Untamed Word

Untamed Word

It ran along the boulders ledge, bright sun dashed through its mane, and naked, tore upon the windswept reach, and plunged 50 feet down into the crystalline waters of the mountain lake, alps stretching as far as the eye can see on either side,  the torpid heat and desert dry dust, choking the air, washed in an instant from that soul, with effusive joy and unbridled care...

You will not tame my word ...

No self made prison, will make a curse, or stop the pen from exploding onto the page with orgiastic verse. I break the tip of my pencil with my teeth, and running the lead across some rugged boulder, find some remnant of a worn out book jacket, read a thousand times, stinking of backpacks and pine sap, and scribble the words on the inside cover, while all about me is blue, and wild in green, beasts and untamed natural majesty exploding on the scene...

You will not tame my word ...

It comes like a ravenous lion from the heartland of my soul, and catching you in its yellow eyes, pupils dilating in its edacious glare, leaps into the air, with all claws blazing, slashing, ripping a hole into the sanctity of your tight little box, your manufactured certainty; Fangs sinking so deep into the meat of your petrified social carcass the blood gushes in fountains into the air. A nose disappearing into the belly of you, to rip the sodden viscera from your corpulent lassitude...

You will not tame my word ...

I swim with wild dolphins, make love in bright summer meadows filled with the sweaty mass of slinking skin, sucking in the perfume of pollinated musk, and at dusk, over campfires of fragrant green smoke, slowly roast the gifts that were caught in those rushing heady waters of the untamed hearts...

You will not tame my word ...

I will not wear your prissy gowned shirts, or pretend not to care when you turn your eyes away from some wild animal that hurts. I will not shut my mouth as you screw the earth, or bind my hands with your civilized twine as you celebrate some poxy legislative stillbirth with mirth...

You will not tame my word ...

For it was wild when it was born, formed from a simmering stew, a fiery reach, torn from the wild and the blue, crashing within the winds upon a storm swept beach, descending upon this earth in thunder, and in lightning, striking its girth...

You will not tame my word ...

It will not sit in silence as the darkness descends, or boxed into a screen, retreat, as all the world pretends. If you thought you held the chains, or manacled the mouth with your ill gotten gains, think again, for it fights to be heard...

You will not tame my word ...

It does not recognize your borders, or kowtow to all your barking orders, it will not quietly slip into the depths, or in silence, rescind those heartless steps. When you formulate your plans, and factor out this sweet freedoms sands, watch that they don't swirl in some almighty sirocco and crash upon your hourglass from without, burying you in the truth of your doubt...

You will not tame my word...

Yet! fear not the untamed heart, fear not the word, nor the formless might at the start. For it is only the manacles it sweeps away, the chains, the fettering binds, the fractured strains, the lying minds, leaving the heart and soul the freedom to play, to sweep in gushing tides, and create a brand new way...

You will not tame this word, not before all that is to be said, has been heard, for in every untamed heart, resides, the untamed word.

© Richard Michael Parker 2011 

Lotus

 
Lotus

Beneath the sullied waters,
deep, in the muddy mire,
comes an airy stem,
a searching tip of fire.

It struggles at the first,
from out that messy space,
then floats upon a dream,
into some hallowed place.

We think that we may drown,
before it breaks the surface,
then find that just by letting go,
it rises through its own grace.

And when it sits atop,
that still and bright new day,
the petals open up,
in some heavenly display.

How can it be that such as this,
could come from out that place,
such beauty grown within a womb,
from slime and past disgrace.

It is the truth of all great things,
that from the dark and sallow,
can come the sweetest petaled wings,
a light from out the shadow.

And you who bore such misery,
and kept that flame alight,
sweet perfumed gift of lotus bloom,
you are God's great delight.

© Richard Michael Parker 2011



Artwork by Lorraine Sumners

A bridge with a lift

A bridge with a lift

Spanned across the great divide,
I have seen such wondrous things,
terrible things.
Lovers from either side,
kissing beneath my hallowed cloisters,
in the moonlit night,
melting in the dim gaslight.
They come to meet in the midst of me,
embracing in a détente of mutual ecstasy.

Forbidden loves from either shore,
meet upon this 'no mans land',
to whisper sweetly, and confide,
of eternal unions that never hide.

To them, i am the sweet destination,
the point of no return,
the endless longing,
through days of heartfelt yearnings,
an abode of secrets, sweet sensual kisses,
endless bliss.
For this alone, all else seems sufferable.
yet it is never for long,
they turn, one way, or the other,
or both,
always to depart again,
sometimes in tears,
sometimes in song,
a transitory destination all along.

I have seen those same lovers,
jilted,
on lonely winter nights,
walk upon me in treachery,
broken hearted and alone,
to cast themselves into a void, blind,
unable, unwilling to take sides,
a leap of faith denied.
Those final bitter tears,
shed upon me in streams of wasted years,
loves that never came to greet them,
or those that did, and died.

In those moments, i too have wept,
yet always the dawns rise,
and a thousand scattered footsteps,
tap the beat out on my heart,
never an end, never a start.
In the quiet of that night,
I too have dreamt,
dreamt of being a destination,
the final point of a journey,
the reason for travails and yearnings,
but i am just a bridge,
a transit point for an aeon's dreams,
a crossing from a this to a that,
and once crossed, no one ever looks back.

How lonely it can be,
caught within the footsteps of eternity,
a million footsteps trudging endlessly,
across my walkway.
Always going, never coming,
from this to that,
displaced,
the endless transition,
never to be the final destination,
but for the broken or the smitten.

'Hey you!...yes, you!, who talk of loneliness,
from your lateral point of view.
I have watched you from on high,
from empty, endless, cloudless skies,
and seen the march of a million feet,
cross those waters to a timeless beat.
All the while you stood proud,
stout, within the seasons cyclic shroud.

I, however, who rise and fall, so slowly,
catch but a glimpse between these walls,
marking out each final destination,
from my vertical inclination.

At times I descend into a pit of despair,
and waiting, find not a soul for me there.
No one to wait for me,
up and down, endlessly.

I rise when i am summoned,
and fall at every beckoned call,
some rise in hope, others fall with none,
yet, better a slow decline, from a high place,
than such a quick descent,
a fatal fall from grace.

Many summon me,
press my buttons,
sometimes one at a time,
sometimes, all,
but still i must heed that call.

Crammed into tiny spaces,
silent feet, smiling faces,
sweaty summer days,
the creak of winters night,
always the moving place,
never the home,
never the boudoir of delight.

Yet, I do not cry,
or yearn to be another,
for we are precious you see,
we allow each soul a choice,
where none before were free.

They come from here to there,
they move from this to that,
but without you and i,
they are stuck, one dimensional, flat.

Maybe, only you could understand me,
maybe, it is only I,
that could comprehend your solemn cry.

Many times i have stood idle,
watching you, from my vertical point of view,
wondering what it might be like,
to have the gift and pure delight,
of doors that never shut,
open paths that lead to somewhere,
to never have to move,
yet, always have movement upon you.
We are opposites in action you see,
but not so very different in purpose,
you, and me'.

'Yes, i see you now, standing so tall,
but i have seen you fall too, slowly.
You have born them all,
with such grace.
Hopeful souls crammed into your tiny space.

These words of comfort you have spoken,
ease my soul, shine with a divine purpose,
a wisdom, a blessed token.

I know now i am not alone,
no longer a solemn bridge of pointless design.
A reach from nothing to nowhere.
For this gift you have given,
i could not find on my own,
the perspective to know we are not alone.
You have shown me, that which i could not see,
the very wonder and purpose of our true divinity'.

'And you, my complimentary admirer,
have given me such sights, as wonders do allow.
Visions of the great and the terrible,
traversing your great arch, in timeless hoards.
Only you could know what it is to be that which i am,
only you who stands strong across there to here,
with no sudden movement, no fear,
could ever understand what it is to ferry man,
forever, never, to be his point of rest,
an endless movement, in his ceaseless quest'.

'What goes up, must come down,
but better a slow fall to the ground,
what is left, travels right,
and back again, every night.

I wonder whether you and I,
who, here and there, up and down,
ferry all, round and round,
might meet together on the ground'?

'A bridge with a lift!
what a peculiar notion,
yet this heart has a mind,
of emotive devotion.'

'A bridge with a lift,
do you think it could be?
where once there were two,
dimensionally, three!'

...(together) 'possibly'!

© Richard Michael Parker 2011