The night drifts by
Seconds heavy with subterfuge,
but the night sky is clear
And the lights are bright,
more foot-candle strong
than before,
aging, revealing
all around them.
Only a silence
Remains to be broken
with the innocent laughter
of a child,
as I continue
travel through the misted
landscapes of the mind.
Why hunger,
Why existential pain?
Is the current truth a fake ?
Should we empathize with pigs ?
Why are cell phones
named after nature’s fruit ?
And who does the child
as an adult look
for ?
What is it about nature
and the lake?
There’s a secret beach I travel to ..
Beach on Infinity
And we walked along
the guarded path
where the pygmy loves
could not tread,
to the sands of the sacred beach
on a sea of infinity,
to that place in the sand
where the setting sun
froze and
stood still as a pearl.
And our dreams crystallized
into cast
grains of salt
all around us.
There with our feet
grounded In the sand
of a cosmos
of a million realities,
Our love became
a piercing of the heart.
Our tears became bubbles
that rose upwards
and burst into the air
that was thick
with the moment
of a golden light,
and with a fleeting
despair,
quickly melting
into a night of stars.
From “Free Verse in Useless Times” by PWChaltas
Go Last.
1/ Don’t Know Why
Don’t know why
after so
Many years,
And after collection
After collection
of haptic verse
laid down
And written in arenas
Of solitude
and midnight silence:
-A decision to make them
Public;
Except perhaps
for the encouragement
Of friends,
Except perhaps,
For a heart rending love,
Except perhaps
For that quiet
and delightful terror
Lately,
That gnaws
contently, consistently,
About my errors,
And moves
The human family
Skeletons
to
Dance.
2/ Heart
Labours during
the day
like,
so many;
And at times
On the road,
And very late at night,
Or in the early dark morning,
In certain breaths,
Come
heart full voluntary deaths
Self inflicted
By outside coming
verse;
And by the music
And sound of words;
Enough deaths
perhaps,
that
at some
unexpected,
But expected
moment,
An aortic arch
May burst
In an
appropriate
conclusion
to the
passion,
ending all illusion;
With a single arrow,
Or many arrows,
And this heart
-leaking
Will Finally
go
Last.
The lights flickering
In the distance are red
and I believe that
I’ve totally lost my head.
The city it seems
is burning red
tonight
Not sure of
just what I’ve said
from one moment
to the other.
Verse pours out like
random bread that’s
passed out
for the swollen bellies
of the famished.
See how skeletal they sit
or lie beside
their mothers,
and are easily
mistaken for the dead,
like so many
of the others all around them.
A look is in
children’s eyes,
eyes with wrinkles
deeply etched.
Mother’s are cradling
their heads.
Hunger, pain
live here raw
like free verse
doled out
by parted
empty lips
in vacant
useless times.
Women and children
gather scraps of metal
in abandoned mines
at the expense
of fragile lives,
like free verse collected
in some
long forgotten,
still,
and useless time.
And all
seems random
here
and destined
certain
not to survive.
No need for
lullabies,
no need for the contrived
lines of verse
that rhyme,
It’s just all meant
to be so simple:
Death just comes
wandering here,
meandering
on its own
picking
left and right,
whatever
may be in sight,
like free verse in
useless times.
Poetry , Art the Child
There is a quiet
And exhilarating joy
In poetry or art ,
like a child
born and raised
on page or canvas
waiting to be engaged ,
appreciated ,
waiting to delight ,
to commit
and reflect the
viewer , the reader,
to occupy their mind .
Poetry , art
Is like a child
whose company
is precious
to enjoy ,
and to delight in.
It gives us joy
and a single parting
taste
of the fleeting sweetness
That is life .
From “Eyes of the Artist ” by PWChaltas
He sat on boat edge
as the boatman
with ancient oar
strummed rhythm
on the water .
She waited
on the other shore
Facing west
back turned away
In
fear
of a losing glance
again.
She refrained
from turning
as she flung back a hand
In an eastern direction
in a longing salutation
And the boat
it seemed up so high ,
floating on the air
above the water
as in winged embrace
the angel
held them
both together
and spirited
them away .
Union Station
Take me
to Union Station
It’s there we can be
joined
among the tunnels
trains and crowds
sequestered ,
connected and
conjoined ,
There we can travel
on line
together united.
PWChaltas 