Lyrscriben

A letter to my love in Hibernia

Following your July leave,
Each day
Has been a monk's bowl of steamed white time.
Oh, the monotony.
Did you mean to take along
The good weather
As well?

The sound
Of truck tires
Crunching gravel,

Most times
Arrives first,
But there are times

When the sound of an engine
Is my first alert.
I look out
Through a parted blind or curtain
To confirm
It's the trashman,
Backing up.
Two bags this week,

Two bags most.
When he looks up toward the house
Does he appreciate
The sins and virtues

He's taking out?

A call to the faithful;

We live in a time

Of suicide mentalities

That bundles

Belly bombs

About twisted tales

To explode,

Maim,

Kill

You,

I

For a media byte,

While the Imams,

Popes,

And common cloth clerics

Complicitiously propagate
Their sweat lodge collective,
That divides the division.

You,

Who can read this,

Trace your sperm trail

Back to the communal birth brine.

Know that we are one,

And what separates us

Is them.

The Word

From within the convoluted mass,
Under the thatched dome,
And behind the aqueous lights,
Across the untraceable connections,
Through routes with bridges,
And those with bridges out,
Madly scavenging backyards,
Multiple cellars,
And seldom climbed attics,
Grabbing, thumping, tossing the discard out,
until the exasperated tailings
Mount like the minds bulk
To locate
A singular word,
Not the perfect word,
But the only word
When harped and bowed by the tongue
Will dance with its neighbors.

Fenestration
photo by George J. Jerry

Behind the brick,
Behind the curtain,
Inside the in,
Outside the out,
In a slot,
On a shelf,
What’s a prison,

What’s a self?

Spaces
photo by George J. Jerry

Paces,
Spaces,
Angular oasis,
Fracture framed,
And rectilinear,
Mitered,
Metered,
Measured
And
Meticulous.