[x]

When I was younger I thought death was an end, but now I think it is a process. I see this in the conversion of mourner's black to a trite fashion statement, in wisdom replaced by progress. It is a searching in the sand for words that might save you, while stones fall and understanding departs. It is knowing that most of my grandchildren's generation will not recognise the reference to which I allude, let alone its significance.

The gas heater flickers; orange light beneath plastic coals provides a comforting illusion. No more cinders, no more black dust coating every surface. I suppose I should be grateful.

On the television a man grins in

Well Acquainted

We shared a cup of tea, she and I.
No milk, no sugar,
no honeycoated words to weaken the taste of departure.
We were connoisseurs, and well acquainted
with the many blends of coming change.
Understanding kept us mute, our ceremony quiet
as we stirred the aging, aromatic leaves.

+++

We drank darjeeling once,
when the grass was frost-glamourous
and our eyes danced a dawn tango.
She wore red; I read her Blake's secret;
and we smiled over brimming cups.

'Your eyes are earl grey' I whispered,
when a mountain's shadow embraced us
and day turned into dusk into her eyes
as rain waltzed all around, enchanting,
to the scattered orchest

On a rainy dayAt a glance:
the tilt of your head
to the left, your half-smile
under an embattled umbrella
slowly bending to the wind's will;

and I remember why the rain dances.

Day of Leaves: Dance

Sun; it

Beckons me
on winds warm
I ride

To tea with myself.

Swirling/Breathing
Falling/ Living
In clouds of cold,
I am
Warmed.
In colds of clouds,
I am blown.

Autumn; a

Fever late.
on airs thin
they cling

To leaf into me.

Sickle/Thoughts
Crescents/Memories

In silence of season
I sat unspoken.
In seams of silence
I sat

Unbroken.

A Memory for an Old FriendI knew an old man - a hunched eucalypt,
back bent away from grass-tearing storms
that my mother hid from in her youth.

He was private, would not speak of the past
sunk into wrinkled bark and knotted knees,
the arthritis of ages holding him still.

Nor did he raise voice, his benevolent limbs
were shelter from the crack of an open palm
and the cacophony of a kitchen in ruins.

He was the quiet times, the calm hours,
the sun-watched sleep when dusk was just an idea
and the air carried no bite nor chill.

I grew, forgetful, until a rambling sunday reacquainted us
and I remembered him - the kindly old eucalypt,
back bent to break the w

FOUR YEARS

FOUR YEARS

YEAR 1 : WEBMAKER AND FRIENDS

Spring. Deep sleep in the early hours
jarred awake by the creak-shriek of wood
clinging to fast-embedded nail.
"Who's there?" through the window garage-ward
Silence. Return to sleep.
Morning. Every horizontal garage plank removed
placed, transformed into a little house in the one solid corner.
My small son, smile wavering uncertainly, says,
"It was Wood–den Man, Daddy"
I scowl, feign anger
and smile behind my hand.

Summer. Lightly dozing in the warmth
roused by a shatter-crash of broken glass
splintered on resisting stone.
"What's the matter?" towards my den
"Nothing, Daddy" Continue

Oratories and Laboratories...

A Rebuilt Life

I. A tale of the illegal, the illicit, the illogical
Oratory In the Laboratory - Part 2

"Oh no, Inspector, don't be deceived; that most redolent and pestiferous plague known as 'death' remains irrefutable, life is irretrievable, just as we-" a glance askance to the burgundy-blood-stained lab coat worn by the newly-dead instigated a painful pronoun change, "or rather I, stand before you irredeemable. I embalmed whilst he imbued, an atmosphere imbibed, till catastrophe ensued. The sepulchral saturnine expression frozen to her face became something altogether more morbid." Kneeling, he placed an outstretched palm against the st

Death By AssassinationDeath By Assassination
By Michelle Sturgill aka lilytheshadow

She’s been with him for a while now. He saved her from death and since then she has never left his side. He has fallen in love with her and her for him. They speak of love freely during their times of privacy. He is hers and no one will ever be able to take him away from her No one, but perhaps Captain Ghazi.

Captain Ghazi has been captain of the ruler’s guards for twelve years. He’s a tall, sandy kind of man who lives up to the appearance of most people in his clan. His hair is sandy bro

PortraitSketch us now, love;
make the lines heavy beneath my eyes.
Let each wrinkle be a trembling of ageing hands
that scatter our memories across the page.

