Azure cotton voile hung in the sky
backlit with shades of apricot and pale orange
Horizon a melange of stripes
Buckshot clouds and frothing water
Along the trail I ride through piss-water hotspots
stinking of dead fish and pass an inky black man
who does not seem to know or care that the traffic of the trail sides right
I listen to the tink, tink of the ancient leather seat groaning under my weight
gliding over cracks that winter's bipolar freeze and thaw produces in this place
I think on muscles -just recently brought out of retirement- which propel my legs to move up and down like a marionette,
on the chain that sling-shots continuous the gears that turn at the command of my muppet legs- or so they appear as I look down and watch for a moment their movements
As I pass a gaggle of recalcitrant women, looking resentful as they compress to allow me passage
I smile out at the expanse of grass other side the boulevard and look towards the ancient bridge that hangs (or perhaps not) dilapidated and ignored over the river near the yacht club
Never before have I known beauty 6:00am on a summer morning breathing in the landscape too often forgotten in favor of crammed roadways
Back and forth to work and store and bar and friend's houses tucked away on easy corners
Comparatively, I've grown to despise life behind the wheel
The things I did not see too numerous to mention
And suddenly I hate to think of things I've missed
J. Turner
July 2007
Showing posts with label Acts of Poetry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Acts of Poetry. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Two Poems
These two are old poems. If you're an RPer, you saw them years ago. But I drag them out of the deep because they've both been stuck in my head recently. The why of this condition perhaps I'll explain later, but for now... simply enjoy if you choose. And if you don't, don't mention it to me.
The Sharpest Blade
The slice of a blade is definitive, one good chop and no one questions what’s happening
Metal meets… anything- skin, tomato or otherwise and red runs
It separates things from each other. It’s division, quick and easy- if the knife is sharp
The top from the strawberry, the bits of celery, the cheese from itself, bread from bread
The flesh of the fish from its skin, meat from bone
But time is the best blade. It slices beginnings from ends. And makes sections of moments live eternally within its boundaries like a good piece of crusty french.
Distance is as effective as a dull blade and overcome with determination. Also, ideas and beliefs, rage and alienation, anger and anguish, but can be foiled by hope and heartening.
Though the sweetest desires and deepest longing are nothing against time. Nothing but the flesh of some strange fruit given to the mercy of human hands, minds and designs. Tossed with greens and the bitter vinegar of geography and swallowed down with oil and wine, and merely, the first course.
J. A. Turner 2005
Touched with Flirted Finger Felt with Fondness in Flouted Heart
Little languid illusions and spritely reverie
Come knocking at my consciousness
And this is what it seems
The search for connectivity
Yields little in the hunt
But forgetfulness provides the catalyst
For heart-strung smiling shunts
I draw a line to you and you one to me
Realizing, not too late, how foolish can we be
Allusions, pathos, joie de vivre and cosmology
Symmetry and balance often stumble Irish-drunk into the mean, cold streets
Yet in our dread we go a-riding to the fray, the black and burbling fire
To view the anointed bodies of each wasted day and hour
And though the pulp and refuse find us defenseless in our sleep
We travel on the path to dawn and mark out each new peak
In our memory we leave a little pyre
For each concept and each choice, each discalced dream desire
That cannot meet the standards set by waking acumen
And so in softest reticence I surrender to the truth
That the line that's drawn to me- too long- can never reach the girl
Existing as she does in her own frith to churlish burg
A heart, a mind, a body planted firmly within its world
Travelling day and night to a city in the clouds
I give a piece to you and you a piece to me
A gift born out with no small part of soul-meat honesty
Given with the suggestion that this, my friends, is who I am
And I ask myself this question, am I melting in its heat?
J. A. Turner 2005
The Sharpest Blade
The slice of a blade is definitive, one good chop and no one questions what’s happening
Metal meets… anything- skin, tomato or otherwise and red runs
It separates things from each other. It’s division, quick and easy- if the knife is sharp
The top from the strawberry, the bits of celery, the cheese from itself, bread from bread
The flesh of the fish from its skin, meat from bone
But time is the best blade. It slices beginnings from ends. And makes sections of moments live eternally within its boundaries like a good piece of crusty french.
Distance is as effective as a dull blade and overcome with determination. Also, ideas and beliefs, rage and alienation, anger and anguish, but can be foiled by hope and heartening.
Though the sweetest desires and deepest longing are nothing against time. Nothing but the flesh of some strange fruit given to the mercy of human hands, minds and designs. Tossed with greens and the bitter vinegar of geography and swallowed down with oil and wine, and merely, the first course.
J. A. Turner 2005
Touched with Flirted Finger Felt with Fondness in Flouted Heart
Little languid illusions and spritely reverie
Come knocking at my consciousness
And this is what it seems
The search for connectivity
Yields little in the hunt
But forgetfulness provides the catalyst
For heart-strung smiling shunts
I draw a line to you and you one to me
Realizing, not too late, how foolish can we be
Allusions, pathos, joie de vivre and cosmology
Symmetry and balance often stumble Irish-drunk into the mean, cold streets
Yet in our dread we go a-riding to the fray, the black and burbling fire
To view the anointed bodies of each wasted day and hour
And though the pulp and refuse find us defenseless in our sleep
We travel on the path to dawn and mark out each new peak
In our memory we leave a little pyre
For each concept and each choice, each discalced dream desire
That cannot meet the standards set by waking acumen
And so in softest reticence I surrender to the truth
That the line that's drawn to me- too long- can never reach the girl
Existing as she does in her own frith to churlish burg
A heart, a mind, a body planted firmly within its world
Travelling day and night to a city in the clouds
I give a piece to you and you a piece to me
A gift born out with no small part of soul-meat honesty
Given with the suggestion that this, my friends, is who I am
And I ask myself this question, am I melting in its heat?
J. A. Turner 2005
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