Survivors

Survivors

Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Driftwood Dreams


©  Steve King
All rights reserved


bright sands raked by an unyielding wind
grey sea trimmed with white breakers
gulls adrift pure of flight on their distant azure plain

and the driftwood holding at the center
still through tides and gathering dunes

unmoved
as if in rapt dreaming
of dark mother forests so long gone
and damp wooded ground
a hint in its sere core
of the taste of ripe loam
from some other distant shore

dreaming all one
bright sun and sands

‘til it becomes a hatrack
             in some idling tourist’s hand

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Preposterous Analogies Drawn From Late Night Reflections On Gravity


©  2012 Steve King
All rights reserved


The highest laws notwithstanding...
there are things 
that accelerate to vacuum,
hurtling straight through complex time and space
across the undisplaced fabric
of infinite emptiness—
unbalanced quanta at the helm,
terminal velocity,
scanning for some fixed horizon,
tumbling to a missing point of mass—
ah…these vectors of surplus desire!

Each habit of affinity
instills a mad sense of place,
even to uncentered orbits,
even in an empty room.

It’s easy to remain relentless
on well traveled paths;
dying hard, the  habits,
tracing new maps written in old scars,
so many things so well-survived,
scars so profoundly you,
there would not else-wise be a you.

So forget that silly inverse square—
just another law that begs repeal:

things at the furthest distance
always pull the most,
and absence yields the one metric
to reckon all strong forces of the heart.

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

The Fire



©  2012  Steve King
All rights reserved


Well—
this fire begot something
to trim the leavings of the night:

ancient spirits in the smoke;
rekindled hope speaks from each tongue of flame;
ember upon ember,
old inclinations leap to light,
then sift their ashes through my heart again.

I know the fire shall shortly die,
just as all regret is said to wane.

I taste these ashes one more time,
and know there is no reason to complain.

A taste of ashes may remain,
but no one ever need explain;

I would relive it all the same,
and take no moment to complain
 

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

All Is Well


by Steve King
© 2012


All is well, I promise you.
Do not be concerned by my
sometimes detached bemusements.
These are but easy retreats
to unspoke and stubborn dreams
where the past pursues new forms
and new wants reshape old charms.

You must not think ill of me.
These diversions inform but
my own still imaginings—
sparring with my old designs,
sanctuary from keen foils,
or just finding silence there—
call it whatever you will,
it is just a tiny step
removed from your waiting world.
Yours is no thin shadow place
to leave behind.  No burdens,
satisfactions unfulfilled,
no wasted unique glories
to drain the measure of me.
All is well enough, I know,
there in the outward brilliance
of common sight, where you wait
for my strange quiet to end.

I would explain everything
of this musing well within;
but there is still mystery
lying at the heart of it.
This mystery, this darkness
will not yield to my desires.
It’s a backdrop set against
somber glows from ancient pyres,
whose light never penetrates
inward from its waning fires.

And so shall the darkness grow
with accelerating years,
swallowing whole things once known,
making my dreams slip their grasp,
while old songs reprise as sighs.
I would trace each scattered spark,
and would try to harmonize
each echo, each fading note.
So far will my eyes not see,
nor ears own such reverie.

Yet all is well, believe it.
All remembrance must be so.
And so indeed, I wager,
are the unsung harmonies
a-play beneath your calling.
I will wait when it must be,
while you linger inwardly,
while you the passing choir
illumine with the flickering
of your own secret fire.