ardent waves

the heat shimmering in the air so bent
everything gone the color of the glare

even the leaves off ghostly trees
and ranch buildings in the distant dust
surrounded by fibonaccied bales

ponies nose deep in fields of wild oats
munching witnesses to the past
as the shades of the departed
continue on with their appointed tasks

cha oz
06 16 13

don't

why do I always do it

why am I the one everyone runs to
while in the thick of combat
and why…why do I always fall for it?

don’t call me and rant about the injustice
go on and on and make me a convert
wallow in ‘woe is me-isms’ and get me to agree
make me feel pity so I start raging in your name

don’t wind me up and point me
towards the battles you’ve chosen
let me go out there on that limb of righteousness
let me speak your piece (and lose my peace)
in a tone you could never unleash on those you care for

don't make me the heavy, the baddy, the mom
then half a day later
spin 180 degrees in a half fishtail
gears grinding while the gas is engaged
and agree with the visiting army’s ambassadors

just don’t…

cha oz
06 24 13

weren't you

weren’t you the one who…
     promised till the end of time
     to always be there when trouble arose
     reward every scene of bravado
     bolster all ideas and a trembling faith?

weren’t you supposed to…
     run through the fires of youth with me
     remain a part of us when there was a them
     see things through the same kaleidoscope lense
     help circle the wagons when the enemy was nigh
     stand close behind me when I ventured on without a light
     be my Confessor, my Co-Conspirator, my Cavalry?

Yet you’ve been…to my utter surprise…
     my frequent detractor
     one who believes I can’t decipher, ponder
          or take a walk through the labyrinth
     whose narrow opinion of mine and me
          is stuck with the swings in the playground

how can one thrive in a vacuum
made up of figments forever lost
in an apparition of sacrifice
that never made it to your soul?

I cede to you
Be done with me…be gone

cha oz
06 26 13

deity's dance

do you see him?
do you see god?
do you see him, her, it
...them?

they are in the raindrops
suspended between the sky and our souls

they are in the sand
marching wide across open vistas churning

in the rubbed particles that spark with joy
blooming under the caress of deity playful

they are in the majesty of the sun
transforming and transformed
into a brewed curtain of light
and dark sucked straight out of cosmos itself

they twine in and upon themselves
in and through the cloud's helices reborn

balanced in a dance as destructive
as a sunrise chasing away the night

as a rain dislodging and disbursing
pioneering creatures thriving for change

as a tree free falling through nests
dislodging occupants
who've just emerged through the either
or about to take flight to their choice

suspended between reality and our dreams
a portent of beauty so rare
so beautiful
not to be born by the feint of life

cha oz
06 30 13

dragon rain

it awakens
with the wind off the cliffed coast
a moist and subtle breeze
tinted with the mother's dew

it rides the uplift from her heated blush
sol having caressed her to shame
all the day long

growing and churned
writhing with claws extended
crawling up from rolling hills
chasing the sweet tears of a sea in turmoil

growling and squalled
it's icy whiskers shooting shafts of light
throughout the turbulent sky

then waiting, waiting for a downdraft
to begin it's journey home

cha oz 
07 07 13

everywhere but here

one step at a time
upward, upward
with occasion to pause
between each reach for the next
and the one before and beside

do take a rest to ponder
at the elevation still to be attained
the connection to the first and the last
the pits and ruts, litter and debris
left behind by less frequent travelers

but don't stay too long
else the moss will grow
with tendrils that will drag you back
a time or two steps ago
convincing you to mind and mend the ruts
lest they trip you down
as they've always seem to do
for those looking everywhere but here

cha oz
06 06 13

tick tick

today…this month…hell the last few
not in a good place

nothing really triggered this
no anniversary nor event

just…no one interested enough to share
the mile markers passing by
without comment
or celebration
nothing to make anything
…familiar

just existing is not living
and just living is not life
for to live is to…

does the universe even notice
if I go on here or pause?

