Spreading Wings

I suppose it is time to bring the readers of this site, who don’t follow my journal postings on the Vision of Hope33 site, up to date on what is going on in my rapidly dwindling life.  My apology for this interruption in my normal posting, but there is poetry to be found in life… even when approaching the final breath.

I am advanced… stage four lung cancer that is now eating into the bone of the rib cage and other various dark corners.  It is extremely painful.  There seems to be nothing more that America’s medical professionals can do except to try to keep me as comfortable as possible and to continue to remind me that I am dying.  There has been numerous changes in my life in the past few months, but I am determined to continue to write and post my poetry for as long as I possibly can.  My sincere gratitude to all of you who continue to read my attempt at poetry.  If you do care to read details of my journey through cancer… please visit the ‘vision of hope33’.

Spreading Wings

It’s hard to feel the words
When you are dying
Locked inside the vault
Of your own skin
It’s hard to reach for verses
When your arms can’t reach for grace
While DNR’s lie inked
Beneath the pen

It’s hard to find the rhyme
Inside the rainfall
Locked within the pain
That fogs the mind
It’s hard to write the ballad
When your eyes fade in the storm
While you cannot find the truth
Between the lines

Yet always there is hope
Inside the vortex
Waiting to be found
Within the plight
It’s not always the eyes
That see the pathway through the veil
Where one can spread his wings
Into the light

Michael33

Walking in the Shadows

Perhaps you have not seen me
Round the corners of your smile
Nor crouched beneath the fire escape
To ponder life awhile

For I have lingered far too long
In narrow alley ways
Despondent lines across my face
Like hardened potter’s clay

Walking in the shadows bare
Of reasons for the rain
Perhaps you saw me standing there
Entangled in the chains

For I have lingered far too long
Behind the battered walls
Scars that bind the shattered bone
From creatures down the hall

Perhaps you only see me
From the corner of your eye
Walking in the shadows
Or in dreams across the sky

For I have lingered far too long
In rhymes of thirst and sorrow
Walking in the shadows bare
Of reasons for tomorrow

I know you must have seen me
In the shadows of your room
In the corner, near the ceiling
Where your lucid dreams bear bloom

I dwell amongst the shadow’s dare
Without a helping hand
Where souls lie nude within their truth
While hope lies neath the sand

But I must crawl into the light
To warm my tattered wings
And paint my rhyme translucent hues
To fly within your dreams

For I have lingered far too long
Without your warm embrace
Walking in the shadows bare
To touch your quiet grace

Michael33

Wrapped in Silk

I was the one who sat beneath the maple
Listening to the song of merry sparrows
While stuffed cheek squirrels
Told tales of where to hide their winter stash 

I was the one who dreamed beneath the willow
Listening to the gentle breeze
Whisper rhymes of reason
That those of sober thought could not perceive

I was the one who slept beneath the bridge
Listening to rippled screams echo tomorrow
But stories told in shadows yon the moonlight
Stay wrapped in silk beneath the polished stone

You were the one who told my saddened fable
Listening to the song of the nightingale
Reaching your hand for mine amongst the rubble
To pull me from the briars that bled my soul

You were the one who held me through the thunder
Listening to the rain drops call your name
Speaking rhymes in quiet desperation
To warm my tattered heart through winter’s chill

We are the ones who found the buried treasure
Listening to our hearts in perfect rhyme
While verses may be difficult to envision
Our music echoes soft through endless time

Michael33

Beyond the Hungered Canvass

The colors all ran together
A masterpiece
Dripping
To the floor
Like spilt milk
On yesterday’s dreams
Where rhymes
Are but a memory
And nary an open hand
Can rise
Above the quicksand
Yet…
The masterpiece
Remains forever
In the thoughts of the artist
Conceptions of all that is beautiful
In hues
That only she
Has imagined…
She still can see
The heather fields
Beyond the hungered canvass
The sculpture still intact
On potter’s wheel –
But she is not here
To shine the light upon the palette
Nor to etch the crystal vase
With golden grace
Yet the masterpiece
She left behind –
Wrapped tight inside my soul –
Lingers softly in the twilight
Of forever………………………..