Draw a still life, love;
pencil in the arthritis just so.
Let me not move from the cage of my chair
as you hammer it down with manicured nails.

Paint the years, love;
spread the tears heavy over the canvas.
Let the water dilute the colours until peaceful,
hazy edges stain the history of our days.

Sketch us; draw us; paint us
and then, love, when the time does come,
burn us.

Shadows Lost, 2 of 3

§§§§ § §§§§
Shadows
(Twenty years ago)

Freezing wind blows in the temple: the birds that hadn't left when the traveler entered do so now, flapping their wings hurriedly. Even the rain dares not entering the temple through the half-collapsed roof; the penumbra of the clouded day degrades.

The traveler rises from the broken Holy Table. He wears his crown and holds the golden rod. His face hardens as he turns around. He beholds shadows; shadows of men and women that do not crawl on the ground as peoples' shadows do: these shadows hover just over the weeded, fractured marble floor, staring at him with beads of red light where their eyes shou

Shadows Lost, 1 of 3

Shadows Lost

By Nektarios Chrissos, August-December 2005
Dedicated to Wai Peng Lee

Prologue: Erethea and the Twin Cities

In the Eternal Libraries of Akkash a whole series of leather-bound Tomes are stored, containing the Chronicle of Erethea, one of the myriad worlds floating in the infinity of Creation. These books speak of the many tribes of the world's inhabitants, and how they built their cities, their hopes and their dreams on three islands-continents, separated by the vast expanses of the Great Ocean.

On one of these continents, Abatania, stood two neighboring cities, Ancesl and Telenia. A great earthquake took them down once, l

The Unexpected Part 2 of 4—The Unexpected—

2031 AD

A decorative hardened-clay magnolia blossom, with the number 82 artfully worked into it, surrounded the door bell. Jessica pressed the yellow button and waited.

The exterior of the house was painted in an obnoxiously happy pink hue. The small garden surrounding the path from the fence to the door lay in a desolate state of disregard. Jessica checked the small piece of paper in her hand once more and then, shrugging her shoulders, crumpled it and replaced it into the hip pocket of her jeans.

"Who is it?" demanded a voice with a thick Russian accent through the door.

"Sergei Vasiliyevich Avdeyev?"

"Dat is highly u

Shadows Lost, 3 of 3

‡ ‡‡‡‡ ‡ ‡‡‡‡
Saal's mission
(Twenty years ago)

The sun flares over the Desertlands of Haas'na. Its ancient, bleak mountains cast sharp shadows on its narrow gorge-paths. The wind whistles between the mountains and the narrow paths, carrying dirt about.

A warhorse stops its galloping, obeying its rider's throat-latching. He uses the reins to make the horse lift its head and empties the content of his canteen into the animal's mouth; the beast drinks with relief. The rider dismounts. He examines the horse's legs and hooves; they have been injured from the paths' sharp stones. He caresses the steed's neck and, after tying the reins at a ne

MoyanSoftness, hidden behind tiger and sword.

I believe

`

I

I believe in growing old
but slowly, slowly
let the leaves turn

from green to golden
brown and fall in time
not a moment too soon

though for all the world
is there to have, to hold
in the palm of your hand

the future, like the sun
is always on the rise
even at sunset, it is so.

I believe in growing old
like the oak, reaching up
to the sky with arms wide

rooted to the earth firmly
deeply, moved by the wind
bending, never breaking.

II

I believe all of us
bleed the same red
blood that's spilled
in the name of whatever
cause you can think of.

That same blood runs
deep through all of us,
Furher, Mother, Killer

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Four Leaves

`

I

Heads up, you copper Abe
but don't step on the crack
to pick it up.

Over the left shoulder,
with fingers crossed
just not both.

Knock on wood
but not on the mirror
too hard.

Never walk under a ladder
with itchy palms
or nose.

Black-eyed peas
and collard greens
bread and butter.

Close your eyes
blow hard and wish
upon a star.

What's the date
this Friday? Oh
a black cat.

Four are better
than three any day
tea leaves.

Strike the last match
at your own peril,
or kill a sparrow.

II

Lately I've been thinking and I'm
Unable to get a grip on myself, maybe by
Chance, I can make something happen,
Kick me in my ass.

