Paris Morning

Somewhere past the cafe
whispering airs
above the coffee machines
floating on the scents of lemons
waiting without sight
on the fragrance
of rain washed cobblestones
clear light smiles
moving through artists.

Places

Birds do not sing into silence:
the grasses sing into the winds,
as Mistletoe rustles on the leaf-rattling
brown Oak, whose leaves whirl and click
swirling down beside the long lane,
where birds find seeds and small things.

Wheels turn circling great wheels.
So no bird sings into silence.

Openings

Love needs no introduction to begin,
as seeds lie silent waiting for the sun.
A light that lingers in the eye is all
for flowering unfolds each petal slow.

Passage

Slip silver sadness glistens like frost
gathered crystal by crystal point
delicate as lace and as old.

Quick metal hardness shims into place
garnering the leverage for the tilt
gradual as the sliding shadows on the moon.

Night withered blossoms wait on curved stems
weighted with blooming done past
patient as stones in a cave waiting for sunrise.

One is Not Enough

I want my flowers curving,
their petals embracing space
in all its magnetism, quantum fluxes
and multiple dimensions.
I want lascivious sensual magnetic
lines and lemniscate sepals.

I desire splendor.

Let petal edges fractal,
curving to infinitesimal details.
Let the electromagnetic spectrum stand aside
in awe, muted before the frequencies
radiating as my colors.
Flowers are the creative universe recreating
joy in infinite non-repeating variation -
(relatively speaking) -
so give me flowers where I can nestle
deep between stamen and stigma
asleep on the labellum
until I slip light shifted,
asymptotically
diminishing...

What Pain

What pain lies falling on the edge of knives
fades into orange-red aching at the wrist

why do silver mirrored edges glide so easily
through unprotesting skin that weeps in red

but where is the ache located
and can it be surgically removed.

Reply to John Payne, a kyrielle

They do not end that cease to be.
Petals fall slow and purposely.
Bees leave at dusk for tomorrow's morn.
All things that end must soon transform.

The Earth turns round, a cycling sphere.
Seasons bring salmon over weirs.
The dying fish leave hatchlings born.
All things that end must soon transform.

Tide and Moon join the surging sea.
All things are bound, like flower and bee.
We each shape each and change our form.
All things that end must soon transform.

The loss of one is but one end.
A pause, and then begin again.
The loss of one, be free to mourn,
but wait. What ends must soon transform.

My Friend

I used to think that memories
could only shadows be.
That loss and grief, regret uneased
wiped out reality.
No smile remembered counts as "smile."
No grateful tear as "wet"
if only held a little while
in memory, and yet,
the times have etched some days so sharp
that down the long-halled years
they stand still graced with present shape:
at ending, you are near.

Winning Entry!

This is the poem which won First Place in the Maryland Writer's Association Short Works Contest, category Poetry:

Love

It is a tapestry we weave between us
thread by argued thread,
pulling sometimes and later shuttling together
to lie beside inquietude
waiting for some new spun light
to illuminate our patterns.

Loom warped and roving draft
harnesses swaying attendance,
we take up our shuttles again
leaving our weft behind
in every word and in each stroking
change.

Kindred Spirits, Painted by Karl S.

The cactus and his man
lean in green
toward each other in a cluttered room of books,
a lifetime spent in busy dust
caressed by sunlight illuminating
a window whose ample sill embraces
pots of prickly green balls.

Cacti are as slow as scholars
and as hairless, convoluted, firm.
Once a decade there is a bloom
a boutonniere for the awards ceremony, perhaps.
Meanwhile the single sunlight and the high open window
are the sole observers of the cactus
and his man.

She

She steps out of Rome
ragged edge skirt
fluttering handkerchief style
at her calves
baby in a basket on her arm
the day's affairs in her other hand
she steps under the sun of Ra
setting her child in his basket at her feet
attending to the important minutiae
of a thousand forgotten mornings
she walks the dappled forest track
simply taking up leaf or seed
pausing to root up a mushroom
baby in a sling or a swaying nest of basket
she steps into the mall
hair disarrayed in beauty
busy and swinging gently the basket
pausing for the millionth business transaction
carrying on the world in its basket.

On my 59th Birthday

I am the joy, the leaping hart
heart of my home, praise of my own passion
Here, Here, Here
I stretch like my cat on my own hearth
I reach like my flowers into the sunlight, swaying
I sing softly as the nesting birds in my planted trees
there, and there, and there,
My breath is the high clear wind.
My limbs are the foundations of mountains.
Let me lay me down in joy.

Congratulations!

Dawn L. C. Miller just had two poems accepted for publication by Pegasus magazine! They were "Kindred Spirits, by Karl S." and "She." (Applause!)

Eve

A woman's heart lies still as a serpent in the sun,
eyes motionless and dark in the brilliance around.
She waits without hope or fear of dying knowing
the blended potion of her striking gift
is eternal metamorphosis.

Love, Untitled

You move against me in the dark
and I remember
slow dance floors urging
pulsing beats sliding through the veins
together in the red dim room
crowded by couples each alone as they move
together.

And so, ten thousand nights from then,
I move to you.

Copyright notice.

All work published here is the copyrighted property of the author.

City

Baltimore cries at night -
keening cries of steel on steel,
clanking of chains and pulleys,
angry wailing injuries.

Baltimore aches for long pat ships
like a mother moaning for children gone home.
Crab shells in the gutters are fewer now.
Even the crabs gone home.