Michael33

Poems Upon the Pond

There were poems
Upon the pond
Rhymes across the river
Vestal verses
Too close
To the fire…
Parchment singed
In the silence
Of words unspoken
Pens full of ink
Fractured by time
Untouched
By human hands

Yet poetry still lingers
In the breeze
Through the branches
Of the willow
In songs
Of the sparrow
With the first blush of dawn

But love left in the rain
Has never rhymed
Without the sadness
Nor the madness
Of a poet’s heart
Left alone 
To linger –
In the silence

Michael33

Fate still takes its breath

I suppose it doesn’t matter
If it rhymes
Life is full of circumstance
The hourglass of time
Though hands may sometimes
Reach across the veil to touch the heart
Fate…
Is still the final work of art

I suppose it doesn’t matter
In the dawn
If yesterday stood face to face
Cross lines that had been drawn
Though eyes may see
Through painted glass in hues beyond the sun
Fate…
Still takes its breath…
When day is done

Michael33

Borrowed Time

I cannot lose the hope of breath tomorrow
While still another rhyme hides in the shade
Although I bide in time that may be borrowed
I’ll pen my dreams till dawn begins to fade

If I should lose the vision of the dawning
Yet still can feel the warmth of morning sun
Perhaps the vision found within the yawning
Will never leave the poetry undone

Michael33

Consequential Circumstance

It wasn’t that it happened in the light
For it is in the darkness I remain
Consequential circumstance could never touch the sun
But fate can wrap it tightly in the rain

Perhaps because it came so unexpected
For I walked beneath the shadows of the moon
Consequential circumstance could never touch the soul
But there was fate…
………. still etched into the rune

Perhaps it wasn’t consequential circumstance
For it seems I was the one who took the blame
Thinking I was standing in the silence of the moon
I must have been just standing in the flame

Michael33

The Rich Child… A Reality

The Rich Child

I grew up a rich child…
Rich in finding ways to entertain myself
Rich in having beautiful thick woods to explore
Behind my house
Complete with two ponds…
A very ummm… rustic treehouse
Crudely nailed to a huge old oak
Where the sound of cougars
Echoed through the night…
I was rich because I grew up
The forgotten middle child
Where I could roam free
And no one would miss me…
I was rich when I walked along
The railroad tracks
And lingered with the hobos
Making camp in the old
Deserted shale pit
Which often provided many hours
Of intrigue for a boy of ten…
Learning so young that life
Was often a struggle
While strangers offered to share
Their only can of beans…
I was a rich child
Because I survived scarlet fever
When I was twelve
Back in the days when there were many
Who did not…
I never could quite rise above the fray
Yet I still learned how to dance
Inside the rain…

I grew up a rich child
Sharing a room with a brother
Four years my elder
Who gave to me freely
The top bunk…
I was enriched with humbleness
With the birth of a sister
Ten years my junior
The ascendant child
In a too crowded world
Of the light
Of the verse
Of the rhyme…

I grew up in riches
With lies of the father
Deceit of the sister
And flight of the brother…
A mother
Who struggled to tend…
But I dwelled in riches
For I was forgotten
And left for the vultures to mend…
But the creatures all gathered around me
And lifted me far out to sea
Where family failed
To look in my eyes
I still found the way to be me…

The Rich Child 33

Maybe I’m Already Dead

Maybe I’m already dead
And hell is real after all
For there is no calm nor sleep in the night
Nor angels that sing when I fall

If this is life ever after
I’d prefer that death be the end
Without the light that shines in the darkness
I can’t be the willow that bends

So maybe I’m already dead
And hell is real after all
And some other poet is writing this poem
While seeing my face in the wall

If life has to end with our suffering
And our poetry lingers unsaid
Perhaps on this earth there is hell after all
Or maybe…
I’m already dead

Michael33