Parallel

`

In(you)

complete(me)

with(us)

out(last)

love(longly)

`

When I was a child

`

When I was a child
I thunk like a child;

kerplop

a bobber pops
the water of Lake Lure
and the rings roundly

wave away,
rippling the clouds
and the geese

carrying the dreams
of a young man
outward,

to lap against
an eroded bank
and dangling legs

falling, crest upon
crest, memorizing
the shiners

and the shad,
swaying them loosely
in the shallows

thirty later years;
the boy sound asleep,
bait long since gone

and the sky
has settled down into
a constant blue.

`

futureshepast

`

slit chrome
flashing— across the steel sea

she sees
a future in black & red
streaked & stained

in death, in life, in the undoneness
of reality, bent by projected will

transformed, shaped by
the unbodied mind, a virtual
highway to play in

not fully human/machine
some half: bred for destruction

in a time
placed near here, but not here
all at the same moment

emotion ceases— programmed
instincts, hard-coded-core

cold deepening
into shadows swiftly, then there
then gone:

soundless, motionless
a slumped body, pooling

`

And the locusts sang...`

And the locusts sang off in the distance,

carried by the heat-waved wind
across an ancient field of conquest,
where only death truly won any
victories.

while the grasses swoon and sway
a deepness; no one knows why
Whippoorwills whipple or Bobwhites
take flight.

as we lay under a tree that hung
the commanders of the lost, high
in the noonday sun, bright with
loss of life.

even as the sun sets a yawning red
reflecting a time when the land
drowned; trampled by fallen and
hero alike.

`

Winter Haiku - 27

-

mid-February—
already the tree frogs
sing of spring

-

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A bad day

by `MSJames, Apr 26, 2007, 6:01:15 AM
Literature / Poetry / Human Nature / Haiku & Eastern

-

There was a time I thought the leaves would never fall, never turn their backs to their true color. But oh how pleasant the dying looks; red, orange and gold, a ceremonial dressing for the doomed, hanging loosely, helpless to the gravity of something bigger then itself.

A crisp chill wind blows south, my coat pulled tight for comfort; only my own arms are left now. Drifting past me, just above the ground, refuse tumbles by without a will, destined to end up wherever. Smells of food blow through my hair, seeking an appetite long lost in some deep dark place well beyond the reach of such trivial things.

Past the sunlight, through the rainbowed mist of a jubilant fountain, I see two young lovers huddled together beneath the maple, beneath an October sky, pointing upwards to the heavens or the trees. Maybe they see an angel, not me, I only see the bare branches limned against a darkening sky.

among the grass
between the blades
a ring

-

A bad dayby `MSJames

Literature / Poetry / Human Nature / Haiku & Eastern

The haibun was created for *moyan’s prj2r, a collaborative effort of many writers here at dA and some of her wonderful art work. Please check out not only the original piece this work was based off, but also the rest of the collaboratives in the project. I can assure you, you won’t be disappointed.

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*Bogbrush Apr 29, 2007

A fine piece which captures the end of autumn perfectly and also of being an outsider looking in.

There is nothing as sad as the last leaf clinging to a bare tree.

`MSJames Apr 29, 2007

Hey man, thank you, I'm glad you liked this piece so well. I suppose its not in true haibun for, with regards with content, but I felt it fit the piece of art quite well. *moyan requested that I write it in that form, but I also had to write how the piece moved me. And yeah, there is nothing sadder, more poignant than that last leaf.

*Bogbrush May 2, 2007

Hehe, what is form if not for bending - things would get boring quick if nobody experimented.

`MSJames May 2, 2007

This is so true

~LilithLairPoetry Apr 27, 2007

Beautiful Mike, almost reads like a prose if it weren't for the last stanza. Favs!

`MSJames Apr 28, 2007

Well it is a sort of prose poem, and the haiku at the end is suppose to represent the prose, without too much of a direct connection. Glad you liked it though, thanks for the fav.

~LilithLairPoetry Apr 28, 2007

Ahh, gotcha man, I guess that's what a haibun is. I also learned that some punctuation, like the commas you use to separate ideas could be replaced with a dash. Learned that from *fllnthblnk and it's now in some of my latest works...

`MSJames Apr 28, 2007

Yeah, that's what it is

I've always had a problem with punctuation, so I'm sure you're right, there are probably some places in this piece that a dash would be better.
Thanks for the advice and the read Lee, it is much appreciated!

~LilithLairPoetry Apr 30, 2007

No problem, ask me whenever if you need help on that part....

`MSJames Apr 30, 2007

Thanks, I may just do that sometime.

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A bad day

A bad dayby `MSJames

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