Mountains and Majestic

Heaven quiet
mountains majestic made conquer the sky.
Stand tall trees align,
a straight state
a          catch in the air,
an exhale of any despair
and the drift of peace fills all

Two girls tall
in unbragged wild,
the wide applaud now paused
from the world:  the woods adored them.

Straight hearts Lord loved and nature nights
tucks them under the blanket of silent
and heart howling

A lifetime of building makes you cold mind you.

art by this guy



At evenings top
we sit and watch
the fences built
around
our houses
and hope that it will keep
the others
out.

And all the while we pray
that the police will step
in and mother
those who we have failed.

Magnolia

We, the magnolia tree
in winter walls white,
and deep:
BLOOM
We are the softest
purple pulp of sad songs
made beautiful,
over the smoothing of time.
Oceans rolled us over
in youth and
ironed all our wrinkles out
and left them floating
absent,
And while the summer young
were smiling,
we were dying.

We huddled gravely
roots cuddled us bravely,
til in the stillest night
of the whitest despair
through season's roof
we broke up through the cracks
in an unlikely pair

royal honoured display
among darkest days
magnolia magnified,
the fairest of fair.

Just some a whistlin'

art by bluealaris


A slip of a bird just whistled at me
from high in old oak tree
came from high as the city
as brave as a sailor
cussing his way through the seas:

"what pretty hips,
and what summer lips",
this was its melody.

And all the hurt stock
that long held me to dock,
were cut and I was free.

AEM July 2011

When Once I held the Sea.

Hold it Inside by SayinBayan



Inside I'm all a liquid,
a lapping and a listless sea,
and if you are to listen near
I'll wager this is what you'll likely hear:

a Howling wind, a Haunted breeze, a Dark in the noon
late quivering breeze,
a stirring deep, a changeful streak, enough to turn
your ear from me.

You see, inside I'm all a liquid,
an oft disturbed keep,
and the way that your eyes pierce
I'll not have sides to hold,
when the sea is drained to the deep.
And then like the mass I'll survive,
in the gasping half shallows of life,
where we share the common pool of remains
that once like the world held the sea.

AEM June 2011

A-Muse-less Park

Photo by Jade


I'm a showground
unripe in untrod soil,
uncoloured by the watery brights,
that drip one night
for a year of light
before they jingle away for their respite.

I'm a ground that for three long breaths,
calls for wonder under skies,
captures gasps of delight
and turns them inside out for sighs
for three whole nights a year.

I'm a sparkling park and people rush to fill me,

But generally through the long seconds that time deals with one space day space and two dead nights and fourteen beats of silence in an echo of what might be nice,

I'm a barren ground where hobos lie down
and young lovers once a month escape
to blow warm air on my cold belows.

We Built a House with Legs

We bend to fit
together
between our hardest aches
we listen for a
rhythm
while our hearts synchronate
and steady
ourselves to stand on our four legs.

We built this house
where tired heads lie.


AEM 2011

People are Mostly Silly and Always Deaf

art by poopgoblyn


We think so many brave soul'd ideas:
like we are deadly, sharp we be,
yet without a spark we sag in sea

We might be potent, lungs are strong
but strike man to hear a silent song

The Bushes and the Barracks spokesmen
poke us with their grand demise
prodding pride in youth and progress
with a babbling design

If we are dangerous, young and strong
where have we hid the Battered ones?
If we are wise and good and right
why do the Gentle find no rest tonight?
If we are noble, pure and pious
Why does the father groan for quiet?

And if in night unwelcome truths come marching in
and doubts of wholeness begin to pin
you do not induce a medicine sleep
but let it speak,
let it speak
Then we might see we need this spark
lest sag in sea, we are defined as dark.

I am a Vase.

photo by Ashveenp

What could I give unto this morning
that is not false, or forced, or frayed?
How could we push with painted hearts of feeling,
our coloured hopes to damaged Deeps?
Why do I strive and in kneed I buckle
to throw in haste with pride my aid,
or should we silent, bent and able
admit that what we need be is sheer;
clear to You, vases, vessels here.

AEM April 2011

Our World is a Spinning Top, and now it's Stopped

art by vedzonius


When fast we move, the world it's spinning
topped the height of delights and trimmings
but now we slow it starts to sway,
and on ground we stay
I never thought I'd be the one to pray.

April 2011 AEM

A prayer

"All that is thirst" Estellamestella

With sweat I'm scared to love him
for with the night
he'll drift away
and under thick cough, his depart
will be the heaviness,
my, heaviness, of, heart.

This faint beat of the day
and, night, and, day
meets every breath with
some morsel of decay
Oh how to stay, to love, to hold
when quick as light
we'll depart to old

Teach me to let light in
to bring each moment
dignity to brim
to love him
limited and faint though be the touch
and in each laugh, each unformed
dream, see much

Teach me to love without
retreat or turn
to dark familiar where I learned
to hold only my own broken
bursts
and now it seems I hold my own
in his
for a moment unto ever
drink his and his my thirst

AEM2010

Molly Coddled Along

This poem was written on one of those dreary train trips in the sort-of-morning time and you are dreamy, dreary and lulled along with the motion.

