

August heat, you swelter sweat and breathe sticky air.

Chiggers, ticks, mosquitoes in this river jungle

Itchy, scratchy blood suckers and tiny thicket thieves.

Soaking, sitting, watching bobber for signs of strike

Drifting eyes with the current and on imagination’s wind

Solitary kingdom, broken only by the splashy dart of sunfish b

In shallow stream.

Breezes and the distant rumbling-chug of churning burden

Plying northeastward toward the Monongahela, Susquehanna,
From the Big Sandy --Coal barges,
Against the current, Laden low and slapping water --

Spray spilling over blunt-bowed hulks,

Polishing black rocks in the morning sun,

To fire-up a hundred steel mills on thew river’s edge

Or light a billion barns.

Fiery furnaces distant from this wistful place,

Where youth and nature blend in fading frame

And this pained heart remembers --

The stuff of picnic talks and backyard yarns --

First catch and final days of innocence.

*********************** 

Ole Radio - by W. R. Griffin

Splintered, hardwood boards

Creek under his pajama feet,

Groan with the weight

Of the night raider

Steeling the old white plastic Philco

From the cherry wood living-room table

The winged one, next to the front door,

Unbalanced, water-stained

With eagles’ feet pinning giant glass marbles

To the floor.

The ragged plug pops from the sparking socket,

And muffled feet retreat.

Now under a faded ragged blanket, his face

Glows, the dial light shows in wondrous eyes

His ears seek that beyond horizon --

His form casts shadows on the bedroom walls.

Plugged into the world

Beyond this tented hideaway --

Seeking sounds from outer space --

Tarzan, Lone Ranger and a mess of music

Dorsey, Miller, Hank and Cline

Mixed in a mottled, muffled montage, a cacophony

A low symphony from somewhere, everywhere --

Detroit, New York, Chicago, Nashville.

Where are these exotic places?

The heat of glowing vacuum tubes warms his flesh and soul

As his sweat beaded forehead strains to catch the world.

Midnight magic carpet ride through “The Ether” --

Crashing to Earth with a roaring, bellowed thunder call:

“Turn off that damned radio damn it and go to sleep.”

Darkness and a smile connive the next Safari.

*******************************

Warrior Poet / Celtic Rose - by W. R. Griffin

Battle bruised brooding warrior,

Home from clash and fray

Standing on the rock-bound cove,

Gray sea and bitter day.

Wind-bitten glance upon the sky,

Seeking solace found

No tumult for the blood he’s shed,

No cheers on halls abound.

His sword is dulled and bloody streaked,

The scabbard warn and old.

The shield that shone is battered blunt,

The eyes no longer bold.

Staring wary, a weary search

He scans for the sweet repose

The raven hair and dark eyed smile

Of his Celtic Princess Rose.

The rough hewed hands,

And callous grip seek the silken skin

Of the fairy face and supple form,

A spirit’s trance within.

Broad shouldered steed on muddy ground,

His hooves the pathway trod.

Through blunt housed hovels,

Barren fields and forest dark they plod.

In search of all that light has made,

And all that’s good in God.

The spirit of all Ireland,

From sky to rain soaked sod.

Up the craggy hillside stretch

And through the frigid stream

Only the sound of clogging hooves,

The flaring nostril’s steam --

To silhouette on ragged hill,

In ancient rock-walled fort

Where stillness now the cries of past,

Now hushed is death’s retort.

From fading sight an outline stands,

The familiar, winsome face

That haunted him in battled height,

Returned him to this place.

The torrent tousles auburn tress

As she squints in the face of gale

To glimpse the ruddy face

Of he who sought the Holy Grail.

His quest and plight away from her

Had taken breath and bone.

His sword and soul, his heart and hands

Now hers and hers alone.

Ten years she stood and stand she would

Till the mountains tumbled down.

Till seas dried up and sky turns red,

Till a grayed head wore the crown.

Through misty gaze, a smile soul deep,

For whom her blood runs fair,

The gilded miter glinted slight

On her crown of fiery hair

The rose blushed lips parted ivory peeks

and speaks to warrior man:

“I waited till all times had stopped

and wait no more I can.”

His throat now tight and slight spoke words,

“I’m home for you,” he said

“When all around me fought the fight,

now all around are dead”

“But words are waste at moments now,”

His arms around her fold

And he and she in one wrapped form,

Will love till love is old.

