OCTOBER BREEZE

OCTOBER BREEZE

Not a fan of global warming,
But I love these Indian summer days.
When the air blows bright with promise,
And the trees, a panoply of color sway.

A couple months before the winter snows,
Autumn in full bloom she blows,
Before smoke curls from neighbors' chimneys,
I rejoice in the October breeze.

And grateful breathe in life so sweet,
A hopeful never ceasing treat.
If you are as wise as me,
Believe in God’s eternity,
And other lives that pass unseen,
That flicker grand across the screen,
My radar tuned and piercing,
As the clear crisp autumn sky.
Give me a few more days like these,
And a happy man I’ll die.

Once in dreams I sailed the ocean,
Once in dreams I sailed the deep,
And my dream turned into a nightmare,
Bruised and broken was my sleep.

When I woke the heat index had peaked
And at great long last my fever broke.
My mother, she appeared beside me,
In the puffy clouds she rose and spoke.
On a mythic hillside, in the hallowed air,
I could see her clear as day and feel her spirit everywhere.
She said welcome sweet son, to life everlasting,
To the land of rest and sacred song.
It was the moment I’d been waiting for,
My wretched whole life long.

Yet something still was out of place,
As I beheld my mother's face,
The clouds they parted and I could see,
The world below was calling me.
Once more I regained composure,
Forced back tears, began to smile,
Saw it was not yet time for closure
For me to walk that long last mile.
  
Still I managed one more time to forestall paradise,
My mother said, my son go back.
I heeded well her sage advice,
Fell back to earth through heaven’s crack.
Landed back in that womb of sleep,
Found the vision that I lacked,
There upon that hillside steep.

The wisdom from that dream hard won,
I woke beneath a welcoming sun,
To find a Fate I thought so cruel,
Yielded me to autumn’s cool.
The bright of gold and crimson leaves,
The beauty of the season blazed,
A time for bringing in the sheaves,
Here in my star-kissed dwindling days.

Not a fan of what we’ve done to our sweet Mother Earth.
But I love these Indian summer days that echo with rebirth.
A panoply of colors sweet that thrill me to the core,
The first time in a long time I have felt my spirit soar.

This fine and princely kingdom, this bright and bitter place,
The colors all of the blessed fall, this brief respite of grace.
A couple months before the winter snows,
The autumn in full bloom she blows.
Before smoke curls from neighbors' chimneys,
I rejoice in the October breeze.

--Bruce Potts
Copyright 2012
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

FLOATING ABOVE GROUND

FLOATING ABOVE GROUND

Ever the stickler for the smallest detail,
I listen to the warning sounds,
Like a boat lets out its billowing sail,
Floating like air above the ground.

I am not in heaven nor in hell,
But between the two, caught in the crossfire,
Of my angels and demons that wish me well.
That leave me to traverse this high wire.

I traverse it at my leisure, lost among the ashes,
Of the cities that once gave me pleasure,
The memories that live as brilliant flashes.
They burn and then the flame it ebbs,
Not knowing the road, its curves and its bends.
Like the intricacies of a spider web,
The Teflon hold of my foes and my friends,
Burning the candle at both ends.

I flew too high and peaked too soon,
My soul it plummets from the height of the moon,
And lands somewhere in foreign soil,
Engulfed in a merciless trap
My only pay for all my toil is falling off the map.

Where no one calls and no one comforts,
They dare not to inquire,
Whether my travels have yielded heavenly bliss
Or the torment and terror of hellfire.

Never the gambling man, ever the miser,
Always the foolish and never the wiser,
I wait in my torrential bucket of rain,
My hot coal crazy of emasculating pain,
Crying out for just the cusp of an answer,
The worm in my brain, the cogwheel, the cancer.

I hover so quietly you can barely hear,
My eyes well too quietly to release a tear,
But I am crying on my knees,
Weeping for the man I used to be
Before the devastation blunt and brittle,
That wounds complete my selfish pride
And all my dreams belittles.

I hovered so quietly, you scarce could hear me disappear,
Into the firelight of a lost horizon, into the tortured hemisphere.
I disappeared without a trace, without a wayward sound,
Lost in space between heaven and earth,
Floating above ground.

-Bruce Potts
Coopyright 2012
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED