Vines

The vines, once fettered for their wine and left to sleep like earthy twine awake

still

never resting, void of will and always testing out the soil

with no reverence for the toil the sunlight’s stare affords a royal drape

but not a grape was cultivated

thankless youth

the vineyard spoiled for want of truth beyond a garden’s weeded charm, the five alarm

fire seems awfully warm

to life left alone, in comes the swarm of wildness

pristine but never mild

necessarily a feral beast to meet me in a grove of trees

with pruning shears and grass-stained knees

apologies for past offences lost in memories of fences I had built

torn down and ravaged for my guilt

the savage kudzu overgrown until it’s good.

It’s all I’ve known.

Sonnet

Beyond the brink of failure’s shattered light

Awaits a paradox, a void of peace

Where hopes to see your ego’s worth increase

Bow out with grace, and lightly reek of spite.

A symphony can hardly carry on

As the esteemed conductor writhes in pain

And exultation for the notes contained

In songs he’ll never learn, his chance forgone.

Without a broken stanza to repair

Time flows forever floating just above.

Its silver eyes to peel life with its stare

And find us rotten to the core with love.

The bottom of it all can offer rest

If you suppose that you’re the honored guest.

Devil in the details

An epiphany, epitome of poetry, showing me
that life laughs when you think you've got a hold and see
the white flash that melts to moving gold from headlights
through the window by your childhood bed, nights
when whatever then was said now floating in the ether,
either loading on some cosmic cloud or caught between the teeth
of a monster starving for emotion, slowly carving out an ocean
in the sewers of forgotten dreams and neverminded notions.  I'm hoping
to lean back and listen one of these days, in ways
you might be missing if you're too involved with pissing
away your thought patterns, all tattered and torn
by the devil in the details, screaming as he flails and drowns
out the sound of perspicacious laughter life breathes into your sails.