Hollow Trees

I recall when I was first time born,
The heavens looked more a summer storm

All the water ran fast and warm

I taste the salt...

I am so much shallower now, where is the sky, it is my fault
I wish I had told you cowboys don't shoot at cars

Does every wish extinguish a star

I taste the salt..

You can see the misbegotten row of trees, remember I put them there at rivers edge
Perhaps you've forgotten, in your death, your promise and pledge

I taste the salt..

They are tall now, and like me, past grown
and together, they and I have become hollow things

Tap for ping and wind whistle tone

I taste the salt..

You can weep every dawn for fifty or even a hundred years

You can feel so broken that you bend inside

Does the water run fast and warm past the hollow piers

I taste the salt..

Brother, they've become blood I fear, and yet..

I taste the salt..

I taste the salt..

I taste the salt of tears

Gunner

My Brothers Black Black Blood

On hot summer noons
when school bells sing their lunch time tunes
Memories of mine steal me back
to something bitter and black

Children singing ring a rosie things
that have a melody and a sting
"Your baby brothers dead,
"He lays upon a pool of blood"
"He lays upon a pool of black black blood"
"Your Baby brothers dead"

I run like mad to a spot nearly blind
tiny fingers my guide
and find a shine on the road of pain
something that would make a stong man insane

Blackness spreads like water should
and stops me dead like only a bitter taste could
I bend and stoop my childs knee
Wondering if this monster really could be

Fingers point and tenderly touch
and as my tears fall like rain, I know the pain will be too much
blackness that lifts away sticky red
the place where my baby brother had lay dead

Fleet of foot and fear like cold stone
I race to the shelter of my home
I find the sun burns and falls
blossoms on the wine bottle tall
The fan turns smooth and the scented oranges
are bright with color
but my soul has gone gray, not a sign of my mother

And each day since
a tear escapes my glimpse
when school bells sing their lunch time tunes
since I found my brother dead, his black black blood
on my scrubbed raw fingers still a stain
from that long long road of pain
Gunner ©

Home

Its not the place you were born..not even the place you were raised really..but a place where you met yourself face to face for the first time. It's that place you knew instinctively, as you breathed it in, that you were a part of it and it was a part of you. And there, deep in your core, you realized relief. Not at all because you weren't sure if you were returning or discovering it for the first time, but.. because you had arrived.
Home is not only a familiar place. It's a state of mind. It's transcendental. It's friends and family and lovers. It's that large tree you rush to in a rain storm and that satisfied feeling you get as you just arrive under its shelter, with that genuine smile. A sigh of relief, when all around you are grey showers, you remain sheltered and dry. Home is that moment in a small cafe, in a large foreign city full of strangers, when an old friend suddenly appears to share a few moments and a coffee.Some few friends are a lot like home.
Home, it's that few seconds in a raging night, the brief relief from some constant grief, when your dream brings you your lovers embrace, the touch of her lips and the scent of her hair in the night. That's home.
I ache to be home.

Gunner©
For Pegs, who "feels" deeply and understands where true wealth lives.

The Mother of a New God

A new god is delivered its true
Not by normal paths or wounds
But through the belly of a noble mother
One that can bear it, her loss, her heart, like no other

A child is born both sweet and kind
Its first breath of human the catalyst to engage its mind
A time of innocence so brief and fleeting
But soon burdened by right and wrong, now prepared to take a beating

There is a road unto your God, into her arms
Though it will without doubt unfold, a struggle through famine, fog and harm
From that first shriek and on, your constant companion the demons oppression
The child will, the old soul, struggle to learn its lessens.

Its just another handful of learning
To climb the ladder to the fold of your father and avoid the burning
You learn to see what you smell and touch what you're hearing
Push out some love and forgiving, deal with the round about Karma you're fearing

Unless
You avoid the whole mess, forsake the struggle of birth, the duress
But then you must be a god no less, aged beyond reason and the call of the test
Carried first in the loving belly of a noble mother
You blossom through her shattered heart, a new god, another from a blessed mother

Gunner©

Through Squinted Eyes

Through squinted eyes
I did see
From the horizon
The backs of two tears
And my reflection looking back at me

Millenia! I screamed
Take back this heavy gravity
Bathe me in your treasured love I plead
Release me from this cursed millennium!

