more better different is a lifetime quest
a natural for the curious playful creative
an inevitable modus operandi not a choice
restless whimsical honest and steadfast
more better different a built-in apparatus
not merely a philosophy more of a genotype
can’t outguess a master ideas always flowing
imagining vulnerable fast download eager
more loving
better impulses
different styles
effortless humor
are you with me?
The song of migrating geese spilled from the sky.
Upward they soared under moody December skies,
Flying in a great V as if symbiotically linked by
The vast natural forces that had shaped them over
Millennia, the way that natural law molds and
Forms rock, the geese and the stone in an inconceivable
Distant time elementally birthed in the heart of a savage
Star.
The physics of life pulses through them as through me,
And I felt an ancient shudder pierce my being, timeless,
As their unity joined and patterned an experience split
Open and reformed instantly in my coursing blood, and
Those air travelers prodded on by what mysterious,
Unknown instinct touched me, bound to earth, and I
Envied their freedom while all the while realizing that
Freedom is not in the strident whish of beating wings,
Contained rather in an unencumbered heart that
Instinctively knows both sky and earth, fire and water.
All experience is linked, as the lesson of the flying
Birds taught, and once the heart is set adrift from its
Moors, no compass is sufficient enough to guide it
Back to the original port, and in that epiphany, I
Dreamed, like the geese, of flying to you.
—
Ralph Monday has had over 200 poems published in literary journals and online literary sites. A chapbook, All American Girls and Other Poems was recently published, and a book Lost Houses and American Renditions is forthcoming from Hen House Press.
When nothing is understood
And people’s ways hold out great warnings
Rule of law as rule and law only reigns
When people find out how some of these were made
To perpetually suppress them into silence and vivid action
When they are sure that people who need think of them
Instead of doing things for their health and hearth
Do things that only prove that people can’t see
People can’t say and people can’t hear
As under hand and seal for terms
Into undoable centuries of pledge
They have for reason in mad euphoria
Committed themselves to embrace the path
Of the Rule Book where the only rule is
The rulers’ wishes clothed in promises
For unborn centuries of rosy hue and gold
Only an unborn eternity dons and knows
As deeds done in ways set best only to undo
Every hope that comes ever in mighty shapes
Making life a thing of dream looking not impossible
To be achieved to wipe a tear from every eye importing
Happiness in small and great doses till those who suffer
In some very confirmed sunny times fondly find or feel
They are not hounded and wounded and ever more in fear
To be hurt and to hide lest people should expose them
In their safety exercises in one clear concealed choice
To find when times turn ripe if they are different and able
As knowing, seeing and thinking gods and can with care
Shape with conviction and credible proof structures of support
That tell people their destinies are made of stuff that knows to last
And when necessary blast from within to offer a safety net to all
The forgotten, neglected and lost for long futures that when
Combined should make eternity of happy living a robust reality.
A waterspout
rained fish.
The fish got a wild ride
in a vortex,
saw the clouds
and some returned
to the sea.
He would like to be remembered
as an empty book left open
for the wind,
as a tone-less symphony
waking the listeners
to their very lives,
as a poem never written,
never read.
As a silent presence
on a stage that has
been taken down
last year.
John Cage died a disappointed
inventor of aleatoric music for
which he invented a string instrument
that had to be played by one tall person
with four hands.
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His big sweaty palm leaves a mark.
She barely notices his touch.
She’s on her fifth Rum and Coke
Rum to get that tension down,
Coke to keep you standing.
Old-fashioned drink but who
cares and she doesn’t do stuff.
He wishes for a large ungulate
and a shiny armor.
It’s a sweet summer night and the
‘Slug and Lettuce’ is full. He gets
waylaid by shiny things.
It’s so inevitable.
She’s switches to vodka orange.
Her wings feel wooden.
Her laughter sounds shriller.
Her standing becomes erratic.
His kisses taste of brass.
Strange.
She thought he was in equities.
When she slides into fetal position
by the green container
the trombone falls from his hands.
Don’t touch
my soul.
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Lattice is the delicate
but firm separation
between two worlds.
The evening sun
lets almost black
silhouettes undulate
on her small blankets.
Her tiny fingers
pick holes into the stiff
layer of wallpaper,
where pink flowers
meet pink leaves.
Father has told her the story,
has sung her the song.
He now stands cut out
black against the window,
brightly lit dust motes
hustling in the wake
of his breath.
Aegis stolen from a time
when nothing is safe.
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