She, the Druid goddess fair,

The Celtic Rose he sought.

He, the youth, once mighty arms,

His battles now all fought.

They, the spirit of Ireland’s shores,

The whisper on every breeze.

They, the souls that on darkened wind

Live in the ancient trees.

She the beauty and sweetness drink

That quenches the soul’s dry thirst

He, the brave and the sacrifice,

Summoned to battle first.

They, the king and the queen of fair,

Who hunger for freedom’s caress.

Now together forever be,

In all time and tenderness.

Her vigil kept, faith confirmed,

Till her warrior would roam no more.

He the blood and the breath we seek,

The poet home from the war.

********

A Passing - by W. R. Griffin

Sadness, yet hope, fills the void

When life passes into night

Or transitions out of youth

Moving from boy to man, daughter to wife

As leaf moves from green to burnished gold

And, late falls to earth covered by silent snows

Where marker mourns the life once led

And speaks of sweetness lost

Yet brighter light and passions - mind and soul

Extend the life, in memories recalled

And, in the eyes of children

Reflecting and carrying the light they learned

The candle passed, through mirrored mirrors

Extends into infinity

And through them, in an infinite line, we live forever

And in them, we see the image of God.

*****************************

The Passing Peace - by W. R. Griffin

As twilight dims and day fades slow

And night is hovering beyond last glow

There is a passing of "The Peace"

When breath is done and life must cease

That comes from deep within one's heart

Where God has dwelt, and been a part

Of each and every waking thought

For guidance, grace and wisdom sought

And when fear's weakness takes control

Faith is there to restore one's soul

For "The Peace" passing understanding

Fills the void on God's commanding

Standing there beyond the vale

Our Lord's hands cannot fail

To catch us safe when silent sleep

And in God's arms forever keep.

*******

Plow Days - by W. R. Griffin

My plowing days draw short

Sun now closer to set than rise

And yet I keep head bowed

Blade breaking ground occupies

Ever wary gaze for stones that cross my path

Stopping my work or bringing my wrath

I must finish the field and seeding

And keep as best I can it from weeding

So that my best of crop may grow and flourish

Better on my mistakes to learn and nourish

Too late, my quest, crusades now fade

Life's forests and fields fall into shade

With darkness of memories and regrets

Sunrise too distant, nearer now sunset

The pace is steady, firm and right

And I will work into dark night

From mission to see that what I plant

Will be able to finish well all I can't

********

Parallax Error - by W. R. Griffin

One misstep and miles apart

Youth's ignorant, abusing heart

Too soon old,

And, too late smart

Passion's pull, body's heat

Errors rule, mistakes repeat

Too soon old

Too soon complete

Wisdom comes

Sad remorse

Too soon old

And miles off course

Denial, despair, then depart

Side by side, now miles apart

Too late contrite

And, too late smart

********

Teacher - by W. R. Griffin

Teacher, born when rhyme and reason

Were leaf-worn and leather-bound,

Sepia-toned and ranked on shelves

In marbled monuments,and found in

Principles, principals, pulpits

And pupils of what ought to be,

And the limits of the world

Were the boundaries of imagination,

Behind young, wide eyes piercing darkness,

Discerning light,Eager to find something,

Anything beyond the drudge of daily chore,

Swarthy family, hot fields, dirt farms or

Filth factories in far off fiefdoms,

Teacher, seeker, seer and soother filled with

Worlds and reams to impart,

Parceling out bits and pieces of puzzles that fit

To build new dimensions,

Answers, lessons, liturgies, literary nutrients

To grow the green of thought,

And release from bondage through breaking chains

Binding untapped minds,Where the ore refined can

Fill, fuel and fire, illuminate the way

To real and reason, And make the inner metal

Into shining steel to withstand the heat and

Pain of all, To bring a sense of what is right

And lead upon a path of valued life – Teacher!

The measure of a life? … The number of littered

Lives or lifted souls,Who reach the higher high

Of despairing or empty depths,to the calm

Of knowledge gained,

To lift up a child to reach a rose

In rhyming rhythm or solve a calculated riddled,

To build an ever growing pyramid of

Seeking souls that each in turn

lifts up the other,

Teacher, who gave what was grown and

Nourished in her fields, away

To feed the starved mind and

Fill the empty spirit,

Like a crystal spring racing over

Rocks, shaping, smoothing,

Growing flowers that bloom and

Beauty in the world to bloom again,

And a thousand, thousand petals

That might have faded fallen,

Enrich the eyes of others,

Until the night sky is filled

With the myriad stars of her crown,

And respectful heaven bows 
-- A teacher enters here!

