The Night

Deep, dark, mysterious
The night goes on before.
Dappled on its inky fabric,
Tiny bits of light
Tease of life unknown.
We have such a luxury,
That day divides our Night.
But out beyond our shores,
There is only the Night.
So as I float and dream,
Upon the blessed waters,
I submit to the Eternal Night.
Its wondrous chasm frees me.
For all I’ve ever been,
Or all will ever be,
There is only this one moment.
Floating free.
In the cryptic chasm of the Night.

The grand oaks teach us patience.
Yet grasp they ever for the day.
And muse in ancient verbs
Abstruse tomes, written by the wind.
But in this magic moment
Enlightened by the unfathomable,
The oaks and wind sing a secret song.
Renewing their fealty to the Night.
And I have my martial music,
That I may march into the infinite.
The Night

Underwood

Oh grand machine of grand design,
I press your keys one at a time.
Pray words take form on rendered wood.
That I will craft them fine and good.
With fair intent and understood.
The gilded script now fading, wrinkling,
Spaced by hand upon the frame.
So long ago, yet all I see;
Is that script staring back at me.
The pulp and linen standing by
A pile so neatly stacked and styled.
I pray the words will come, and good.
Yet all I see is,
Underwood.
Somewhere within my huddled id
The words are there but staying hid,
And only one fine gilded word
On ancient frame in wrinkling script
Is there within my frame of view.
I close my eyes but it remains.
And though I muse of joy and pains
My poor imagination strains.
The grand machine of grand design
With keys worn barren over time
Yet every station's script remains.
I pray the words will come, and good
Yet all I see is,
Underwood.

Fire In The Sky

The fire in the sky sings a song
Each word the many lifetimes to express
We pass our days in the midst of a moment
That takes generations to pass

And while it flies through footless halls of night
It's listening to our hearts most small desire
Singing each word over eons
And always sends our answers with the fire

So as the hate and war builds in crescendo
And we corrupt each elementary life
The answer that is building is soon certain
The evil sure divided by the light

We hear the wizards peep and mutter magic
That if we fill their coffers we'll be saved
No word about the hate and separations
Their goal the human race to all enslave

But when the zenith of their grand cabal
Slips from the evil grasp of evil men
A new word will be uttered by the fire
And they'll be sore corrected of the sin

Pray your love will not be turned by sorrow
This little time we have is fading fast
An eye unblinking follows from our borders
Your crying will not change the die that’s cast

The fire in time’s great river seems eternal
Yet it will suffer death like mortal men
The acme of the soul on times horizon
The second death for those who worship sin

Moonlight

The moonlight
As the blossom falls
The shadow
Together rest
That were never separated

Dear Winston

Into the looming dark
My old friend Winston gazed
“Come hither friend and see the light!”
He said with finger raised

So straining hard and squinting then
I saw a glimmer spare
By and by it closer came
Soon it would be here

It seemed so much a phantom
Floating there upon the mist
But as its bearing yielded not
I saw his sat’ric twist

The light was firm embedded
Upon a giant of wrath
And there on either side of me
Were rails that bound its path

I turned to see my world of love
In peril dire and dread
And wondered why I tarried so
When I’d much warning had

Dear Winston strove to teach us all
He only taught the Tao
That sometimes perils come as light
And recognize it now

For soon your group enlightenment
May be your abrogation
There’s never peace where justice fails
And giants presage your nation

*****

Oaken Dreams

What can I say
How the Shining Sun
Through a windowed wall
Lit your frame
And set to motion
Years of daring do
That I might be
The boldest feathered
Or bravest in my skills
But ever short of measure

Yet how now here
This time complete
And after motion set to step
The seeking on the road
That found the wind
Would love my face
With judgment never bared
Or that the rain would succor me
And with the wind show Mighty God
What can I say

That you had poked a hole in me
A wound still weeping
Words and tears
Now issue from that break
To find their way in scattered drops
Staining parchment new and pure
Or trail into that wind
Blown upon and to My God directed
Settled there to find me hence
What can I say

