Les Papillons

Butterflies hang together 
in tight and close formations.
Framed and pinned to ivory muslin
upon the study walls.

Pairs of shiny goggled eyes
stare forever up
through the clear glass sky.

Each tiny leg is crouched in readiness.
Their extended wings of brilliant colors wait,
eager to soar and hunt the taunting rainbow.

This fearless squadron would soar
with but a single moments notice;
oh, that unsuspecting arc 
would never see them come.

But it is for them the trap is set,
the lofty spectrum thirsts for their color.
Hiding among the clouds,
the ever-hungry lure.

Their collective breath stays clenched,
the days return to dusk.
Wings lay poised and dusty,
in prayer for mass ascent.

11.22.63

It had just been any Friday,
till the sun went dark
and my mother’s words came
dressed in her night-time voice.

From front row seats, all eyes watched
in black and white denial.
Soon the yards bulged with kids
herded away, out from underfoot.
We were of the times and so
commenced to play our outside wars
with zeal and seasoned cinematic flair.

Tommy and I laid siege to his house,
finally bursting through the kitchen door
amid the heat of battle, our finger-guns ablaze.
The assault was swiftly quelled
by a single crumpled, sobbing woman.

There was no escape from the black cook's eyes
as she wailed in her wounded pain.
We had brought the dead to stand before her
and hadn't even known his name.
Our faces fell silent, our fingers jammed
as she turned and fled the room.

At six we had not yet seen death
nor knew on that bright fall day
witless we had acted out
the eclipse of a people’s hope
in the loss of that single man.

Old Houses

With the fail of light,                     
sighs of old houses
sift down from their attics
as they settle in to slumber.

Boards hunker down to rest.
Nails relax and loosen their communal hold.
A collective nod to gravity
for the trump she is.

In the late hours when no one listens
except the wind and wandering mouse,
prodigal time itself returns
to console the countless days
still roosting in the rafters.

Then too, comes the dying time when calendars end.
No foot treads the stair or cellared depths
and no hand slams the doors.
Peeling paint and rust and ruin,
bleach their flesh-bare bones.

Houses stand weeping in the rain,
with only shadows to move across their floors.
The cruel death of dry-rot whispers,
"They all left you long ago,
your keys now lost and gone."

Magic

If indeed there is any magic in this world,
it’s tucked inside fireflies and rainbows,
echoes and shimmering mirages.

In the morning, some of it adorns
the silk of spider webs.                      
It mixes with evening mist upon a lake
that swirls and dances into place
from higher lands, whispering,

"What lies beyond,

farther to the west,

or distant east?”

Magic lies still, waiting on the ground.
It hopes that you will look
through eyes prepared to find
and a full expectant heart.

Surely it is there
when one of us finds the other.

Baggage

Some days I open my mouth
and I'm suddenly wearing
a story that other people see.

I must look like an old pair of overalls
or just someplace south that's hot and humid.
This scene stars, “me,” with a belt buckle
and pearl snap-buttons dripping down my shirt.
I wear boots of course.

A scratchy soundtrack drowns out my words
leaving handfuls of drawly, clipped suffixes
to take their places out in the dusty street,
their hands hovering just above their holsters.

Today's crop of tourists only see me
in a crowd of folks holding jars of sweet tea,
our tobacco stained lips spew vitriol for anybody that
didn't get their dark skin from the sun.

More muted words crawl from my mouth,
falling to the ground.
Someone twitches his gun hand
and then narrows his eyes.

I hear a familiar whistled tune

and Opie walks by barefoot, 

right between us all, and saves the day.
He’s wipin’ off the fish he dropped;
with not a care in the world.

Oath

Another poem died inside my head
last night. I was too dozy to stir
and jot down the needed word or two
for it to re-bloom when I awoke.

This morning I'm wearing the shirk of responsibility
to my pencil and pad and to the well
of dreamy thoughts from where
things sometimes come.

The siren's wail winds slowly up,
reverberating throughout my skull.
"Search everywhere, look in
all the old boxes and crannies again,"
for any glimpse or trace
of something that might restart the clip
that had played inside my sleeping head.

So here I sit, stuck with only pale impressions
of a young girl who winks at me
from the clickity Super 8 frames.
She now scolds me over coffee
to swear the oath once more.
To get up and write it down next time and
never sleep through her scene again.

Enlighten

If a single candle can 

yet brighten a world
and deliver it from darkness,

then will we take that single step

to move the light onward,

pressing fore and not back?

This seems to me
the greatest act of all.

From the flame we need

only the slightest shield,

for our eyes to render

where we truly walk.

It is we

who must move the light
to go

where we have not.