Day: December 5, 2022

Breaching

 
Half full — your attitude resonates, ringing reverberant in my melancholy. Half empty has always been my perspective. Finding safety in my hollow, reluctant solitude. Seeing the world refracted through my somber pessimism. An abandoned dream can no longer disappoint. A shattered heart can no longer break. There is nothing to lose, for one who is without. Pain avoided by deflection.

But were your love to flood my isolation, to drown me in passion, I might gladly risk it all once more. Swimming up naively to the light, to the warmth — breaching the surface, buoyant with bliss, drenched with desire. To reach above water, in the throes of ecstasy, to encircle your gentle face in a lover’s trembling hands. To breath out of water again, drawing love’s rejuvenating breath.

But no! In the tender gray, I swim undisturbed, below the surface — in secluded, sorrowful safety.

*
rob kistner © 2022

Poetry at: dVerse

 





The Veiled Hands

This is not an entreaty to a primitive species,
this is an urgent plea to our modern world.

 

A dense fog
of time forgotten
rolled heavy
‘cross the lands
in the shaman’s vision

a deep chill
thick with memory
with calculation
lay at the heart

while envisioned here
on this earthen orb
the voices of our ancestors
…of the bright days
now gone past…
rose in warning
with the night fires

a sacred chant
in richen’d voice
as the flames roared

and they gathered
and danced
to a hallowed blaze
of enlightenment

warming all present
with their knowledge
did these ancestors
— our ancestors

but the footsteps
are but faint echos
while the sacred fire
is dying

its embers
now near ashen

but still
there are hearts
that burn

he saw
in a world out of balance
those yet ablaze
will again
stir to flame
their smoldering wisdom
and dance the steps
of knowledge

the twilight of fear
will recede

the moonlight
of vision and magic
will shoulder its way
through the shrouded silence

the dawn
of now veiled vision
will unfold bold
to proclaim
the truth

the chant
of the faces
gnarled and twisted
with abuse and contempt

muffled deep
within a wooded reach

will nurture and ignite
an imperceptible drone
of enraged voices
that will rise to a ruckus
wild and primal

a dark entangled chant
of a dreadful retaliation
is even now
rising above
the chaos of cacophony

a disembodied presence
sharp and omnipresent
speaks —

this night
you will experience
memories of glory
memories of beauty
memories of strength
memories of the homeland
memories of your proud people

powerful memories
sacred memories
of bles’sed miracles
conjured by strong
deft hands

these memories
were left here
with the threatened trees
in the fragile soil
to now incandesce

left here with the land
with your blood
by your ancestors

the gnarled shape
of leaf-dead trees
with their spindly
spiked branches
thrust skyward


twisted and bent
in a tangle of prophecy
listen — as nature speaks

so
reaching to the daybreak —
embrace these memories
these truths

in these there is power
— but go further still

lift your dreams
in a united vision

elevate your minds
to know
to realize begotten knowledge
to realize your truth

raise your voices
as in a single
sustained cry

a mighty bellow
for justice

if you hear —
then you are us

with heads raised
slay the false gods
who would have you bent
and supplicant

tear down their altars
of destruction
of avarice
of fear
of lies

lift your future
from the fire
embrace your manifest destiny
resurrect your dignity

the key
is in the veiled hands
of courage

*
rob kistner © 2022

Poetry at: earthweal

Poetry at: dVerse