High Horse

It’s something

To see

Someone parade themselves

Around

On a high horse

The view outward is never

What it is inward

For the eyes are closed when

Riding upon these magnificent animals

The all-knowing

Most of the time

Know very little

Eventually

The horse’s ground

Will become unsteady

Rocky to ride upon

The rider’s posture changes

And they begin

To slip from their

Star studded saddle

Down they go!!!

Down

Down

Down

Their empire of arrogance

Will crumble like a house of cards

Falling to the ground bewildered

Anything like this could happen to them

Their high horse will flee

And once again

They will find themselves at eye level

With the rest of the world

Yes

Seeing eye level is humbling indeed

The perfect balance

On the seesaw of life

Sometimes

Falling is what it takes to awake

For the blind to see

For the deaf to hear

For the tuned out

To

Tune in

This fall is life changing for some

But

Most climb right back on

Going Mad

I’ve finally gone completely mad

Yet, my art is never better

I can only imagine

This must have been

What was running through the man’s mind

As the ambulance

Took him away

Years ago

I was living in a rundown motel

On the forgotten side of town

In that part of the city

Nothing stopped for night fall

It was still as lively as mid-day

I woke to the sounds

Of paramedics and police

Their voices outside my room

Their lights flashing through the curtain

The man in the next room

Had spent all night going mad

Breaking the mirror

And porcelain in his bathroom

Into jagged shards

That became the

Glass teeth of his invisible tiger

A tiger that was hungry for his flesh

At first glace

His hands looked like

Stringy mop heads

Soaked in blood

The cops said he was on PCP

They said

He didn’t know what he had done

Then told everyone

To go back to their rooms

That the show was over

Yet, for me, I realized

The script of what had just happened

Still needed to be written

Even if all parts had been

Successfully acted out

I was 18

And had seen more than most

At my young age

I knew I had to get what was now

In my mind out on paper

On paper and out of my mind

I had not taken a writing course

I had no college degree

Just a need to get all that I’ve seen

And continued to see

Out on paper to make sense

Of our sometimes senseless world

To stop and look for the things

Most walk right by

As one man went mad

I picked up my pen and never looked back 

Dare Stones

Scratched words from desperate people

Left behind in a strange new land

Fleeing from what

Ultimately awaited them

Being engulfed by time

Swallowed up by circumstance

These stones with their messages

Would surface years later

Like dead fish on top a pond

For people to ponder

For experts to speculate

For skeptics to be skeptical

Making modern folks happy

For they had something new

To fight about

Yet

Never understanding

Why these words were written

In stone  

Hoax?

Maybe?

Either way the Lost Colony

Did what we all will in time

Disappear into a fading memory

Unless our messages

Stay behind for the next

What will we leave behind?

Or will we take so much

There will nothing more to take

Use so much

Nothing will be useful

Until our planet looks like Mars

Dry and barren

Red and dusty

Waterless riverbeds

Rocks as far as one could see

Sand storms choking the air

Mars

The biggest Dare Stone of all

Flannery O’Connor

I had a dream the other night

I was a little boy again

Standing outside of my home

I could hear peacocks

Calling in the distance

On a farm

A few fields away from mine

This was a common sound

Growing up

The high pitch screech of peacocks

Traveling through the wind

Through the trees

Across wild grasslands 

From a neighbor’s back yard

These brightly colored birds would cry

Throughout the day

Yet, now I was dreaming

These peacocks

No longer belonged to my neighbor

But were Flannery O’Connor’s birds of song

Singing sweet songs she is gone

For

These blue crushed velvet dream birds

With their pinwheel of feathers 

Miss her words as much as I do

Her tales of the unwanted, for our enjoyment

The dispossessed, for our entertainment

The excluded, to make us think to include others

The outcast, to question if we’re really on the inside 

The killers, to make us look twice at a stranger

With her words

She made us ponder all of these things

While we watched her characters

Casting their nets

Their way of life

Upon the world

I awoke to hear the birds no more

And realized 

Anything is possible in a dream

All of it is real

As long as we are asleep

Night Sounds

Night sounds drift through

The wet morning air

Birds chime like the sun is rising

Yet, there are hours to go

Before bright light

Burns away the darkness

The full moon must be confusing

These feathered creatures 

It hangs high over head

Like a night watchman

With his flashlight

Constantly shining down

Through the slow moving clouds

The birds’ songs echo across this town

Down its barren streets

For, most are sleeping now

Sleepless, I sit drinking coffee

Steam rises up out of my cup

On this cool March morning

Sitting here

I write poetry and read Whitman

Read Whitman and write poetry

As time floats by

One minute falling into two

Two falling into three

Now

Coyotes move through

The school’s grounds

Across the street

They communicate

Out there in the darkness

With what almost sounds like laughter

Their cries bounce off the buildings

And the covered walkways 

The coyotes’ laughter now moves

Into a neighborhood

Rows of homes that all look the same

Like they’ve been stamped out

In a giant machine press

Nothing more

Than a maze of the modern

Up-to-date and boring

Perfect for insecure souls

To watch one another

For what to do next

What car to drive

What outfit to wear

When the sun rises

And

The night sounds are no more 

Souls In A Jar

Many years ago

Years by the many

I used to work for a shop

That bought scrap metal

A man came in with a bag

Hanging from his bony body

With his brows lifted he asked

If we sent scrap gold off to be melted down

Refined for money

I said, we did

He then pulled from his bag

A one gallon pickle jar

Filled to the top with gold teeth

The roots looked like

Stalactites and Stalagmites

Bunched together within the glass

I asked, where did you get these?

He said, he worked for a funeral home

I said, get out!

He said, he came about the teeth legal

He said, I would miss out on lots of money

I said, some things transcend making money

He would have to find someone else

To handle his thousand curses in a jar

Over 20 years has passed since that moment

The shop has long since closed

The owner now dead and buried

Yet, I’m sure someone was willing

To melt down those teeth

Into rings and jewelry

For the living to wear and make

Unforgettable memories of love and commitment  

The other day I read the pope

Once pried a small crucifix

Off a friend’s coffin

And now carries it wherever he goes

Some kind of a keepsake

I believe

A keepsake of some kind

It’s strange what’s taken from us

Even in the end

Yet, some spend lifetimes fighting

For all they can gather

Whether sentimental or tangible

Valuable or dots on a map adventures 

Most are chasing something

To put in their pocket

Put in their bank

To pull out and show others

Yet, does any of this

Mean anything to the billons

Of stars in the sky?

Or to

Our little speck of sand and water

Floating in a galaxy, beside a galaxy

Beside a galaxy, beside a galaxy

And so on, and so on, and so on

Stop

Look up sometime

Realize, we’re also just a speck in the sky

To the eyes of the universe