Poems 1

THE SANDS OF TIME
Within the sands of time
Lies everything I know
From buzzing bees
To lilac trees
To the melting of the snow

Here lie the seeds of wisdom
Fish within the sea
Romping boys
Silence and noise
And poor old Mr. Lee

I can see my wife of sixty years
Of friends, blown away with the wind
The kids, grown up
My self-made luck
All my unrepented sin

And still I see quite clearly
As he hovers closer still
his black veil falls
I see nothing at all
As He takes me out to sea...

***

INFINITY
...There's a man sitting in a church in Lisbon
Looking out to the port;
To a little boy gazing out to sea.
Off on the horizon,
He spots a ship
With a lieutenant in the crow's nest
Shouting, "Land ho!"
And the people on the beach
Look back into the city;
And a cabbie driving into the country;
And a farmer looking out to the range
With a cowboy driving the steer
Looking west toward the sea.

And at the sea, there's an old aged man
Looking across to a little praying man
Staring at his Buddha
And inevitable past,
Another
Kneeling toward that sacred city.
They look up to a plane,
And the passengers inside
Stare down on that vast expanse of land,
Where there's a man sitting in a church in Lisbon
Who turns his head and looks to the north...

***

ETERNAL SEA
He wakes up to the sloshing
Watching the waves was upon the hull
Washing away the dull
Never is there a lull
In the erosion of her flat black paint

Staring out the window to the sea
He occasionally turns the wheel
The ship breaking the ocean's seal
A reminder of man's Achilles heal

Swabbing the decks
And hauling the nets
And watching the sea
With its monotonous gleam

Eternally begotten by the Father
Eternally begotten to the sea
A black ship turned green
In the distance, a light beam
A ghasp, maybe a scream
And with the current, he finally drifts astray

***

AS DARKNESS FALLS (THE SUN WILL RISE)
As a fire gives way to ash
And blood to a vigorous might
As fortified cliffs give out to that incessant pounding
Of the mercy that yields to life

As the sword gives way to the gun
For the tip becomes rusted and cold
And the hunted becomes the hunter
Hunting for sands of gold

As the priest will pray to God
And his disciples lust through their greed
They know it's gonna be all right
Because His wrath, through prayer and hypocrisy, they heed

As that flag will fly forever
Through lies and truth
Through spits and through tears
Through all those holes in America, we salute

As the young and rebellious
Will strike out on their own
And prove there's nothing that they can't do
Yet know in their hearts that family will not be replaced by chrome

And as rock and roll turns into classical
And the diamonds of the day
Bear legends of raspy voice and crisp guitars
Or turn to tarnish and fade

As the sun burns off the morning's mist over the river
And that rising haze becomes not water, but souls
And a man's dreams of fame, or riches, or music, or flight
Become riddled with holes

For behind every virtue lies an evil
Behind every evil lies an honor
Behind every fear lies a wish
And behind every wish lies a fear

***

BLOOD BROTHERS' VOW
Sixty miles an hour
Running down Route 95
I can hear the engine howl
I know that I'm alive
Distant thunder, there's a storm
But not here, not now
All I know is the night
And the darkened road beyond my lights
My eyes are on the prowl
For any specter, shadow form
Another holy rite
In an American teenager's life

The windows all rolled down
The moon-roof extended back
We're zooming through this town
The wind, it's at our backs
But still it's whipping at my face
And blowing back my hair
My arm is hanging out
Lifting up, falling down, whipping back with the breeze
The music's turned up loud, punching through the air
The guys are in the back, and give the music chase
But The Boss is up, the music's righteous
And in respect, we sing along

And as the night turns into morning
This ritual will come to a close
The horizon's halo gives us warning
Of that giant eye that will come to follow
But still the sax is sounding, the piano's pounding, the guitar is hounding
That harmony that brings us all together
That symphony that makes a half a whole
That melody that's all that matters now
Is gonna bind us here forever
With the strength of the blood brothers' vow

BLOOD BROTHERS REQUIEM
But these memories fade with the dawn
Like a clipper sailing on
Through endless time that moves along
With that gentle breeze that carries seeds
That rustles leaves
That ripples seas
That very breeze, it carries lives
It carries past forgotten pasts
And when that breeze flows through the fog
The mist will rise above
And the vase effect of one tiny tear
In the silent midst of morning's clear
Will catch a breeze across the sea
Where time is blurred
With my blood brother