Bounded by boarders

“My God,” cried the supplicant,
expressing belief in extremity,
that token labium of the metaphysical.
We are all the hoarders of borders,
living on imagined deckle-edged paper,
there writing our circumscribed lives.
Each defining the selvage of our fears,
consternation of woven limitations, we are
fettered by a bête noire tenant of the soul.
At times, others handcuff us to a purlieus bed,
accepting, seeking release from dragging our yokes,
then, refusing to master the pale of our requiem.
Lives lived in containment, shackled by convergence,
never venturing into the freedom of self, never
bounding past our own hobbling erosive manacles.
They are meant to contain, they are control,
the pestilence of living that defines what we become.
When the lights go out we are each confined,
bound by dirt, plastic, wood, or brass jar,
that is the environ of our material existence,
rest, peace within a packaged repository.
We do not realize there is no caracole,
only in life ending release of the energy within,
will we understand its limitlessness, and the
boundless freedom of being one with creation.

©2012, Donald Harbour

A thought

This form of poetry is a Sestina. It is written in response to the prompt, “Keepsakes like a breath“, at the poetry site: We Write Poems.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For a moment, bound by a proffered thought,
I was caught in its golden fleeting hold.
An eventide breach of my consciousness,
a vaporous single wisp buried in my mind.
It is a mysterious breeze, I must confess,
the wind of time has challenge me to know.

I felt fear of learning what I might know
nature’s mysterious parlor trick produced by thought.
Do we by a slight of hand, our secrets confess?
Or, do we strive to release our tenuous hold,
allowing some dusty forgotten corner of the mind
to sweep away, that grain of consciousness?

This bright pebble picked up in consciousness,
that flowing stream passing, rushing to know.
I am stilled by this hidden sacrament of mind,
a tarot card born of a single unread thought.
What fortune of the future does it now hold?
To gain it, to read it, what must I confess?

It is not as from a void the dying confess,
it is a shining diamond of life’s consciousness.
I wonder what telling my last breath will hold.
Yet I dwell upon this passage to feel, to know,
to search the foot paths of my soul. That thought,
runs wild across the aging pastures of my mind.

From somewhere in the misty past of the mind,
the fog of time has hidden things not to confess.
As water begins to boil, heating the caldron of thought,
it pulls those diaphanous  vapors into consciousness.
At last what was unknown becomes mine to know.
Something I had lost long ago, in vision I now hold.

From a dawning portico your half-light shadow I hold.
You who are a hallowed spire of a youthful day mind,
you have awakened dim memories I did not wish to know.
This is a receding tide of my heart I cannot confess,
for it lays bare the dark that fell between our consciousness.
In pain, my companion hearthstone, you rise to thought.

You are not a keepsake to hold, forgetting you I do confess,
banishing you from my mind. What was a challenge to consciousness,
I not want to know, remembering lost love is a foolish thought..

©2012, Donald Harbour

Political epigram

I am unable, yon politician spoke,
In truth, to speak the truth; would be a joke.

©2012, Donald Harbour

Pigeon sport

Watch out for pigeon poop!

there are pigeons perched upon
a rusted metal cornice of a building,
they are making sport of selections,
far below trudging humans the goals,
receivers of pigeon commented anointment
most birds have a sense of humor, although
they do not know it, its in their DNA,
placed there as an after thought by
evolution, survival of the most fetished,
a creator’s comical adaptation for humankind,
with ruffled feathers cooing at the cold air,
fat friars coated in grey frocks, observant
their incantations magical mouthing of beaks,
casting watchful beady eyes at a stray cat.
pigeons do not enjoy simple gathering,
they want humans to participate, to feed,
bobbing heads puffed chested, strutting about,
bread crumb pecking white unguent factories,
don’t feed them you idiots, they’ll shit on you.

©2012, Donald Harbour

The youth of 1916

The question is asked by Neil Reid at We Write Poems: How would you respond to this line from the novel “Into the Silence”? By the end of 1916, every boy I had ever danced with was dead.

The following poem form is a Ballad in response to that statement.

(Refrain)
By the end of winter 1916,
Every boy I knew was dead,
A bullet for their dance of life,
Cold dirt the blanket of their bed.

(I)
When the call for war first went out,
Our boys joined with happy glee,
Not knowing loves kiss goodbye,
Was the last to ever be.

(II)
Their women mourned so pitiless
With tears their eyes did swell,
But boys thought the better of it,
Formed ranks and marched to hell.

(Refrain)
By the end of winter 1916,
Every boy I knew was dead,
A bullet for their dance of life,
Cold dirt the blanket of their bed.

(III)
Rose colored was each manly cheek,
Their hearts were young and brave,
But soon their faces turned to ash,
Hearts stilled by battle’s grave.

(IV)
Their country gave them medals,
Chiseled names in granite stone,
Everyone sadly shook their heads,
But their widows cried alone.

(Refrain)
By the end of winter 1916,
Every boy I knew was dead,
A bullet for their dance of life,
Cold dirt the blanket of their bed.

(V)
So when you think to take up arms,
And kill another man’s kith and kin,
They too are someone’s father or son
Who will never be kissed again.

(VI)
The great war should teach us all,
There is no reason for such slaughter,
In the end the pain of  death,
Is carried on by wives and daughters.

(Refrain)
By the end of winter 1916,
Every boy I knew was dead,
A bullet for their dance of life,
Cold dirt the blanket of their bed.

©2012, Donald Harbour

Vita hominis

“You are too hard on yourself.”
Harshly, I spurn the comment
indulging a moment of introspection,
examining the corpus of worms
those that incessantly eat at life,
gnawing away its fine veneer,
until all that is left resembles
a wrinkled hardened prune pit.

“What’s done is done.”
That profitable observation,
never a coin exchanged for it.
Having made the staves of my barrel,
forming my chariot of journey,
caught in the river’s current
there is no turning back,
once it rushes forward, nothing
but the roaring falls of Niagara.

“How will you be remembered?”
That is the folly of a human quest,
interpretation determines memory,
everyone will be what others want
belief is the only logic left.
Ashes have no memory, no DNA,
nothing that resembles what was,
anyway, it does not matter,
memory is as complacent as thin air.

©2012, Donald Harbour

Bonded before the hearth

There is nothing like a good fire in winter to bring folks together. That and a great glass of Pinot Noir .

The morning dawn is awake,
Peering with a blurry eye,
Shielded by a grey coverlet,
It’s orb dimly lights the sky,
Arising to meet the day beginning,
Creatures stir from stiff slumber,
Knowing they will be whittled down,
Slowly abraded by winter’s knife,
Frosty steel in a chilled bone haft,
The human beings move in a stoop,
Cold clutches their fragile forms,
Its icy burden a formidable weight,
Balanced on the precipice of life,
They huddle before blazing hearths,
Closer, absorbing each others warmth,
It is not enough to survive,
Together for eons they bonded,
In a dank litter strewn cave,
A fragrant hut of fir boughs and bark,
Skin wrapped teepee on the plains,
Not for love or family or tribe,
It is that spark that all seek out,
No matter what species of life,
In time of hardship and misery,
Before the magical mystery of fire,
The comfort of sharing another’s touch.

©2012, Donald Harbour

Dali got it right

Last night I happily dreamed,
Our world’s ship turned upside down,
Giant oaks hung suspended in the air,
While birds flew on the ground.

Air was not polluted for breath,
All water pure for drinking too,
The earth’s creatures took photographs,
Of caged humans in their public zoo.

It was a world of imaginations,
Where peace reigned supreme,
Where guns were licorice sticks,
And oil was frothy whipped cream.

Blue skies were always overhead,
Rivers and lakes placidly flowed,
Fish were scaled in sparkling diamonds,
Multicolored butterflies paved each road.

Cows were made for milk and mooing,
Chickens cheerfully clucked a chicken song,
Lions laid beside fluffy lambs,
No one ever heard the words: this is wrong.

There were no gods or seraph,
No torture or misguided religious grief,
No war mongers, government or politicians,
Pontificating their bellicose belief.

Pink peddle-pushers road horseback,
Through fields of limeade green,
Not found were homeless without homes,
Unbranded tennis shoes were only seen.

Dali was captain of this ship,
Sailing among the galaxies of space,
The passengers of his whimsical bark,
Different hues of the same human race.

Dawn pulled me from the dream,
It whispered a new beginning had begun,
Startled I realized in a jolt of epiphany,
All of us, could make 2012, the one.

©2012, Donald Harbour

My dogs won’t be guiet

There are times
when I am most interested
by the conversation of,
my old dogs barking.

Trekking through the woods
or plowing a field
they are always talking,
my old dogs barking.

When we take a stroll
down cement and asphalt
they are insistent critters,
my old dogs barking.

Remove the leather leash
lay them down on the porch
there is silent reproach from,
my old dogs barking.

Grab some soap and water
wash away their days dirt
yet still they whine,
my old dogs barking.

We have traveled many miles
seen sights seen by few
they were there,companions,
my old dogs barking.

When I am placed in the grave
when my burden is laid low
it will be the only rest I get from,
my old dogs barking.

©2012, Donald Harbour

A winter gift

The first snow has begun,
born in great white blossoms,
descending in ballet pirouettes,
a Swan Lake performance, ballerinas
balanced on delicate ice crystal toes,
spinning, soaring through the air,
their symphony a soft whisper,
singing the song of the season,
cadenced by twittering sparrows, and
the castanet of forlorn autumnal leaves,
the hills and valleys are awash,
a winter vesper lave blanket ,
tree branches lift up spindly fingers,
praises for the life-giving snow,
spring dwells in their heart wood,
their thirsty buds drink the promise,
they do not complain the caress,
beneath the soft touch there is life ,
sleeping in an earthen bed it waits,
snow, how your blessed gift is loved.

©2011, Donald Harbour