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

TURN TO GAUGE THE THUNDER

TURN TO GAUGE THE THUNDER

Turn to gauge the thunder, as the sun sets dimly in the west,
You know you're going under and you hope you've done your best.
Turn to gauge the thunder, is it real or just a test?
For years you've longed for respite, ached for your final rest.

So good to taste the rain begin to gently fall,
To coat the dusty corners of your upturned mouth.
So good to fade and to know you've given it your all,
Turn to gauge the thunder, does it come from north or south?

Is it a false alarm that blows again from off the stern Gulf Coast?
Is it a warning yet or still a watch, an iffy storm at most?
Turn to gauge the thunder from atop the lighthouse tower,
Is it only the beginning or have you met your final hour?

This disease is unpredictable, this disease is like a twister.
A funnel cloud that claps so loud, a bruise or just a blister?
Turn to gauge the thunder, is it time to call the papers,
To send them the obituary that highlights all your capers?
Time to draw the curtains closed and draw all the relations near,
And sink down low into your pillow, then blithely disappear.

Can you feel the rigor mortis or is it just rigidity,
Stiffness of the mundane sort, insipid immobility?
Turn to face the rumblings of icy sleet and hail,
Climb aboard the pirate ship with its torn and tattered sail,
Feel the organ systems go and slowly start to fail.

Turn to gauge the thunder, is the grand Titanic sinking,
Or is it just I'm tired of it all, engaged in wishful thinking?
So hard to know if it's far too late or do I still exaggerate?
Sick to death of this slow demise, this twinge of twisted fate.

The boring strange monotony that cloaks so many of my days,
That lures me back to the land of sleep and the old familiar haze.
Where every dream is of looking for work and falling from a ghastly height,
The interviewer's vacant stare beneath the foul fluorescent light.
The awful sameness of these reveries, that leaves me feeling ill at ease,
And sends me falling, lost and flailing, down these stairs without a railing.

Turn to gauge the thunder, as the sun sets primly in the west.
Know you're going under, and know you've done your best.
Use your head to calculate, is it a watch or a stern warning?
Should you try to stall for time, will you live to see the morning?
Turn to gauge the thunderclaps, fading in and out of naps.
Close your eyes for the surprise, and fold your earthly maps.

-Bruce Potts
Revised Copyright 2015
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED