Under-stars
Off the two-track
to nowhere important
sun retreats into forest,
the day kilned and left to cool,
no longer malleable.
Yet light dominates
veil of night:
embellished by myth and meaning
bulls and bears roam
herded and hunted
on overhead canvas
painted with pin
dipped in glimmer.
Father, son converge
under dappled dome,
dissolve, droplets of dust
in an ocean of star-wonder,
anchored by occasional trailing beacons –
planes, satellites –
whispers of self-significance.
In the thinning spring eve,
they stare, mesmerized
by yellow-orange tongues
that flicker, crackle,
reach out, lick at the darkness,
taste the flavors
of a precious life.
Do they talk?
of the Tigers,
where fish strike,
where black flies bite?
Do they dream?
of a past fallen away,
present unclaimed,
future unframed?
Do they wonder
under canopy of stars
what star lies under?
©2017 Kenneth W. Arthur
Category: Poem Page 2 of 4
My only attempt (so far) at a prose poem… had to change the line breaks to make it fit properly on the blog…
Two Who Dare
We greeted with the choreography of two hesitant mutts
sniffing each other out, surrendering an awkward quick pat
on the back and pull away of men embarrassed by intimacy,
an almost-waltz at arms length, over before the music
began to play. Later we would come to know each other.
First with the tango of predator and prey, more interested
in a quick roll in the hay than any real affection.
Then came the perfunctory contra dance of sun and moon
executing steps called out before time began as we came
to move in each other’s orbit. Finally, we danced the close
waltz of two comfortable friends no longer fearful of a lingering
gaze or the spine-tingling graze of fingers that stray.
But tonight? Tonight we embrace the idea of each other,
relaxing with willful abandon into our authentic selves.
Curled on my side next to his supine form with legs intertwined,
my arm drapes over his naked chest as we drift
between sleep and wakefulness, cloistered under the protective
quilt pieced together by his grandmother. The pulse of his heart
yokes with the contented beat of my own. Thought flees our stilled
bodies as the silky heat of his flesh steals into my soul.
I relish the profound perfect imperfections of his anatomy,
the bond formed from skin caressing skin. This is the slow dance
of two lovers transformed, lost in gentle music, cheek to cheek,
floating in empty space as if nothing else existed,
having forgotten the necessity of any proscribed movements.
We waft through no-time, hearts open and exposed to the elements,
heedless of future frosts or withering desert suns.
He turns his head and our lips meet, two who dare.
©2017 Kenneth W. Arthur
What Must the Trees Think?
Anger that we lumber their siblings?
Terror when the ground we frack?
Pity that we have brought ourselves to the brink?
Befuddlement at our human quibbling?
Despair that they can’t fight back?
The willow, bent in mourning,
weeps for her children
and the aspen quakes,
whether from fear or rage.
I do not know.
Having dreamt of brilliant sun
and gentle rain, will the trees wake
from their deep winter slumber
surprised at what has become?
Or do they know, from the frog boiling
of the earth, what we have done?
The revered oak, Mayflower witness,
attests to the best and worst
we have to offer this earth.
How disappointed it must be
should it even deign to notice
our self-serving exertions.
To the Great Sequoia who
watches five generations of oak
come and go we must be nothing
more than malaria filled mosquitos.
The Bristlecone Pine birthed high
upon mountain before the first stone
of the first Egyptian pyramid was laid
looks daily into the face of God.
It most likely cares not one whit
about humanity.
I can almost hear, on a quiet day,
the trees wheeze and cough,
choking on our smog,
whimpering at the ill taste
of pesticide cocktails
as they suck at the ground,
a child with straw searching
for the last bit of nourishment
in the bottom of a glass.
©2017 Kenneth W. Arthur
Stone chapel at Gilchrist Retreat Center, Three Rivers, MI
The Little Stone Chapel 1 Door to the little stone chapel opens. I fall into unknown worlds shouting “There’s gold here somewhere!” Balboa hacks through jungle primitives to reach this monument to emptiness erected from head-sized stones after Medusa seduced an army leaving their decapitated skulls strewn about. She probably beached their hearts – red speckled hearts, black and white hearts, all grays in between, hearts eaten through by fossilized worms, heavy hearts, light hearts, round and good-for-skipping flat hearts, shiny hearts, dull hearts, coarse and smooth hearts – to be collected by small barefoot children and their mothers on warm summer afternoons. Medusa gazes into my heart when I step over the threshold. I’ve got soup starter. What will you bring?
I wrote this one for a poetry workshop. The assignment was to write a non-sensical poem, but it makes all too much sense in light of our current political situation.
All Hail the Pandersquat
Along the grundle vodamen slither,
sprickety sprocks shroud 'neath the gobblespot
and hippity hocks flee the pandersquat
passing ghastly as the hoopsnot wither.
Rising snuffle thumps have drawn him hither
to hoop, holler and blither garblesnot.
His bangles and boogles dangle goldrot,
drop the yorsier folk in a dither.
But one spartled sprocklet towers and truths:
“Mister pandersquat,” she upstarts, “your aur
snuffles the vermest. Scour that squawker.”
“What gespittle and guspah,” he retooths.
With crowdly hurrah the vodaman corps
sprangle the spree sprocklet off to slaughter.
©2017 Kenneth W. Arthur
My poem River or Rock? was posted at Topology Magazine today!
One of my poems was posted on The New Verse News. Along with last week’s current events, the Escher lithograph “Ascending and Descending” partially inspired the poem (not the image they posted with the poem).
After Paradise After Joel Sheesley's painting of the same name. Everything in its place, the carefully ordered refuge from a chaotic world radiates routine. A jail-bar striped comforter locks away passion. Bare floors, stripped and buffed, reflect the veneer of paradise lost. Firmly contained and framed, the reminder we once cavorted naked without shame, reveling in our sexuality, mocks the austerity of the room. The serpent was half right: knowledge of good and evil leads to half death, beyond salvation, beyond hopes of utopian dreams, shedding illusions. Closet doors slightly ajar promise a glimpse of hidden skeletons, a glimmer of still-breathing vitality. Sneakers and slippers, floundering boats in a placid sea, offer the scent of hope, hint at the vibrancy of a morning run, the sensuality of an evening tryst. What might we yet become? A paradise found again, for the first time. ©2016 Kenneth W. Arthur
Man on a Journey After Joel Sheesley's painting of the same name. The man poses in front of the monument, freezes time, preserves a memory to linger over in his dotage. But this isn't the Great Pyramid or the Lincoln Memorial or some significant battlefield. Dressed as if he stepped out of a Masterpiece Theater whodunit murder mystery into the wreckage of misplaced innocence, to stop in the ruins of endured mistakes, next to a ladder to nowhere. His trench coat armor wards off the unseen bogeymen that haunt these neglected, unkempt grounds. His journey has come to this derelict, abandoned building, made him a tourist of his own past, aroused a desire to understand, to be understood. But the drab grey siding reveals no secrets. Busted out, boarded up windows offer no view to the soul of the matter. Only the autumn colors of the almost hidden sweater dispute the peril of revisiting past secrets, leave hints of renewal, possibilities of spring growth to come, tint the edges of a muted existence. ©2016 Kenneth W. Arthur
The Seduction
The adirondack stands watch
upon the hill, a lonely sentinel
overlooking the meadow,
the Queen's Guard protecting the palace
as ambassadors of the heavens
and forest emissaries
come to consult.
Resolute in the afternoon sun,
the temptress tenders her invitation:
“Come, come to me,
rest your weary feet,
survey the peacefulness of my realm.
All this I will give you.”
At her side, I preside
over the resplendent vista,
turn to claim my legacy,
realize I am not the first.
Countless feathered kings and queens
have sat upon this throne.
Sometimes,
to feel like royalty,
one has to sit in shit.
©2016 Kenneth W. Arthur