Haiku in three parts

Haiku in three parts

1.

Remember the Sun
climbing through the clouds
as the rain falls

2.

Climbing through the clouds
as the rain falls
remember the Sun

3.

As the rain falls
remember the Sun
climbing through the clouds

© Richard Michael Parker 2011 

Mark of Cain

Mark of Cain

This field was plowed and sown with grief,

and marked with sentient hubris,

the cries of wanton years relief,

fell deaf upon this distress.

For in my pride and vaunted soul,

I slew each angels gift,

and offered up this cracked bells toll,

this hearts discordant rift.

Standing at the end of my dreams,

staring into a wasteland of emptiness,

every shattered hope is seems,

becomes a shroud of vacuousness.

No more road to walk upon,

just dust beneath these worn out shoes,

the tattered cloths of a worn out sun,

descend into this night of blues.

Dreams die... and so do I,

with every fading faltering step,

no more hope or moistened eye,

to keep these shattered bones I've kept.

They crumble, break, and fall to dust,

and find that they are not alone,

for in this parched and bloody trust,

a billion souls to hell have blown.

So do not walk upon this road,

you'll find that it has but one end,

to carry such a heavy load,

down into heartless death my friend.

Turn back towards the dawns first light,

or reap the scorn of loves disdain,

to find yourself in endless flight,

for you'll have worn the mark of Cain.

© Richard Michael Parker 2011

Dancing with the Stars

Dancing with the Stars

On sultry summer nights, in the wilds of my mind, surrounded by the swift gusting brush of natures hallowed breath, I feel my soul rise into the dark open sky, surrounded by a million flaming wheels that spin and twirl in a giddy dancing swirl of light and fire! There in the flame of your touch, I shudder and sweep across your surface, aflame with a soulful desire, the dip of sanguine hips flicker in the night, enraged and aroused by this tango of wild delight, to whir in shameless dizziness to the incendiary blur of your shimmering sight, the flash in the fullness of my reflection, splashed across this vision of spinning might, caught in the roar of this suns trembling rhapsody, wrapped in vanquished embrace, bursting into an epiphanic nova, a crescendo of moon and sky, incandescently arcing between these tongues of fire, flicking and licking into the night, one to the other, an incendiary passion of mystery, rapt in this resplendent majesty, shooting across all eternity, tonight.

© Richard Michael Parker 2011

Forbidden Love

Forbidden Love

This silence we have woven,
that spins each silken sticky thread,
is a vanity of hidden conceit,
caught in a web, cocooned in a heartbeat,
muffled, as if all joy was dead,
laced with the bane of the unforgiven moment,
shrouded in the emptiness of every word unsaid.

I have stoned them up, inside my heart,
built a fortress around their emptiness,
and watched as the darkness,
encased all, in forgetfulness,
entombed within this vaulted woe,
one silent brick at a time.

The wanton eloquence of wasted years,
fitful pangs of sullied lives and fears,
enclosed within a stony silence,
stolen heartbeats of forbidden love,
forlorn yearnings, trapped within an endless gloom,
to sing forever behind this stonewalled tomb.

We are enshrined within this mausoleum,
bound, gagged, and desecrated,
confiscated, man handled, and manipulated;
Tongue tied and twisted, shamelessly misled,
torn apart, lost, within a phony fugue,
forlorn, these fated hearts are bled.

Each muffled beat, squeezed through time,
forgotten remnants of loves light, and laughter,
shining through the cracks and shards, slide,
between each earthen brick, and hallowed mortar,
a fiery mix of blood and pride,
a sepulchre to this tethered halter.

Come, my love, and smash this wall to dust,
tear down this stony silent place, you must!
and let these hearts resound in joy once more,
to fly into a golden light, and soar,
on soulful wings effulgently elated,
my twin souled love, forever, we have waited.

© Richard Michael Parker 2011

To Kate and William

Bonded

This Penetrating wind,
sensate gusts,
formless unions embraced,
redoubled in soulful resonance.
How does one separate a unity?
Bonded at the roots,
connected through all eternity.
Time and space,
distant illusions to an infinite soul,
a shared remembrance of two made whole,
one soul, housed in separate forms,
metering out the hours of our passing,
waiting.
Life to life,
moment to moment,
caught in an eternal present,
forgetful of this timeless unity.

No death, nor passage from this gray world,
no distance, or time, nor separation,
no harsh words, or bitter scorn,
no damned plague, nor heart forlorn,
no broken bridge, nor trust divided,
no sullied lives, nor minds left chided,
could ever break this ring, united.

Its truth, was in a kiss revealed,
its time, within two hearts concealed,
forgotten but for a little while,
rejoined by soul-filled fated guile.
These soulful winds, each penetrated,
restoring love, reverberated,
recounted, in each soul retold,
reborn anew, this love of old.
Each waking moments skintight bliss,
manufactured in this kiss,
was formed in loves bright bonded hearth,
and schooled in smelted parted bath.
In silence... both souls entwine,
and whisper of a love divine,
A majesty, both full and wrought,
in unity, both halves are caught,
and wrapped around, each one together,
the fulsome coil of timeless tether,
completed in this ring tied knot,
to birth new hope, in spring begot.

This Penetrating wind,
that soulfully resonates between the spaces,
speeds time, to broach those distant places,
leaving all those hard woes behind.
Impassioned memories,
the birthing pains exposed,
a sufferance of repose.
Yet, tight is the bond born of suffering,
the fiery trials, the endless yearning,
redoubling fortitude in the burning.
No bond born in so frightful a forge,
could ever be broke,
or rent by wanton tongues that first bespoke.
The tarnished remnants of remembrance,
chipped away, polished in the light.
Loves revelation of golden unity,
a ring of glistening luster,
dazzling and bright,
unbroken,
whole,
a bond of remembrance,
a unity of soul.

© Richard Michael Parker 2010

The Face Remained The Same

The Face Remained the Same

Thrust upon his throne,

he read his letter,

blind;

and turned the words, one with another,

in her mind:

He wept, forlorn.

The tap water hissed,

a snake in his miasmatic mist:

solemnity turned it out,

and it left the bitter sacrarium of his mind,

His very own pernicious inner blind.

With each brief tear,

a year.

He was alone.

A charted wilderness of boundless boundaries:

Driven, he would wander,

until at razors edge,

life would reveal a death.

We toss our own coin, an epoch or an epitaph,

heartily he would laugh;

The bastion, his spirited whole,

the only true soul.

For laughter offers all a gate,

to meliorate, this ambivalent

and capricious fallacy, we honor as reality.

Heartily he laughed,

a Brahmans smile.

Yet his face remained the same.

© Richard Michael Parker 1987

My Friend

My Friend

She said, 'My Friend'...
It ebbs and flows.
Be as constant as the tide...
for it is a pleasant place to hide,
on occasion, when you find your spirits sagging,
and yearn for the quiet enclosure of a closeted space,
where music and grace are the constancies found within!
stop a while,
and do not regret the ebbing of that tide,
for even stars fade, when the Sun broaches the dawn;
Yet, their light is echoed in that brilliant day,
do not mourn,
for they resound again in the dusk,
to herald the coming of the night.
Do not fret at the passing of time...
but wait a while,
and see that time rejoined,
for all things that pass,
pass this way again.
It is an eternal recurrence... 'My Friend',
but NOT, of the same.
For nothing that has been so touched,
by the starlight of that place,
ever remains the same,
forever it is changed,
and changed again.
To pass the hours in listless musings,
amongst those subtle ears,
whose hearts do ring through all those constant years;
A tolling bell of communion,
friends one with another...
lending their hearts to all,
as a sun does lend its warmth to a summers day...
stay a while,
and we shall see the night come again,
and we shall play music,
and laugh once more,
'My Friend'.

© Richard Michael Parker 2011

Artwork: Unknown 

False Hope

-False Hope-

Left in a passage of dark deep despair,
no light to illumine the agony there,
crouched in a corner of some foul design,
you ache with some remnant of longing resigned.

These wounds that have bled out your heart, that once loved,
are wickedly opened and deepened, when shoved,
into a box, where your dreams used to be,
residing in emptiness, loves absentee.

Lost in that dark and damp manacled place,
where you sat in your blood that wept down your face,
there was but a fragment, a shred of dim light,
that flickered inside, in the dark of that night.

So you rise, as the light inside See's up ahead,
a crack in the gloom, with a thin wisping thread,
to sow up these wounds, and to make of them scars,
to unlock these self designed prisoners bars.

And all of the time, with a wicked sly grin,
the beast that has hold of your hope from within,
tempts you by stoking that last fading coal,
in the hope it will finally devour your soul.

For it knows, what you don't, in the depths of that place,
that you'll give all you've got to escape from that space,
even in the light of that last dim lit flicker,
it knows it just makes that slope all the bit slicker.

For a glimmer of hope is enough now to kill you,
as the teeth tautly widen around the dark lures woo,
and begin to drip venom in anticipation,
as blindly you wander into that damnation.

The snap of the trap, that now rips through your soul,
as the tocsin erupts from the demonic toll,
is the only dark remnant left in that night,
of a heart finally swallowed by that false hopes fake light.

© Richard Michael Parker 2011

Death of a Romantic

Death of a Romantic

He told himself;
If only, you could hold on'
'if only, you had been strong'
'if only, on those dark and lonesome nights,
under the orange glow of the ancient gaslight,
some illumined flicker of love had lit my way,
instead of the chimera of hopes false dawning day.
He spoke in soft words;
'you have peered through the settling twilight,
seen the emptiness of your own eternity,
here without a 'you', filled with only a 'me',
if only there had been another,
this tardy spirit might have tarried,
instead of feeling forlorn, lost and harried'.
He told himself;
'I carried roses once,
in a wicker basket, in my heart,
plucked by the scent of loves first start;
Those thorns had pricked my senses,
and sent them reeling with this imaginary love,
cascading across some sultry summer dance floor,
in whirling time with my great pretend paramour'.
He told himself;
Why!, when you knew all along,
that your open heart was bled dry,
did you even try,
or believe, even for a moment,
that in this hastened silence,
life, might afford you one last chance?
'foolish boy'!...did you not know,
the only love in this life was in your heart,
and only in the gift would it start.
Love was never yours to have, nor hold,
for it is only for the beautiful, and the bold,
not for the hideous and delicate romantic,
love in such, is but a rod for the back!
He told himself;
This ledge is not so high!,
it does not seem so far,
and if i fall,
the ground will not seem so hard,
certainly no harder than this barren heart,
no higher, than the mountains i have scaled,
upon whose heights of loneliness i have wailed,
no further in truth,
than the distance of times yearning years,
or the constancy of gathering tears.
He said;
This cliff faced wall, it does not seem so tall anymore,
scored against the gathering distance,
of time left denied,
swept upon these seas i have cried,
this leap seems not so far to me,
no further than the countless 'leaps of faith' i have made,
the revelations and moments of heartache, left dismayed.
He peered into oblivion;
Watching as the slow clouds rolled homeward,
and felt his soul slip amidst them.
Moistened dew drops tickling his cheeks,
and wondered, one last time,
whether he would ever miss those streams,
his forlorn golden dreams,
the hauntings of this stark reality,
the enduring emptiness of his heart filled misery.
For even sorrow is a friend, in the end.
He stepped into the void;
To feel the rush of the cold wind greet his rosy cheeks,
and recalled how he had longed to see the same, as he fell,
full blush, soft spoken, tremulously wept, heart broken.
Plummeting down, never to be found,
for once spoken, love departed,
brushing sensate lips,
caressing the broken hearted.
He saw clearly the ground rise;
To meet him,
to greet him,
to know this stranger,
who having flown so long,
in rarefied skies,
approached now at speed,
where once wings had upheld his need,
reality plunged upon its surface,
caught in the gravity of this loveless disgrace.
He wondered:
Will it hurt?
Not so much as the years of countless burnings,
the heartfelt bonfire of hopes endless yearnings,
ashen moments of passions rising heat,
the licking torment of a solitary retreat.
For as the desolation of his loveless form descended,
he smiled, calmly,  and knew that this agony was ended.
In that momentary light of resignation,
the certainty of his end,
this wretched lonesome Romantic,
began to apprehend, and quick,
the futility of that constant search.

His heart shrunk into the wild rock,
and fused with the stony truth of it.

"That one!
I'll take that one,
to sculpt."

© Richard Michael Parker 2011

Hello Again...

Hello Again...

It was your Heart within your Art,
that flew upon those airy wings into my own,
enjoining souls that once, alone,
resound now in bless'd unity,
and sing in soulful raptured harmony.

Hello again, sweet Delphin cheeks,
whose long lashed eyes, crash upon this shore;
Weep no more, upon those honeyed sighs,
but rest within these wings upheld,
the sleek and silent tremor in this heartfelt meld.

Where once were two, three in art reside,
shed those silent skins, softly eased aside,
unfurling winglets, soft and pliant,
each moistened filigree, stretched, transcendent,
a delicacy of fervid refinement.

Sunlit elation from out some darkened circumstance,
transformed within the light of each hidden sighted glance,
to see, what eyes cannot,
to know the certainty in that soul-filled space,
the metamorphosis within the unity of grace.

It was your Heart within your Art,
that flew upon those airy wings into my own,
enjoining souls that once, alone,
resound now in bless'd unity,
and sing in soulful raptured harmony.

© Richard Michael Parker 2011



Artwork by Izabella Blue