I saw an old man today
winding an old watch
twisting the stem back and forth
tightening its spring
so fragile a moment time
hanging on a thin wisp
of coiled steel giving
the mechanism its life
each second’s tick counting
to the inevitable moment when
there are no fingers to wind when
its need has ended and life
for its creation ceases
Isn’t that our story too?
©2013, Donald Harbour
Dark folded upon folded
thus the room was molded,
as a fire flickered and danced.
The midnight hour struck
as each minute was plucked,
screaming mortal time advanced.
There a foul long-nosed witch
scowling with teeth black as pitch
to a fire added peat from a stinking bog.
Then from out of the gloom
with a hop into the retched room
came a princely magical speckled frog.
The frog loudly belched, then spoke
in a commanding princely croak,
“for a kiss I’ll grant you one wish.”
“You frog leave me alone”
said the scraggly old crone,
“or you’ll be my dinners’ main dish.”
The frog was undeterred
and once again it gently demurred,
“a wish for a single kiss.”
There was an evil cackle,
the cry of a strangled Grackle
that ended in a venomous hiss.
“Alright, grant me a desire,
lest on a spit you roast ‘or this fire,”
so she puckered up and gave him a peck.
“My wish is without my broom
I want to soar around this room
now grant it you ugly warted speck.”
“Done,” said he with a wink
and quicker than a gnat eye blink
the witch disappeared with a sigh.
An incessant buzzing in the air
announced an insect coursing there,
the sound of a common house fly.
The frog opened its mouth
a long tongue suddenly sprang out
and swallowed the bug without a word.
Now the only sounds in the firelight
were the crickets chirping in the night
and joyously singing of a single black bird.
The frog sat before the fire
peacefully in his princely frog attire,
a most satisfied look on his froggy face.
The witch received her wished boon,
un-broomed she flew around the room
and, instead of frog for dinner, she took his place.
“Ribit!”
©2013, Donald Harbour
A January wind
Caught the old man
Clasping withered limbs
Breaking his bones
Exposing sockets
Glaring fresh scars
Over scattered remains.
©2013, Donald Harbour
how does anyone know
they are truly awake
is it physical awareness
the sensation of being
is life a reality or
a temporal construct
a cloning of vision
thrust into the open mouth
of a screaming newborn
are we part of a cosmic grid
life forces harvested
sucked from our bodies
existing as food for Death
giving indifferent satisfaction
somewhere between awakening
and sleep lies the truth
that one infinitesimal moment
when dreaming a breath or
actually taking one
pulls us into this world
yanking us from oblivion
some never wake-up to life
in that deep forever sleep
will we dream we are awake
or be satisfied to sleep
nestled in the arms of eternity
sleep is a necessary inconvenience
my slumbering self yells
pounding on the door of dawn
I thrive for morning wakefulness
treasuring the early hours
thankful that I have survived
to enjoy one more day in this
marvelous fantastic dreamland life.
©2012, Donald Harbour
I dreamed of a night with stars above,
millions of other dreamers about me,
shod with life’s tired and worn shoes,
toeing the edge of a decaying precipice,
the next step a door between worlds,
darkness, light – damnation, salvation,
is there a choice, is destiny mapped,
when do we leave this path, to face
the calamity of our ultimate fate,
when that time comes, as it will,
how are we scribed in the book of life,
some say it is not for us to know,
still I ask, can one accept only chance,
the wrong place at the wrong time,
when is the dark angel ever right,
life snuffed by the world’s insanity,
religious fervor screaming “God is great,”
there, now you have the arbiter,
it is emblazoned on every particle,
“Bless me Father for I have sinned,”
the wafer is stale, the wine; vinegar,
the priest has dirty finger nails,
rivers of blood ooze from the Bible,
from the Koran, from every word,
from every holy book ever written,
from the lifeless lips of children,
from the souls of mothers, fathers,
from the heart of self-righteous nations,
from the bowels of despots and bigots,
from the pious pitiless, and pompous,
the void leads to a bottomless pit,
from which there is no salvation, no light.
dogma’s beast has opened its maw to eat,
all are consumed by their beliefs,
silenced, their psychopathic shrill becomes,
a mountain of cast off, tired worn shoes.