And how the one who bravely loved
Would go to fisticuffs so quick
In my defense yet not enough
Was I to hold the wilding there
Who wandered too close to tall grass
And dragged into that jungle cruel
Called to me not follow
The beasts devouring soul and flesh
Ripping life I could not heal
What can I say

The leaves turn fire
A few times yet in Oaken Dreams
To find this single tear
Brace my cheek in solo trail
That wanders into nothingness
At natures call and rule
No meaning in the line
But gentle sweetness
So hard won that broke upon
What can I say

So now I am at Sunset's door
There that one
Lighted by the windowed wall
Had set my feet upon the road
Still in that natures grace
Found there as a smile
Out of reach and cavalier
Not knowing how that touch
So cruel yet innocent
What can I say


~

The Stardust

I set my finger in the stardust
And traced a winding line
The path of my ancestors
Tracked from the dawn of time

Sparkles winked as the line took form
And glinted in my eyes
Past and future were one and same
Freedom wakened in my mind

Then all my worldly thought of want
Was set upon the scales
Only light and peace remained
The end of all travails

What wonder then, that we are light
And left here all alone
Pray forgive you brother’s sin
As he forgives your own

Then on that day we all repent
We’ll raise our eyes and see
The sky will rend and Heaven return
And we, once more, stardust will be

Going Home Again

We may not go back and start over

No matter how deeply we mourn

For the world we would find

On our journey's return

Would not be the one whence we're borne.

Ochoa

Going Home

I was just passing through my childhood hometown
And noticed the old school was razed to the ground.

The path I had trod from my home to its doors
Was paved over
and painted
and not there anymore.

Nostalgic, I followed the now missing path
In hopes it would take me someplace in my past.

A place where the sky rang with laughter and shouts
And we chased one another in mystical bouts.

Bouts of wonder and fancy, of Kings and their pawns
But the path to that moment was paved over and gone.

And there in its place were realities pains.
The sum of existence in losses and gains.

And the anguish rose up in my throat in a rush
As my sum was the balance of dreams that were crushed.

I stood on that path now paved over and gone
And my tears stained its paint as I wrote down this poem.

Full Moon Haiku

Solstice Moonlight Falls
Blossoms Let Go In The Wind
Shadows Run With Them

Lonely Whistle

When the rain's just right and the wind blows hard
From the south southeast you can hear her whistle
Moanin’ low up Cypress Draw in the dusky air

She’s movin’ on to places strange and far
With a poundin’ diesel roar that shakes the earth
Throbbin’ low up Cypress Draw in the dusky air

I stop my toil for a brief sad moment
Listenin’ hard till she’s gone again
The mem'ry floats up Cypress Draw in the dusky air

Some day when the rain and the wind’s just right
I’ll make my way down to those tracks
And lay in wait down Cypress Draw in the dusky air

If I screw my courage up enough
To grab that box car flyin’ by
At a breakneck clip up Cypress Draw in the dusky air

Then I’ll ne’er look back and ride that flyer
Till the sky falls in and the mountains crash
And just my ghost walks Cypress Draw in the dusky air

The Silence of the Night

I paint the silence of the night
With brush strokes broad and free
On canvas weaved of solitude
In colors others may not see

The sleeping world is mine alone
To fashion as I’m wont to try
But comes the creeping steady dawn
In ribbons on a waking sky

Then as the slumb’ring land bestirs
I set my paint brush out of sight
And wait until it sleeps again
To paint the silence of the night

I remember when the world was new

I remember when the world was new
And dangling from my every breath
Was the wonder of the summer fields
The life called forth from the very mud
Creation of the wind and sun
Our field was worked and the fresh earth turned
My dogs came down from their romp to see
The cool new life from the tillings called them
With musty sweetness on the breeze
I passed the way on the rippling blacktop
Immortal on my Huffy steed
Gazing off on the brimming life
Then from the tillings, the dogs, they called me
"Join us here and cool yourself"
"Roll with us in the fecund briskness"
"Soon the golden fire will quell"
"Then we will seek our solace elsewhere"
"In new mown grass or water spilled"
I laughed a good dog laugh to them
And set it down in the stream of life
Like a fallen leaf or blade of grass
Then on my way and the laugh adrift
The dogs will find it passing
And laugh as well