Author: Don Morgan

It is a moonscape: broken glass, oatmeal concrete, opaque shadows.
Still dim;
eyelashes to break citrus, gold, yellow-
Tumbling down stairs, boxes flatten, dominoes fly, 
Millipede arms, legs and fingers drumming.

Pictures wave on a curtain of wind,
Strobe lights, lasers and messages on the wall.

Broken down, white cat front-end transmission,
Stagger weighted motion, swinging outward counter-balance steel ball…

The smell of machine oil, the tap of feet 
Passing overhead

re-lock.
Cylinders revolve, levers catch, barrels rotate,
Meaning, vision and dreams return

Complete.
Start again the day.

(Lost Coast Review, Fall 2014)

others
grow on their own
unknown and silent in
the garden or out back beneath
the sun

complete
each piece and each
element of our lives
is solved and contained within each
moment

minutes
rosary beads
slipping through her fingers
a moment to forgive, her smile
his eyes

I played guitar
I heard my thoughts
with my fingers
I climbed long stairs
swung from the trees
I braved mighty floods and oversaw nations

I danced drunkenly with another man’s wife
marshaled troops and made the heroic charge
I cried to heaven to raise me from my pain
asked her as cleverly as a sprite for just a bit more
and shined in the happy sun to be with my friend

And when you came, I played for you
for your parties, for your friends, for your
highs and your lows. I played to make you smile.
I played at our wedding and I played with
classic triumph profound for the birth of our child

And I played with sorrow yet untold at his death
I played to survive, I played to do a little more than just live
I played to god and I played for you
I played to help you, when sorrow bound your feet and hands
gagged your mouth and drug your toward the pit
I played vigorously and I played bravely and I played when there was nothing left

but it wasn’t enough
your sorrow turned to hate, your tears to venom
you demanded and drank my blood and I could not hold back
I let you have it all and when it was gone, I left

now I tell people that I am afraid to play
because
I will not know how to stop

the flowers
unfold petal by petal
complete as they were in the
beginning

For my two friends Mary Macharia and Uma Venkatraman-

knowledge
of anger past sits
within the icy freeze
of this silence admitting none
but you.

Silence
Is an image
of true innocence and
purity, a tincture of God’s
wisdom

Silence
is a still wind
bearing the impression,
The image of your soft features,
warm touch

Silence
Is a flower
It is a dream of life,
A creation that bares your soul
For all

Murmur
voices in the
wind, leaves in the breeze and
the rustling of the animals
at night

Murmur
lovers gliding
along the sidewalk, the
soft breathing of the babe in the
cradle

Murmur
the cold water
through the stones in the brook,
the earth in the light of morning
reborn

silence
some believe it
is the way but it may
also be dark water whispers
the poet

perhaps
it was indeed
you I fell so deeply
in love with that green and chirping
morning

perhaps
it cannot be
but then perhaps it can
the distance between is only
a thought

sunrise
pray capture the
instant dark becomes light?
Or maybe the moment you fall
in love.

sunrise
comes in silence
waking the birds to sing
and the cicada to chatter
new day