At once
On unfettered wings I rose perpetually
When love that had held me to the ground
Extinguished and set me free unbound
To this insistent heavy gravity

Millenia! I screamed
Give me back our ground
For on the back side of that horizon
With this cursed gravity
I'll never be found

And now through squinted eyes
I have seen
For millennium and today
The backs of two tears
And Millenia! Looking back at me.

This cursed heavy gravity!
Will never set me free
Am I bound forever? I scream
To see Millenia through my tears
For eternity

The gods it seemed
Remiss in promised mercy
Offered up instead misery
Or bid me come inside
With their cursed heavy gravity

But No! I screamed
I rather
Through squinted eyes
See my beloved Millenia
For a Millennium
Gunner© 2015

The Fight in Her Light

Señor Rogelio

You have grease on your fingers and cotter pins in your teeth
Is that gasoline in your veins and exhaust in your lungs to breathe?
You wheel your yellow mustang around with ease
But you get on home; you got baby girls with needs.

One, two, three and go!
We win Daddy!
We’re so fast and you’re so slow!
Look! They have fight in their light.

Dancing baby angel in an iron workers mask
That’s your daughter on a jack with dancers sass
She loves her papa; you can see it in her eye
And yes, she has your fight in her light

You twist a nut and bend a bar
Tear apart the engine of any car
That’s a big American Joe
But you've been around and able to bring it toe to toe

It’s been a long road from that breezy Hacienda
To that windy city on this side of gritty
From that ground of sun and serpent
To this smog where a dollar is all they worship

When the days done and you're getting to home
There are two pretty faces at the window waiting for Daddy to show
One, two, three and go! We win Daddy!
We’re so fast and you’re so slow!

There’s frost on a wrench, a car on the winch
But little girls wrapped in blankets need to be schooled
So it’s into the car one, two, three…and Go!
How do they make bricks Daddy? What holds up the moon and make it glow?

You’re a master at ballet folklórico
All the pretty Senorita’s love the mans man its told
The hombre with the big smile bright
But watch his daughter, a tire iron in hand and fight in her light.

Senor Rogelio!
It’s half past midnight on the bright side of bliss
You have a faster yellow mustang but you are surely missed
You live forever, cause there’s fight in her light, and you continue to grow
Dancing baby angel has you solidly in her loving thoughts, one, two, three…and Go!

Gunner©

The Book of Unsaid

I remember when I saw you that very first time, at school on the very first day

You were running and laughing with your ribboned curls and a dress of flowers

If I could have been that brave I’d have told you I liked you and wanted to play

And maybe we could swing together on the bars or play king of towers

But instead, I walked away, and it remained painfully unsaid.

I remember you arriving at church for your First Communion

Your long curls wrapped in fine lace, your gown as pure as falling snow

If I could have been that brave I'd have told you I’d like to be your companion

And maybe walk you up that aisle as far as we could go

But instead, I walked away, and it remained painfully unsaid.

The grade eight graduation party was such a happy event

You arrived with the Italian kid and you looked beautiful and full of joy

If I could have been that brave, I’d have told you my eyes followed you where ever you went

And maybe if you would notice me just once you might think I could be your boy

But instead, I walked away, and it remained painfully unsaid.

I saw you daily at high school for years

Your beauty and mind developed to the breathtaking woman that you had become

You had been wearing that football players jacket so long it brought me to tears

If I could have been that brave, I’d have told you I play sports too, would you like to come?

But instead, I walked away, and it remained painfully unsaid.

I saw your picture in the newspaper one day, bold and large in the celebration section

Your eyes a brilliant bright and your beauty easily conveyed. A tenth year wedding reflection

If I could have been that brave, I’d have told you how I wish I could have shared your life, have you for my wife and that somehow I’d lost my direction

But instead, I walked away, and it remained painfully unsaid.

I remember I saw you for the very last time, at the school for your grandsons very last day

You were running and laughing with your ribboned curls and a dress of flowers

If I could have been that brave, I’d have told you I had loved you my whole life away

And maybe we could swing together or watch the children play king of towers

But instead, I walked away, and it remained painfully unsaid.

Gunner ©