Film over morning movements
light and distant
dull dabs at my peace of mind,
Eyes look up, lock
on the closest person
until
their stillness pushes hurried worries
down, in the deep down where
they belong in frowns

Allow now I do
the train pull to gather me in
soft, closed eyes
in warm motion, being hummed
and molly coddled along

AEM 2010

Still Sweet Voice

painting by Chris

Fur and heat
steadily complete me,
His voice still sweet
though I shake he remakes me

Skin and teeth
grow replete
and defeat us
yet His voice still sweet
makes a treat of this carcass

In my bones I still moan
of the night and the quiet
but His still small voice
like a sweet sup of choice
pours a stream to my soul
where the wind could never go
and where his still sweet voice does follow

Wet and torn
from the naught I had borne
I listen for an age
and grow silent for a night
in a moment of a memory
and in an absence of a sign
I hear

His voice still sweet
through the valley of my sleep
and voice still sweet it finds me

From the hole in my soul
where I swore I'd never go
his still sweet voice reminds me
his still sweet voice unties me.

AEM Dec 2010

"ASK for Help"

this guy

I have dedicated these holidays to doing something with the creations that live in my head and under my bed. But what do I do with them? Do I give the art I have borne to a cafe wall where people who do not know me nor my heart will cast a cursory glance and make me feel like I have done something tangible with my time and energies? Do I send my writing to magazines who might look at it, but most likely won't, only to have strangers read, or not read some fancies in my head?
Now I know I'm just being a fusion of lazy and fearful.
SO if anybody who reads these has something to tell me about my writing, that would be so helpful. If you like it, hate it, find it confusing, or convoluted, or boring, or hopeful, or unskilled, or it makes you feel warm and fanciful, please just give me a word or two in return. I have a sign on my wall that says "ask for help". My wall gives good advice.
Also if anyone has any ideas about what field you think my style of writing would suit, or any authors you think I could read, that also would be wonderful.
Many thanks

Trim Down Your Passions

Between my legs
your table finds
its edges folded
over my deep
crease increasing

I think now to
leave
the world of
writing as an
exercise in futility,
as civil hostility
advises me.
Feed your soul on
early decadences
and trim down
into adulthood,
cut in half your passions,
tighten your resolve
to absolve yourself of
all your
visions.

AEM Nov 2010

Weather girl

Pic by dayswillpass

Weather Girl
I go grey with the rain
and white with the sun
I'm a weather girl
weathered by night's begun

I go dull with the morn strike
and bright with the turn
I'm equated by changes over
sunset's burn

I'm an evening haunter
a stalker of the dark
I fumble with my drawings
under blurs of the heart

I'm a changeless statue
under influence of the torch
I rock with force of weather
no gun, will, or horse.

AEM Nov 2010

Over Sunday Swell

Nothing's right with this
health I mind,
I feed it flesh
and it gives me rind.
I'm less than pretty,
and less than well,
but I'm calm as sunrise
over Sunday swell.

When a person has no one
they concerned with all,
the ways they could be broken
by somebody else;
but I've got a broken someone
who don't mind my frown
we don't pretend we got no higher ground

We work for our dinners
and sing for our dimes
and though I'm less than pretty
and I'm less than well
we are smooth as sunrise
over Sunday swell.

the ways I find you

Your face up close
God's grace, God's grace
and my mistakes are held there in your eyes
I ask for space and take
the length of pride to stretch myself upon
and make images of all my golden lives alone

Drops in a bucket loudly in my ears
steps to doorways trip
my heart.
Your healthy eyes you steer-
be clear! be clear of me!

Covered up and over by my cold shoulder
still you synchronize my day and night
and when I crumble over you
We flow out and in and through

the broken ways I find you.

we go unbroken

Strike our heads together
and like a match we
flare with flame.

Slip our hands
between us
and like rope
we go unbroken.

Share the spirit
and like nothing this
world can touch
we find souls
that leave these skins
behind
and climb
toward what our lonely needs
could never see

or believe
or reach.

Firelight

The fire cracked open the deep crevices of his face. Firelight, firelight on and under and in the remnants of his face. Firelight dragged up what he once was; young, passionate, able to press the muscles of his insistence on the course of the world and change it’s path. Once he uprooted his family to travel on the wings of the Gospel, twice he dug up his family, three times and more for the cost, for the glory. The firelight borrowed him its glowing so that in it, his old glory shone. But youth, and fire burn to cold.

Now he sleeps at the fire and though the flame shines, he is old. He does not move, not to new towns. When he moves it is to summon great energies upon himself to paint. He drives through the few places that know him and people throw jobs at him. First this door to fix and then this room to scrub and paint. A new energy is on him as in age he learns to build chairs, and in broken families he paints a fresh coat of heritage red on the door frame. The mundane man who nightly dreams of when he had visions, now holds visions, like a brush in his hand. Like a small golden pellet of glory in his hand is the single stroke of up as he paints what he used to pray; redemption