Saturday, July 29, 2006

soul of aphrodite

by Karyn Huntting Peters

soul of aphrodite, flowing as
soft, warm spring rain into me
as you grow nearer, into a tiny
stream to course through me,
finding its way to the depths and reaches.

you wash over yourself, o
goddess, swelling as the stars appear
aloft in the summer skies, gently
tumbling to delicate white-crested
peaks and falling over rocks and
into beds as you search in me
for a sea, becoming even now a
river enough to carry your growing
swells and cool wetness in the
still-heated summer’s night.

o sweetest of olympians! you have
washed the dry deserts from my earth
and have flooded my veins. the river of
aphrodite pulses through me,
and i am alive again




Friday, July 28, 2006

moments ago

by Karyn Huntting Peters



just moments ago
he walked away and yet I’ve
forgotten his face




Thursday, July 27, 2006

before I wake

by Karyn Huntting Peters

So many years I wandered those divergent paths,
those yellow woods, roads less traveled.

I slept, ached, wondered where it would all
end, when the sun might filter through the
trees to warm my shivering body. And now,
exhausted from my journey, standing
empty-handed, older, wiser, having lost so very
much and never daring to hope or dream again,
I feel something familiar in the air.

Have I been here before? Did I dream this?
Is this fullness I feel within and around me
another dimension of a road I’ve traveled before
in my most secret thoughts?

I say to you, o fate that has been so like a sword
in my heart these long years, if this is a dream
let me sleep but longer. Let me feel again, let me
feel what I have lost for so long, let me feel the
light and the heat of the sun as it streams through
the trees of the yellow wood. Let me lie in warmth
and remember what it was like to pause from
wandering, satisfied, and sleep naked in the grass.

And let me die before I wake.




Wednesday, July 26, 2006

sepia spirits

by Karyn Huntting Peters

silent scenes from wild and
sad futures floated
briefly, like feathers, light sepia
spirits over the darkening currents.

another day stolen by the
river, carried in secret, folded arms
of cold to unknown places.




leaves

by Karyn Huntting Peters



you shake the branches
and watch the leaves fall
to the ground below

and you crush them
under your steps
as you walk away




one

by Karyn Huntting Peters



tranquil summer pond
reflect on window and mirror—
gaze into the one




glass floats

by Karyn Huntting Peters



glass floats in the sea foam
hues of blue and purple, green
long have traveled distant lands
and floated home again

seaweed on the shoreline
borne of unknown living womb
drying in the sunlight now
apart from ocean home

sands that made the beaches
once stood hard and strong as rock
worn away by water's strength
now mold to mankind's walk

salty ocean waters
cold and murky 'neath night's sky
keep their hidden tears within
without the eyes to cry

continent meets ocean
place of song and sacred art
timeless hiding place is here
and here I leave my heart




Tuesday, July 25, 2006

30 Minutes From a Day

by Bob Johnson

Sitting in my kitchen
looking out the window.
Having a smoke,
and listening to Van Morrison
as he's asking some girl
not to go to New Orleans.

Outside, across the street,
they're building new apartments.
Trucks and tractors makin' a mess
in the mud that's been
frozen all winter, till now,
while Van Morrison
asks some girl
if he's told her lately
that he loves her,
and that there's no-one
above her.

While across the street
a worker stops
and watches a girl
who's walking her dog.
He's dirty and tired and wet,
maybe a little bit cold,
but for a minute he forgets
and just watches the girl
who's walking her dog,

While Van Morrison's wondering,
where did we go?
Don't ask me,
I don't know...
But whatever happened
to that brown-eyed girl?
Sha-la-la-la. She
took out her dog to shit
in the mud next to the road
where no one
would step on it,
by accident.

And Van Morrison wonders,
how he never
felt the pain,
saying I would be happy
if I didn't read
between the lines,
and that I'd never grow old again.

Maybe I should listen,
but now I'm just watching
the world from my window,
as a man gets out of his car
across the street.
With his hands in his pockets,
he walks around the corner
and out of my sight.
In an out of my life,
forever perhaps,
in three and a half seconds or so.
It's amazing, I think,
and he doesn't know
that someone was watching,
and has stolen forever
those three and a half seconds
out of his life.

But it's ever-present everywhere,
at least that's what
Van Morrison says
about that warm love.
I guess he's right,
but how would I know?
In one ear
and out the other.
I'm not really listening,
I'm just watching the world
outside of my window,
with my eyes closed
in the dark.

While Van Morrison is telling me
he's in heaven,
the worker just stands
there, getting wet,
with his back against the fence,
a cigarette in his mouth,
and wearing a hat that looks stupid
to me.

Behind and above him,
in another kitchen window,
someone else sits and looks
out at the world
from different angle than mine,
through different eyes,
with different thoughts.
Does he see more than I?
Or less? (Yes, Bernie,
he does).

And does it even matter,
to the mother outside,
walking
with her two daughters,
dressed in pink snowsuits,
and stomping their boots
in the mud?
One behind the other,
like dominoes.

And they don't even know
that 30 minutes before,
a worker stood watching
a girl who was walking
her dog,
which carefully chose
that very spot
to leave its mark
in the world,
outside my kitchen window.

Too many people
playing the game,
with dreams in their heads,
and dirt on their shoes,
who can't even tell
the shit from the mud,
and they don't really care,
'cause it looks all the same.

Do they ever wonder
that somewhere
maybe someone is watching
and stealing small moments
of their private lives
from a kitchen window,
while Van Morrison promises
it's gonna be a fantabulous night
for a moondance...



thief clouds

by Karyn Huntting Peters



distant clouds
steal the mountain’s peak—
petals float to the ground




origami

by Karyn Huntting Peters

Do not concern yourself with time—
it is only an origami figure in our hands.
Fold the wings of the bird inward—
yesterday and tomorrow are one.

We are at once the origami unfolded
and the origami nonexistent.
Let go of thin paper as the warm winds stir.
Gravity does not know us.