MORNING

MORNING

Morning, when i wake to find you,
Breathing still beside me,
I send a grateful prayer to heaven,
And my lesser self derides me.
For being such a faithless man,
For believing that the shifting sand,
Could pull you from my orbit.

For years I wandered aimlessly,
Lovers mere illusions,
Fairies, gnomes and blithesome sprites,
That flitted through my dreams at night. 
And I in sweet collusion,
Joined in the confusion.

Morning when I wake to see you,
Hair all tousled and divine.
Warm and tender tactile treasure,
A gift in flesh divinely measured,
To the height of my delight.

The sunrise flickers through the window,
Gratefully I kiss your spine,
Spooning in this carnival,
Cotton candy sweet in time.
Flesh and blood you lie beside me,
Far more fitting than a dream,
Every inhale, every exhale,
Rise and fall, you never fail.
Never fail to lift and cushion,
Never fail to answer prayers,
Mornings when I wake and see,
Your face upon the pillow there.

Morning when I wake and see you,
And watch your chest as it gently heaves
For fourteen years it has been this way,
Lying here silently, watching you breathe
May this love be the pastoral scene.
The way you hoped that it could be
As sprites and fairies swirl around us,
As magic fills our waking dreams.

-Bruce Potts
Copyright 2015
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

THE BODY REMEMBERS

THE BODY REMEMBERS

The body remembers every last insult,
Every little ache and pain,
The body holds tight to its breast,
Every last pouring down of rain.

The body in memory takes great pride,
In remembering its painful circular ride,
Its crazy Tilt-a-Whirl through time,
The body remembers its old mistakes,
Each misdemeanor and each petty crime,
The many false starts and the many bad breaks.

Luckily, the body can be dealt a glancing blow,
When paused in meditation to remember the Soul,
For the Great I am, the great blank slate,
Patiently sits and patiently waits,
For the body to wear out and weep itself to sleep.

The soul remembers it was here before,
Comforts the body in all of its uproar,
Stills each storm clutched still warm.
In the body's stern embrace.
The soul throws cold water in the body's face,
Stuns it into submission,
Forgives its sins of omission.
Lives to be the body's fortress,
Its cool, detached defender,
Holds it close, so sweet and tender,
Until its sorrow and regrets,
The body soon forgets.

Then, alas, when the body's through,
And sheds its skin of woe is me,
The soul reclines on a grassy incline,
Lives on forever content to be,
What the body could not see.

On that hill the soul it thrives,
Looking inward, still alive,
The stone of death rolled away,
Forgotten in the light of day.

-Bruce Potts
Copyright 2015
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

LIGHTNING FRAMED BY WINDOW

LIGHTNING FRAMED BY WINDOW

Sitting in a window, unadorned by shade,
Ghosts of past dreams reappear,
Like witches haunt the hollow glade,
In the comfort of this dusky room,
Dry for now and warm,
I sit and wait my destiny,
In the coming summer storm.

The wind it hollers vengeance,
The rain in torrents comes,
Threatening to wash away,
The thunder how it drums.
Flying through the summer rain,
Like a hapless birthday wish,
Comes every kind of living stain,
A blight of fowl and fish,
I see the sharks loom menacing,
The crayfish and the minnow,
Parading by in a ship of fools,
Lightning framed by window.

The thought comes that perhaps I should,
Remove myself from the windowsill.
But alas transfixed like stone or wood,
I stay completely still.
While a Noah's ark of two and two,
Floats outside in the ramshackle rain,
I swear I have all but given up,
To the siren song of a reckless pain.

A pain that haunts my dreams at night,
Like an orphan or a widow,
Strikes what's left, heaves a violent cleft,
This lightning framed by window.
It seeps through all the pipes and cracks,
Thunder rips at my inner core,
Not a wish or a thought held dear,
Spared by this awful thunderbolt,
This fowl and fitful fathomless fear,
That crashes 'round my lifeboat.

I call for you on the other shore,
To lead me to dry land,
But you shrug, you cannot hear me
I can at last no longer stand,
Ripped apart in terror, seam by anxious seam,
I struggle to awaken but it's real and not a dream.
The storm it overpowers, trampling all my will.
My thoughts go crashing through my head,
Pitch black the room to a breathless crescendo.
As water cracks the hapless spread
Of lightning framed by window.

-Bruce Potts
Copyright 2015
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED