The torture of early Spring

The torture of early Spring


This Sade season,
that prods the Sun from out its lingering rest,
the warmth of feelings tightly checked,
closeted in Winters cold embrace.
The tango with the sensual,
the perfume, the pollen,
the rising tide,
the ebb and flow,
the supple and lingering desires,
so long left denied,
The gaze, the grace,
...the dance!

This Awakening!
arisen from it's lingering slumber,
aroused in song by tuneful revelry,
prised with creaking remembrance,
from Winters icy fingers.
The lingering swirls,
the dips of longing,
the Saturnalic twirls,
the ever tautened bow string;
Embodied in each dawns arousing.
To know the truth,
as it pulses in the flesh of reality,
far removed from the sleeping dream,
The chimera of the frigid and imaginary.

The subtle touch,
the soaking skintight sway,
as the night gives way to the day.
As life surges with untold purpose,
to begin in a whisper,
a whisper, that redounds in an echo,
blown through somnolent Winter halls,
upon a hearth,
buried deep within these walls.
The breath upon the fire,
arousing flames ever upward, ever higher.
To banish the frigid emptiness of cold isolation
coddled in that forlorn hibernation.

To know with certainty,
this simple breeze,
that blows remorselessly,
between these newly budding trees,
demands its voice,
becomes a shout,
a scream,
a thunderous roar,
a mighty vestige of youth,
so long left unseen,
an aching longing, for more!
a power with untold purpose,
a demand without remittance,
and worse.

The dance,
the ebb and sway,
firstly that,
then on again this way...
the hunger!
The seed,
the ever growing sensate need,
to gorge upon an ever flourishing greed.
The ravishing rapacity of life,
full flourishing in new growth,
the lusting of loves new oath.

The sombre entreaty,
as eyes awaken to the empty pillow.
The gaps,
the spaces,
the forlorn solemn places.
To sleep again!, oh please!
to muffle this surging tide,
with the sandbags of hope denied.
Alone, amidst the rising song,
the ever present agony within,
the torture of early Spring.

 © Richard Michael Parker 2011

Shadowplay

Shadowplay

This dark horse,
pulling me with chaotic power,
unseen purpose, it lights a fire,
and in those flames consumes the certainty,
the sanctity of reason.
With foaming mouth, and broken halter,
this unbridled beast,
bucks the reigns,
spits the bit,
until in frantic seizure,
it rips the fleshy hands,
and soils the bloodied mitt.

A dangerous embrace,
no distant than the crawling of my skin,
the echo of the screams within,
bleeding down the walls,
erected to withhold its might,
yet, this frantic race,
upon the ominous dark paths of night,
is my turning away,
and in that flaming vision,
all i have blinkered,
all i have forestalled,
feeds the full power of its yearning,
until unyoked it consumes me in its burning.

To know in an instant,
the wild equine twin,
the snap in the tightening reins,
the temper of its wanton virtue,
the fulcrum of the shadows within,
heaving against his ghosted brother,
in flighted desperation from 'the other'.

Screaming along this cliff faced ledge,
this twined monstrosity,
A driven chariot of speed,
pulls me ever onward,
beyond my willful need,
fighting against its primal verve,
Courage!, to steel my nerve,
or, in letting go,
see this carriage so long designed
tumble heedlessly into the precipice,
scream into the rocks below.
Whoa!... slow!,
slow, white cousin,
guide your wild companion,
calm his raging sea,
with all the might of your will and certainty.
Show him the course of your way,
and let not his wild aspirations deter you,
harness that wild power,
that two may guide us past this tempests hour,
across this rocky path,
and in the perigee of that moonlit night,
wild and fraught, full of windswept howls,
the lightning screams of thunderous hooves;
pass beyond this ledge of personal treachery.

To find the calm of that open road once more,
the sure lit illumination of a wiser Sun,
and in that frightening breach, that endless reach,
to know that no soul comes by the light,
but through the shadowplay of its own feral night.

 © Richard Michael Parker 2011

 

Live Verse

Live Verse

I don’t want to write poetry when I’m with you,
I want to live it.
I want to finger every rhythm and rhyme,
and suckle you in couplet,
diving into your metaphor,
and thrusting out the meter,
in live verse.

To feel your soft poignancy,
the depths of your allegory tremble,
with each syllable that passes these lips,
slipping into you orally,
sliding down each auricle,
awakening the fires breach,
erupting inside you through speech.

I don’t want to write poetry when I’m with you,
I want you to live it,
be it, the poem on my tongue,
the rhythm and rhyme as you come, to me,
in heaving dripping whelps of desire,
sated on this linguists tongue of fire.

Rising in the tide of a poets lust,
moaning out the lines of each guttural thrust,
the flame, the fire, licking ever higher,
this penetrating hunger and need,
to reach down, and on your knees,
take this potency deep inside you,
and succulently feed.

I don’t want to write poetry when I’m in you,
I want to feel you squirm beneath it,
and shudder as I broach your inner sanctity,
entering your deepest intimacy,
sucking at the words on my lips
with full unbridled passion of a poets kiss.

Soaking your soul in a sopping mass,
of quivering ecstasy, screaming uncontrollably,
as the verse explodes inside of you.
Turning you over, stretching you out,
pounding your splayed defences,
surging through every unctuous doubt.

I don’t want to write poetry when your on me,
I want to live it, love it, lust for it,
watch it ride in rapture,
rising inside you, squeezing in a sopping tide,
until you shudder with the thunder of the verse,
and burst, gripping the transcendence in your sodden purse.

If I wrote you a poem with invisible ink,
that slipped upon the palette of your body,
through the feather quill guide of my tongue,
would it be any less memorable,
for having been written in flesh?

© Richard Michael Parker 2010

Remembrance

-Remembrance-

Death is not the end,
it is only a brief pause,
while we catch our breath,
and those we have loved,
catch their tears but for a while;
The passing loss is hard,

but it too will pass,
it too, will suffer its own death;
but once it too has gone, do we forget?
Or, in remembrance,
does that life live again,
risen in our vision and dreams,
our laughter, joys, sadness, ever changed,
deeper sighs or happier schemes.
Let not the pain consume
the richness of our meeting,
the depths we dug into each others souls,
the joys of that arisen dawn,
but feel it, as I too feel it, for what it is,
a brief but bitter darkening of the night,
woven into this tapestry of light.

  
©  Richard Michael Parker 2011

Roar

Roar

In Might and Thunder you come,
in awe and reverence i see you,
hear you, within the quiet space,
in the whisper, in the silence,
in the breathe of air,
imperceptibly expressed,
a silent breath that begins a shout,
a sound so magnified,
the whole world trembles in its wake,
a thunderous roar felt within,
each trembling heart,
each shaken mind,
the lightening bolt of justice revealed,
within the deafening peal
of your thunderous roar,
as the wicked go under,
and those who have been misled,
bled, find mercy within that space,
the silence that follows,
in the numbing humility of your Grace,
let the sands move,
and time, sequence this Great Line,
from now unto the word defined.

 © Richard Michael Parker 2011

D'Amore

-D'Amore-


There is sadness in your eyes, hope too,
and all the while this enveloped sensibility,
wrapped in a blanket of blue...

You have born the taunts of the frozen heart,
the severity of winter blasts,
hoar frosts biting into your fleshy soul,
so cold it seemed as if your passing had arrived,
yet still you stood tall,
unbowed by those glacial winds,
the cracking moments of icy expansion,
threaded between the leaves of  your soul.

Would springs dawn never rise?
Would those stark and barren skies,
never fill with the yellow song
of  this Suns gentle ray?
How long you have waited,
an endless season of barren despair.

Yet, hearken to the larks sweet note,
as it sings upon a green bough,
made bright by this Springs new dawn;
As if  in some ecstatic rapture,
to dance upon an air, a rhapsody entranced!
Wake up!, wake up my love...
awaken from the ice ensconced,
to bud upon song,
the thaw from out the frozen night.

Melt into me, my love,
flow into this warm skins touch,
with a torrent of bliss,
and know that this frozen death is ended,
with sunlight's first kiss.

Slip into this warm morn's light,
shed those frozen shards,
past remnants of that frigid night,
and know the soulful soak,
of love arisen once more,
The golden promise of spring returned,
D'Amore.
© Richard Michael Parker 2011




Artwork by Peggi Meyer Graminski

Spring Rise

-Spring Rise-

Cold winds are broken, bees song in flight,
swollen with pollen, engorged with sunlight;
New buds that welcome, warmth formed anew
dawn-lights first token, soft mellow dew.

The ice that enfolds, a life's hidden embers,
melts all around, a heart that remembers;
The seasons roll round, on Loves subtle rainbow,
shoots spring from ground, whilst winter is laid low.

On cool crisp clear mornings, we push and move fast,
on hue speckled dawning's, we grow from the past;
If in our days, we trace birds sweet song,
natures new ways, sure to turn all along.

The winds that blew icy, from climbs that were colder,
signal times constant dance, in the rounds one loop older;
Cherish this gift, life's love freely given,
as your heart springs anew, with a soul freshly risen.

For this cycle that wheels, with and without us,
subtly feels, all the lovers and doubters;
With natures fresh kiss, a breath, softly spoken,
close your eyes and you'll miss, dark nights spell that's broken.

Arise and renew, walk in fields lush with clover,
be as one sky that's blue, for deaths storm now is over;
So when in the dusk, we recount loves first sunlight,
rest assured that with hope, we may sleep safe the long night.

© Richard Michael Parker 1999

Not Alone

Not Alone

When all about is blue
and the way forward doesn't seem so clear
remember that light within you
that same light that is within me too.

When you are caught in the depths of despair
and darkness seems to be your only friend
remember you are not alone
so open your eyes, to see i am there.

When you struggle for breath
in the bottomless waters, gasping for air
and feel this impending dread as if it were death
press your mouth to mine and i will breathe for us both.

There is sunlight behind every cloud
even in the night, the stars shine
and in reflections upon that mirror
remember in that echo
the dawns rise comes in silence and surety
in the quiet of that silent place.

You are not alone, you have never been alone,
you will never be alone...
  
© Richard Michael Parker 2011

Alone

Alone

There was joy, the sun streamed in,
love flooding every vestige,
laughter too.
Then the creeping,
the imperceptible loneliness,
the washing tide of sadness,
this... madness;
Slipping into the dark hours,
like a shadow in my night,
a blinding of the light.
Slinking in the back streets
of some memory left in retreat.
Sitting on a hillside at midnight,
the distant lights fading,
until all that is left,
is a faint heartbeat,
and the murmur of a cold wind.

© Richard Michael Parker 2011

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