We Have Produced A World Of Contented Bodies And Discontented Minds.

We have produced a world of contented bodies and discontented minds.

-Adam Clayton Powell

RL friend posts his own poetry, art, and photography. Give him some credit for his practiced craft. Bit late in doing so myself, either way good stuff!

You stand there, the thick morning fog obscuring your vision.

The trees around you tall and overgrown, the sandy soil beneath your feet packed from years of use.

Steel and wood.

Eventually you hear it.

The unsteady warbling wail of that great beast.

Quiet at first, then louder, until it is upon you.

Its bright eye cutting through the haze.

It roars, lunging toward you at incredible speed.

But you know you are safe.

It's contained, confined to its thin piece of the land, as in some ways you are yours as well.

You turn and watch as it retreats.

Trundling off on its way.

The forlorn wail and the clattering that accompanies it drift off back into the ether.

Two beams of steel stretching out into the fog, the only mark that it was here.

You walk up and pick up two copper coins, now fused into one.

And walk back down to the little town you'll call home for the rest of your days.

The great iron beast has its path and you have yours.

The two intersecting only on mornings such as these.

Maybe one day you'll join it.

As a sojourner into whatever is beyond here.

Off in the direction of the setting sun.

Maybe tomorrow.

Or maybe you'll just put more coins upon the track.

(From A Page)

Those moments

   You felt you’d be forever

 In that parcel

Here again,

       Gone tomorrow

Hand off what-

                -you’d never bargain

     Alight upon each spending

            Here Again,

                    Gone Tomorrow

(From A Page)

“Do you remember when?”

      Passing

A lover without a a friend

      Soft and dulcet coaxing

Bellows to a flame

      Moths to a frame

 Yet opened

Need a moment have cobwebs?

Need contentment have end?

  How another’s tugging,

         does the heart rend.

(From A Page)

At the corner of the cage

    debilitated stage

Motley does the fool

 grace our reverential haze

     Quicken up the pace

     Fallow is the gaze

 When all one need but ask

 “How do I navigate this maze?”

       hesitate

             ameliorate

          destitute age

 ponder on the question

  “What constitutes a blank page?”