******************************

No Fame, Nor Fool - by W. R. Griffin

I have not been to business height

Nor perused the halls of fame

I have not run a "Fortune Five"

No accolades proclaim

I have not cornered market's stock

No Swiss accounts my name

I have no folio to port

No pedigree to blame

But I can read the writing there

Upon life's humble wall

And will survive, if not thrive

Any tumult, loss or fall

I may not make the evening news

No ticker tape parade

But I can see as plain can be

Whenever fools are made

*******

Babel’s Epitaph – by W. R. Griffin

Deep in death, pronounced deceased

Off life-support, the gas decreased

Talked to death with no one listening

Freaks and slugs on TVs glistening

Cell phones stuck to ears and lips

Triglycerides oozing from butts and hips

Driving one-handed – blah, blah, yack

Babel’s towers all talk back

Nothing owned yet conspicuous

Consumption’s craze has smothered us.

**************************

I am the lamb - by W. R. Griffin

I yearn, I learn, I must, or bust, constrain

My calling poets boldly, bravely by their name

Because, I stretch, I reach, I grasp, I crane

And shyly make mistakes and need to retrain

So thus from Oliver and Peacock too

More sternly Roethke says it all anew

Didactic Fussell tells with heavy hand

The same as sweeter stars in light command

When rhyming riddles and confuses much

All four are best to test your verses - such.

**************************

Mystic Bean - by W. R. Griffin

Mocha Mocha burning bright

Filling my mug in morning light.

Warm aroma spirits my head

And makes it easier to leave my bed.

Slowly slurping mystic muddy foam

That cranks me up to leave my home.

From throughout the world

Comes this mystic bean -

Thank you Lord for Caffeine!

*************************

 Cycles - by W. R. Griffin

The sky turns to a dead-end black

When red dies hard from view,

To spin its way around and back

Time’s hands move from old to new.

This constant arch, these turning wheels

Churning sounds of gongs and chimes

Span and toll this grinding march

As day reels past polar primes.

The mountains then become the stones

The buds cling to a ragged bough

Leaves lightly spin from limbs like bones

As the past makes room for now.

The weave of web, the threads interlock

As the rivers come from dew

The stitch of past, the fern, the rock

Soon become the fabric new.

Dark shades of green turn gold then rust

The fresh turns to rot and mold

All rises from our mortal dust—

This nourishment of old.

It is this constant tilling blade

That divides what’s come and gone

The inexorable move to light from shade

And again – night bows out to dawn.

*************************

Rumors - by W. R. Griffin

What can you do when people think they know?

The self created door they refuse to open.

Banging on it to hear what has been said and done.

The shouts and mumbled moments self fulfilled.

Their notions of this specter trapped inside,

From drawn pictures, scrap stories they deride.

And, painted by people who have heard from people

Who have heard it! Numb to supplanting truth.

It doesn’t fit.

The chain grows from weight on weight.

Each link to link is made and measured, cold.

The stories, stories, stories are all old

And have never stopped.

If light appears, they squint,

And all the truths are dropped.

**************************

Mortus est – by W. R. Griffin

Fate is a hand upon the heart.

Hell or heaven are just a swallow’s breath apart.

How long is infinity that we can measure

Our great eternal God’s vast whims.

To live is to die to die is to live -- we learn.

Children, taught to sing in hollowed hymns.

Take no note of time’s fitful flight

A startled dove, perhaps a preying owl

At night, or a crow perched upon a mantel

To speak our mortal sins –

Whether you or I give them flight

Our breath is caught on heated winds.

A single road we plod to believe

In silver chalices as a Roman God commands.

Yet our dreams turn to shattered palaces, and

Our arms, legs, hands to shattered beams, all lifeless limbs.

Cold stones cover all eyes, noses, tongues and ears.

The dark night comes in and silence screams – No tears.

*************************

Black Hole - By W. R. Griffin

The present is the width of an eyelash,

The blink of a blind eye.

