5/23/2023 – break the wheel

Above the crashing human sounds
Beyond the grey of block and steel
A different, brighter truth abounds
There where we go if we can break the wheel

5/19/2023 – with naught unwritten

In fits and starts of wisdom oft
The pen on paper finds its way
Till when you lift the pen aloft
With naught unwritten that you wished to say

Bright with starlight is the eye
That opens to the earth’s wonders

I heard upon the summer wind
A message come from over hill
Of sunlight left unbound, undimmed
Where all is green and birdlings trill

I wondered at why I was there
Upon the wrong side of the slope
Living beneath the streetlights’ stare
With green reduced to a fool hope

Hungered, I wished to go beyond
To look upon the rolling fields
To walk under a yellow sun
Unfettered by its smog-cloud shields

Yet I could not; bound were my feet
In lies men had constructed here
Long ere I could have chose to meet
The truths beyond, so far, so near

I’ll steal you a star

I’ll go out in the night
I’ll ready my lasso
I’ll take my precise aim
And then my rope I’ll throw

I’ll pull it to the ground
I’ll hold it in a bowl
I’ll take it to our bed
And bare it with my soul

I’ll watch it next to you
I’ll see it brightly shine
I’ll see it’s not so bright as
The starlight that is thine

If under canopies of green
You find me in the afternoon
Leave me to hear the evening breeze
And wonder at the rising moon

Wash me of old-begotten woes
And cut my storied locks
Set mud and sand between my toes
And toss the rotted socks

Though oft I find I tremble for
The shadowed road ahead
Or that which on my heart so wore
And left my soul for dead

I find a solace in the night
A truth silent and free:
That if I wish to find the light
Oft I must let the shadows speak to me

The seasons change, and still I want
For things that seemed so near
The wishes of a young man haunt
This older version’s ear

With patience others wait upon
What life is yet to bring
I wonder what could force it on
To me time seems wasting