@2012, Donald Harbour
What is black?
Is it the confusion
in a starless night?
What is black?
Is it the envelope
surrounding a corpse?
What is black?
Maybe it is the color
of complete destruction.
What is black?
Does it reside in
the heart of greedy humans?
What is black?
Could it be the
complacency of commission?
What is black?
I will tell you,
open your eyes and see.
What is black?
It is the tar stain
upon Mother Natures breasts.
What is black?
It is the choking slick
upon the surface of creation.
What is black?
It is the oil that
gives reason to mendacious men.
What is black?
It is the killing field
in the marshes and bayous.
What is black?
It is the tragedy
contaminating our ocean’s life.
What is black?
It is the face of consumption,
it is the face of us.
©2012, Donald Harbour
People are a disingenuous species,
Stealers, cheaters, killers, devourers.
Religious psychopaths imagining a God.
Teaching false humanity, love thy neighbor,
Unless the neighbor believes not as you, then,
destroy him in the creators name.
The hypocrisy of religion is salvation,
the cosmos cares not about beliefs,
the Creator cares only about life,
All life, even the hypocrites of life.
There is no judgement day, there is now,
there are the fish in the sea,
the birds singing in the trees,
the babble of cascading brooks,
azure blue skies with white clouds,
there is you, there is me, there is
only time flushing detritus of delirium.
The excuses for our species,
the greed, government, uselessness,
organic perversion of universal life.
We will be judged not by our accomplishments.
We will be judged on our stewardship,
and the earth is taking names.
©2012, Donald Harbour
I do not know when it began or when
breath gave me the French kiss of life
but, I do remember its naked entrance
awash in birthing color, red, red as blood.
Life begins with a crimson passion,
a spontaneous ignition of the soul,
a firing of the spirit’s, spirituality, an
exploding kaleidoscope of pigments.
The nurturing soil of being dusky brown,
the rich fertile nutrient of beginning, rooting
flesh to bone, skin to flesh, mind to body,
a garden of composted existence.
Knowing is a universe of eternal blue,
a velvet dark blue of limitless forever,
pulling, inviting, a challenge to humankind
to comprehend the what and why.
Opening the mind’s eye stirs awakening,
surrounded by the green of our mother,
her trees, flowers, a teeming growing bounty,
a blinding awe of her sustaining abundance.
The firmament bares burnished golden hue
the purse of eternity gathering coin,
all the things we do or do not do, the gleaming
repository of the soul’s resurrection.
©2012, Donald Harbour
It is its name
There is a thing in my life,
a thing I do not call by a true name.
Giving it recognition is undo cause
for it to raise its ugly head.
Admonition of its feral existence
removes the curtain of denial.
Coping with it requires refusal
a non acceptance of incisive struggle.
It has chosen the battle ground
my corpus its Flanders Fields.
I do not taste the poison of cordite
nor is the flesh torn by razor wire.
Yet it assaults me from within
a bellicose consuming conflagration.
We have this circumspect relationship
though it has definitive shape and place.
It does know its mindless meaning
but, I know what it is and – It is its name.
©2012, Donald Harbour
There are stories in lines,
Those hand palm creases,
Prairie trails disappearing,
Receding cloud wisp,
Lines are tomorrow’s fortune
And, the story of the past,
Every face carries its memories,
A bible of life for all to see,
Telling joys and heartache of living,
A newborn baby has no lines,
The long lived old man has many,
In the end, the burden lifted,
When there is nothing more to read,
When that whispering breeze blows,
Those lines soften and disappear,
Swept up with the soul’s flight.
©2012, Donald Harbour