While the deceitful future appears

Always before - and the past is voracious -

A demon eating now like a starving lunatic

Making room for an avalanche of tomorrows;

Tomorrows that turn to yesterdays,

Like mist and fog in the flames of burning suns.

We see the line from where we stand

While - like soldiers –the days advance,

Outflank unrelenting and we are swallowed

By a black hole, the edge, abyss - event horizon.

We spill into vortex - time and light collide.

This all consuming nothing devours itself,

A universe gone – and not a single silent scream.

************************

The guitar player - By W. R. Griffin

His head is tilted to the sky,

His eyes a glance of clouds afar,

He leans and weaves a stunted dance

Upon a universe and thumbs

An old guitar; he murmurs, hums.

His gravel voice grates with starkness

Stirs the spirits’ song in darkness –

They hear, they hear and sing along.

Bright sunlight warms his stolid face,

In darkness, he finds solace, space

To intone the spectrum of his life –

Marked by cold graves, low drums and fife.

He strums with twisted, weathered limbs –

Fingers, like old trees bent by stormy whims.

He incants for those who intoned his life,

They reach out to assuage his familiar strife,

Placing pennies on his eyes; they dance, they pace,

Stroking his old bones, his leathered carapace

Grateful for bitter-sweet, sardonic, mournful tones.

One day not far away with all his music done,

They will dance, sing and bring him slowly

Into their never-setting, unabating sun;

Raise him, no longer waiting, up to their eternal place,

Where all our souls and songs are one.

**************************

Bugle Blues - By W. R. Griffin

If you get killed make sure it’s in Afghanistan,

Iraq or on the Rio Grande, then you’ll make

The news. You’re screwed if it happens in

In a “non-hostile place.” With death in war,

You’re at least a face on the network news.

Back home, a photo, a slug line in print,

A much anticipated funeral, burial, and

Stars & stripes – ole glory - drapes your coffin,

And a three or seven or 11 gun salute cracks

The air! Maybe a flyover, choppers or a

Big ass C-130 Hercules, or a flock of Guard jets,

If your rank is high enough – that’s the real stuff!

Live coverage by the local TV station, grieving nation,

With breathless hair-heads talking of death as if

It just moved in next door. Tight close-ups of

Your family, tears in white linen, hollowed faces

- And Taps - echoes from the white granite stones.

You are in the ground and they are alive but not.

The funeral recession disperses in the family station

wagons. The flock of hair-heads moves on to another

meth bust, filling station robbery, shooting, a juicy wreck

with mangled bodies, a child abuse “senseless” death.

And you? I see you reaching out to her - to them,

Murmuring - Good night, but lost in your stillness -

Where we “So do not want to go!” Bugle blues –

So yesterday’s news.

**************************

Una Persona - by W. R. Griffin 

¡Yo no soy un número, un número,

Soy una persona, no un cero,

Yo soy un humano es quien,

Una persona, un persona, un humano,

Yo no soy un mono, no un asno!

Yo no soy un pollo, no una ardilla!

¡Soy un humano, un humano, el humano!

Si Dios me habia hecho para numerar,

Yo viviría como un número

Pero Dios me hizo humano.

Entonces seré humano.

Un humano, no soy un cero –

No un coche, no una ardilla.

¡No un cero, no un cero, no un número

Pero un humano no un numero,

No una adrilla, ni un escrabajo, no soy perro.

¡No un cero, no un numero, no una cosa

Pero humano, un humano,

No un numero, no una ardilla,

No soy escarabajo, no un perro!

**************************

Feline - by W. R. Griffin

Cats converse across this universe

To spirits blithe and mysterious

Manifest on faces wise and serious

Keeping secrets in a mind’s locked purse.

They hunt unknown with stealth and ease,

Sing with the zephyr spirits in the breeze.

Mortals cannot know, unlock the divine

In the meaning of their yowl or wine.

Only pharaohs, mystics, druid gods

Dare intuit a cat’s stares or nods.

Only those before all time and space

Can unlock the mysteries in their face.

Only seers, sages, sultans opine

How to pierce this veil we call feline.

****************************

To my daughter wed – by W. R. Griffin

The clouds have cleared and morning sun has shone,

The rains of yesterday have dried though more will come,

But she has long left the child to find a world her own

A woman now – flawed frail hands of guiding are now done.