I see a tree
taking up the same space as me
in the same state as me
as indifferent as me
cold and deserted as…

anyone got an axe?

cha oz
09 24 13

here and there

smoothly rolling
sliding like honey
drifting and roaming
that white line that follows me
as i race behind the moment

and i see the sky
as i see the crow
the...haunted
all along this journey bowed

they hover in my sight
when i turn away
and are missing from the path
of my imaginings

smooth and soothed
those markers of a future lived
when i was away and unconcerned
all players in my mood
of my mind
in my ride to forever here and there

cha oz
10 23 13

dunder and din

a soft quarrel
a hint too disturbed
reflects off clouds
flying low, dark and still

ears coming slowly awake
as the rumbles pound
closer
nearer
chummy and...
BOOOM

where was that?
what? when? and am i on guard?

then the clouds march to forward
with my soul opened wide
intent on collection all
utter, sundry, charged and agog
cross sedge and oak
every creature huddled to ground
shaken foundations part...

and the recall's last drumming
stentorian and roar
reeling through panes departing
their sedate little scores

the charge it amasses
roving onward to foil
till another uprising collides
and the chain it's own reward

faceted meringue

it is my duty
to my boundaries
my sanity
and the players in this vagary
that we continue on with my farce

it is my right
to search for an illusion
a reason to quest and acquire
to skewer life's riddles
with why, whenfor and how

it is my choice
to live in this mirage
hindered....restricted
hobbled by remote possibilites
that may or might
infringe on the hollowness
of my bias

it is my necessity
to pull back the veil on this fantasy
to contemplate the aught
that passes for infinity

a dilemma pursued by others
as the proverbial carrot on a stick
while i toss back the foil with disgust

of what use are you!?
for what ends do you control my time here?
you are nothing!
do you hear....nothing

and to have the void answer back
......why
...are
you?

noustasis

changes
beget illusion
attending life....
this sensuous intuition
considers all inquiries
and the initiation?
an eight square spiralation of decline
how does one go about
measuring the point
where shadows and infinity tort?
turn, turning awry and a'prayed
distrait values of misleading depth
with faulty boundage
vexated......manifest
the allotment four
amore and spark
absent
panting....screed and ascent

nada mucho

i am asked from time to time
what does it mean? what are you saying?

and i reply....tell me what it evokes

where do the words take you?

is it a smooth journey
like the persistence of a tide
slithering smoothly
over faraway corners
of a gnarled root?

or is it a rat-a-tat-toutting
a knock naught knotting
at your absent mind's wile?

a crochet of words
that playful twist of sound
can make one person smile
and yet another hunger
for that which they can not enkindle

thoughts
bubble up through casement
and thyme
a glimpse here
and perhaps, just maybe....maybe
the flash of dither
when recognition lurches cross
untenented fields of impassive frenzy

but what does it mean?
what did you mean, they demand....

and i reply
with a long drawn out sigh
why nothing at all silly
not
a
blessed
thing

séo lov(i)en

on her way to infinitude
her pause....a peek through doors
of open possibility
an interest drawn
but not due to any desire of her own

she's on her way to eternity....sorry

i shall make the nest
loosen the tongue
smooth the brow furrowed in self-anima
they always unfurl when fertile soil
lain near enough for thought is nigh

she sighs....on her way to continuum

did i give you that someone?
that thorough adoration
oh, you so craved
like a rusty intuition?

did i make you realize
she could give you that more
a succor, a sacrament
a god's pact forlorn?

i hope she enjoys....
the myriad 'she'
who lusts and cajoles
a hearth, home....posterity
the bed and sea of fauna's breeze
through ever waining prompt refrain....

i make it ripe
this yearning flush
i make it smooth
this query planed merge
i make it facile
askance and reply

a newborn inamarata
hankered and unplanned
reborn of another's womb
one faded to amenity

no flash no fire
nor umpire required
a worn and extrinsic ghost
reminding one of....she

who left on her way
to imperishability

circumlocution

Current mood:yack-yack

you
with your carnival wirds
of lofty high-dealing flybyes
dredged upon while sauntering
through the haze of a mural's gloating
you think this shields you?
a'rises you above the trivial?
the mundane?

you put your delusions on one shoe at a time
just like the rest of us bipeds
you bleed, stutter
....claw and gasp
like the so many other measly man-made mirages
that make up this journey through trance

and just because you're an expert
at spouting inanity and logas
using every knot and kink of a wordig's mettle
straining it's nitty-grittage
through your sievic matter
until even a moist basic utterance
couldn't admit to invention
you think this gives you worth?

your youth is showing, progeny
your soul's thorough lack
of a backroad meander in evidence
black is not white
grey is but a dulled silver
and blue.....now blue might cut you
a bias sorely faithed in vain....

but then again
the buds always ass-ume
that they were there first
when anyone of note can tell you
they are but an outspoken eruption
of an ideal woo(r)d revealed

a bright red mud

the bright echo of a summer's thrill
reflected in and of
a golden glut of harvest's wrecking
bloodred jewels
hang pendulous from limbs
denuded through shine
while a stark blowing wind
chases dried husks across scarred mud

there are two dimensions
to the rays from upon high
two halves to the hole
that blind with repetition
two worlds that co-exist
in that burnished rut we stand

the dark sight and lush light
flicker faster and brisk
the litany of white and shadow
love / death
lost to open
through these bright bursts abound
on this shelf left out alfresco

and please take note....
that blur of obliteration that canopies?
that is but a numbness of soul
a recapitulation of capacity
where neither sensation nor it's contrary
has elbow room to glow

this ragged breath

i know...not bound

i can...but loose

but won't...deem harsh

abjure...the edge

the hand...it gleams

that guides...a mirth

fulfilled

......my master......

a forgiving pulse

hands smooth
over ellipses roughened
by fingers snapping
on discomfit
the crash and plex
of a cymballed mold
leaving gaps of sound
and emotion
jerked
thrown
and skipping over the
dankened floor of vagary

a glide
then thrust
this way...no that
i will lead the way to allowance
do not be a'feared of the action
difference
is no cause for censure

ding ding there we go
giving too many strings
to those who yank
puppets lurid cross the stage of idolatry
but why? why would i respond
in vain?

i am strong
barbaric
even salvageable to some
i can say no....
oh yes i will
and feint and swoon
in unison with the wobble
of your orb in rebound held
to the dreams of a forgiving
pulse

devoidee

you stand right beside me
and i can't find you
your shadow blanched
bones and sinew somewhen else

the gaze abides yet turns aside
the horizon of mental gymnastics
reaches for you even through my love
clasping you to it's wake
dragging you down and away from my moment

how can i compete with the eternal?
it's rush a winding harrow
through the rabbit's hole of aware
i try to follow
but your trail leaves no trace

there's no caress that i can squeeze
no whisper that i can hue
the vista shorn that i behold
you have disappeared from the notice
for those who care

the path to
now
here
front and center
is pocked with craters
leftover from a battle
with conscience

why didn't you ask for attendment?
we've always stood together
those of us on the same line
how else will we ever win
this war against devoid?

panthera’s flout

he saunters
cross grama of golden threads
august, feral and prime
his domain
never in question
his gait
a sublime promenade of hautelure
for all those who view the march of minions
know the king is nigh and merciless

the world a'hushed
not even the wind would dare
nor sound nor scent
to devour his path
the awed
halt and whimper with dread
as he does not bother to cede

and when his course descends
to the edge of umber and lead
the stripes fade to shade
sifted through the brack's stutter

with all that is seen
of those eyes of a casualty rent
look forth into a grave's dawning
plundered

chaos chained

shear streams cross vision moist
confusion reigns
as wind gusts
pushing
prodding
a chaos manifest

expectations
that sundry and all
in direct abut
should feel its spur
and yet when vistas sighted
one
lone
fragment
pivots and chases the shadows
fore the sun

why the onliest?
why not a mass campaign
a rush to conversion?
why was that soul iota's
..position altered
adaptation askew..

reaction....

a shift for some to renovation
but others will for ever grasp
at all reason to impasse
that dull-edged recoil
of a chained ripple