A Poem For the Road

The winds will blow and sand grains rain,

We gather, move, like trackless trains,

We are seekers of lost ways,

And lost seekers of new way

The warmth of a fire, a smile, a wave,

Bring us joy, peace…and sometimes save.

Music rings, bagpipes swing, singers sing,

And murmuring voices underlie every little thing

Tool worn hands and myriad helping faces,

Have joined to repair our cherished moving spaces.

A meal, a kind word, a newly claimed garment or gem to wear,

Some books, a bottle, laughter, hugs, we give and we share.

Walking, riding, limping, striding,

A perpetual community, always abiding,

So as we part, these words we delcare…

“See you down the road, someday, somewhere!”

~Inspiration – Winter time is social time for nomadic travelers. We often reconnect in the warm spots down south; Yuma, Quartzsite, Mexico. This poem was penned just after Van Aid, which is a gathering for those who need help with their rigs, to connect up with people with tools and skills that are also on the road. Kind of like Habitat for Humanity but on wheels 🙂 It is a very different atmosphere than say, SkooliePalooza – that’s more for fun, dance and getting crazy that also occurs during the winter.

Prismatic

If you only knew me like I know me
But that’s not true
I am mother,daughter,woman,artist,worker,gypsy,friend
The facet you see depends on where the light is brightest
At that moment

If I only knew me like I wish you to know me
But what is true
How can I be all of this and any of this in fact
When the facet seen depends on where the light is brightest
At that moment

If only I could be me like I feel me
All of this is true
I am all that I am and nothing that you think
You turn the facet that fascinates you to where the light is brightest
At that moment

Without light there is no prism to see in me
Like a rainbow, minute droplets refract the light
I am droplets and cannot be held
I will appear where the light is brightest
At that moment

Then gone.

First poem that fell out in a very, very long time.  It’s nice to feel the muse again, I’ve missed it. Hopefully it’s not as finicky as it has been lately :/

 

~SMK

When I Am Done

When I am done, will you have known me?
Seen inside the empty spaces, overseen remembered embraces, known my fear’s personal faces?

When I am done, will you have heard me?
Bright joy over small things, know when my laughter rings, which songs I often quietly sing?

When I am done, will you have seen me?
The ‘me’ I see, the me I aim to be, the me that only others see?

When I am done, will you have felt me?
Shared finger touches on baby skin, trace my face where wrinkles set in, warmth of my body as the days begin?

When I am done, what will I be – to thee, and thee and thee?

~SMK
Inspiration – the passing of a co-worker today, the loss of a quality person.

Mirage


Mirage

We peer as if behind delicate lace-work to soften
Need – weighted with a terrible tinge, puce maybe?
Whispering aches only heard by wall art
Behind cool darkened doors of solitude.

It appears in couched terms
Divulged in metaphor, spun in rhyme
Shrouded in lyrical prose; mirages no one sees but
All see, in this overcrowded desert of bodies.

Emperors all are we
Scribbling in our invisible clothes, startled
If spotted behind our woven illusion, when
A fellow wanderer drinks at our mirage to slake thirst

Relief echoes in vibrato, rapidly rushing
Shell of pretense cracked and shucked, into
The refuse bucket, delicate innards shimmer, anticipatory
And rush we, into shared weaknesses and frailty
-Need nestled against need.

~SMK
Inspiration: The life of writing.

Famished for Fall

Click below for a reading of “Famished for Fall”

Starving for crisp mornings and
Lessened heat in a place
That neither really ever happens
Leaves me famished for Fall.

Falls there might be,
From pedestals someone set
Me upon without my consent
Or, even my knowledge

Falls there might be
As I trip over unfinished business
Here, there, and also over there
Which I ignore with unwavering consistency

Falls there might be
From favor, from friendship
Even from someone’s vision
Which too, is the mutable nature of things

But I am famished for that change
Those autumnal dialogues whispered only for me
As the intimation of winter glances off my skin
Beguiling me with hints of promise among sunshine,

-Leaves me hungering.

~SMK

Inspiration: Too much heat and too long away from four seasons.