A beauty with soft blue eyes who smiles her mother’s smiles

Though clouds can gather in grayed eyes - her father’s storm

But she is her own and her man does love this winsome form,

Uniquely she, uniquely he, they’ll face and triumph trials.

She once flailed her tiny fists at the light of this new world,

Though now, she knows her path is lit by choice.

The winding road of life now stretches out unfurled,

Where any destination, port or place could hear her voice.

So gather storms, or gather bright blue sky –

This new couple steps into their world; walks it hand in hand.

Whether rains or snows in nature’s whim buffets to defy,

It is their life, and anywhere becomes their perfect land.

*************************

The Living Tree – by W. R. Griffin

The world seems angry at all reasoned thought:

Venting wrath until all willed ideal must bend.

Forging anger from all - toward our reason’s end.

I spoke to it not, but with my own wrath I fought.

It bent me inward in my growing, knowing fears,

I railed at it, on that cold morning still ringing in my ears;

I stunned it still with mild beguiling words and smiles,

Reasoned with it with all my sly appeasing wiles.

Yet, it grows again too bold both in the day and night,

Till it bears the rigid resemblance of death - stark white.

There stands my foe – I beheld again its familiar shine,

It knew me well and then I knew that it was mine.

Once long ago, into my garden all that’s evil stole,

Blighted my green with evil black as night from pole to pole:

Then came that morning, and I grew glad, glad to see

This wretch outstretched in death under the living tree.

**************************

Helicopter Crash - by W. R. Griffin

 

We went up and we came down

And prayed away our fright.

And proved two laws which are renowned

God is great and Newton right.

To those living who survived that day 
(Aug.7, 1992) and those now deceased

***************************

The Next Generations – by W. R. Griffin

(Dedicated to our new pioneers)
 

Are we still the pioneers of past -

The grizzled seekers with leathered hands

Going over the hazed horizon to each last

Frontier - beyond blue mountain peaks to vast

Expanses of flat, arid and spiny skull-marked lands?

Do we still hear the windy mystic murmurs in our dreams

Whispered voices in distant skies, to find our way,

By starry night on unmarked trails, up swollen streams?

Is our flight still as certain as the eagle screams?

Do we rise, rise with each sun to not rest till close of day?

Man’s heart once beat to fear, sweat, and strive

To trudge up every hill, to crest each snowy crag

To kill and feed on that which teaming, roamed alive –

To excel with each muddy step, to never fail or lag –

To best the untamed, uncharted and over death survive.

We cannot die if we are challenged by life’s toughest test -

We will forever breathe robust with each extreme we best.

**************************

A poem is our echo – by W. R. Griffin

A poem is the dream within your secret dream

A poem is much more than it could ever seem

A poem is that calming calm after every scream

A poem is the silence felt following darkest storm

A poem is much more than the sum of words or form

A poem is that jagged edge out beyond all norm

A poem is that precious breath after that rainy air

A poem is your self, your being, your foulest foul or fair

A poem is your rage, your song – it’s everything you feel

A poem is your salvation; our desperate need to heal

A poem is that searing shot, white hot, into our soul

A poem is that blackest black we feel from pole to pole

A poem is that brightest light of each day’s rising sun

A poem is that inner peace we feel when the day is done

A poem is your bane, your bile; everything and worse

A poem is both our deepest peace, our violence in verse

A poem is that abstract you, your essence out of air

A poem is from all your love or hate, erupting raw and bare

A poem is that final pleading, halting breath we breathe

A poem is those buried words that fester, boil and seethe

A poem is the sum of sums of all our billion parts

A poem is our first sighs; those final beats of hearts

A poem speaks in whispers, shouts or sings or cries

A poem is every thought until everybody dies.

A poem is the sound of sounds that we have never heard

A poem is the tunes we feel not knowing word for word.

**************************

Infinite Flick - by W. R. Griffin
 

Myriads of mists and furnaces,

Spew out fires of creation,

To spawn a billion stellar blasts,

Or dense darkness drawing in all light,

Cosmic crisis in a vacuum, silent,

Vast and venomous reaching beyond

Imagination's edge dwarfed by

dominion without walls,

To the very beginning,

God's first twitch,

And, blackness gave way to form

this chaos with a reason

Triple, double sun systems

whirling gases, flame and dust

To form a world where light began

Before the dawn of dinosaur and demon.

Molten malevolence with ringed ice and rock,

A thousand winters in one eye

Bends space and folds upon itself to twist

time and dimension in a whim

Wheels in Wheels in Wheels,

A billion Sagan-esque waltzes spinning

Vastness beyond all words and reason

From the pointing of a single finger

And still this minute man thinks

he's the center of all creation

Arrogance that fills the space

and makes God laugh,

Like father over child

Waiting till reason overwhelms

And in the final glimpse,

Reality,knowing the end is beginning

And beginning, is infinity

***********************

Home - by W. R. Griffin

Hills, gentle and defiled

Rivers, streams crystalline and marred

Skies bright blue and fouled

My home and my dearest burden

People poor yet strong and good

Faces lined with years and toil

Coal dust on every breathe they speak

And gospel truth in all

Testimony of all hard

A family in wood, tin shack

A creek for water and for waste

Living and dying in same place

Generations left to work

While gods in other places watch

And take away the blood and sweat

Littered by shelled bodies burnt

Smokey blue mornings chilled and wet

Mountains hovering above

A holler filled with stillness, yet

I hunger for the sounds of home

The chatter and twill from distant trees

Lining gentle slopes and valleys

Rock hard ground tilled by hand and mule

And, parted for last sleep

It’s my blood, my soul

Images strong and aching

Behind all that is mine

My place of solitude and family - My home.

*************************

Refiner's Fire - by W. R. Griffin
 

Life - the finest forge

Refines our meta-metal

God's hand and worldly hammers

Shape and bend

Flame burns away impurity

Toward perfection

To brightest blade that cuts through life

With ease and grace

And final testing blows

Bring sweet submission - sparks aware

As Celestial Smith holds up to light

 And smiles at His creation.

************************

 Just a Rose - by W. R. Griffin

A single rose, no more

Speaks the world in simple beauty

Too many trumpets garishly

And bespeaks the giddy rash of youth

Denies the depth

A whisper says so well

A single rose, no more

And a symphony is sounded

An "ode" is written with a hush

Eloquence in a stem and bud

That blossoms, blooms with nurture

Nature's tribute in rare rich blush

To love lightly, softly

Is to love well and long

A single rose, no more

Love from the center softest soul

With leaf on winter's edge

Love that's lived and knows

A single rose, no more

And you shall have it all

********

Kindred Spirit - by W. R. Griffin

 

I find in you a kindred spirit

Who sees the world full and bright

With wondrous eyes and hopeful heart

And restful soul at night.

*****************************

The Rose and Heather - by W. R. Griffin

The rose's beauty fades in winter

And thorny touch can bleed.

Its petals hide a piercing splinter

If held too tight in need.

Heather lasts beneath the snow

And returns with spring's warm sun.

Brightly dashes on hillside row

And o'er the meadows run.

A rose is deep in passion's call

Its blush and smell entice.

But heather's blanket covers all

When earth is turned to ice.

******************************

Ode to Fireflies - by W. R. Griffin

To fireflies and summer evenings,

With honeysuckle on the wind.

Tantalizing, mesmerizing -

Youth, mind-child, till all summers end.

God's universe descends and flickers

Caught in gentle-fisted hand.

In innocence we can reach,

And hold to heart, all that's truly grand.

But to keep is to lose, to lose is to keep

God's glory's in our loss.

To live is to die, to die is to live -

We must follow with our cross.

**************************

Blue Stain, Poet's Pain -by W. R. Griffin 

It left the edges slightly smeared and blue.

Poem sleuths labored to divine the true

Meaning, guessing smeared ink or glue.

These minds more ethereal than mine

Felt this paltry paper-stain caused such decline

In my poem's worth, merit, metaphor & meaning,

Flow, syntax and understanding, leaning

Toward starting over, bear-bones, Tableau Blanc -

And, who am I to deny these minds, so not a wonk,

But just a lover of the pulsed and metered word,

That resonates over time's walls, spoken - heard.

Then, if by accident I call to mind one thought,

I am fulfilled and I have gleaned what ought

To be or not to be and bring a smile or tear -

Bolster one's soul in love or routed fear.

But the workshop sages found it all pedantic

Ordering complete rewrite, huffed and frantic.

So, what puffed ego would want to cause such treason!

Not start again, in rhyme to find poetic reason.

- As for the deepest meaning of the stain, so azure blue?

Airline baggage handlers broke open my shampoo!