if i were a sound

the sunlight pestered the evening far into the furthest hills,
bled across the horizon and teased in soft threat
the same shrill a creature is like to make
when murdered by colors-
if tones and shades
can truly kill.

if these syllables of words and symbols of communique
could mostly bleed and tether imagination
so what say then poesy dishonest?
dare it diminish the Idyl?
if truly the image
reflects the same.

nay! the songs are not the music, the water is not the brook
babbling, but instead the motion of hillsides drifting down
sweats of a thousand years- the moment's resolve
to come again and again and dangle
the spirit of Eternity off
some nervous ledge,
some ugly brink.

but since it is gone, and since it is lost in some distant memory
outside the spirit, outside the reflection, outside the innermost
shadow of the forgotten cave- since this moment did
never exist fully in this dream
ephemeral as it may be
as endless as the sea's
yawn and stretch

the words of this dimension are but fleeting blows of death
in the wind recounting beauty from a favored score
heard so many nights ago, in the lore of a sweet
smell in a small kitchen and heat itching
the stove and her steps laughing
across the pine boards
painted with dust.

and if it were never possible that silent abandon exited vast prisms
and existence, never stalled and never became colors
capable of drawing-in smoke from the distance,
then all this time wasted in words
was worth every image and each
appalling death made
truth of every breath.

find you what in solace, really, that chaos does not well provide?
what license entitles the fog to wither inside the dawn
or the moon to find the shadows alarmed in deepest
dark- is this the grave of light? tortured spirit!
now raptured in delight, in between
the lazy charm of echoes
creeping among the hills.

the ugly legs of the miniscule dancer

because it is not
a perfect day
and mountains have ridges
and rugged sharp jaws
because it is not
Elysian fields
outside of these windows
sweeping silent to pause-

because nothing weeps, nor smiles
nor furrows its brow, nor resists
the ledge of ennui, nor embraces
the song or the rascal, nor inhales
the wax from the candle
the ugly legs of the miniscule dancer
get closer and closer and stomp upon
the royal chin of the master until
he breathes no more.

left in this absence
this tireless empty space
besides the legs of the miniscule dancer
are the ashen tears of the fire gone cold
the tame expectation of the silent child
wild vacant stares from the dead old
earth unto valleys of universe
swift rivers of Lethe,
great fecunding grey skies,
marvelled treasures of the retired spirit
clinging to the moment, the diverging paths
the calendar at play

because it is not
a perfect day.

a brilliant, blinding light

by Randy Billings

in one laborious gaze,
skyward bent,
he saw He, whom he sought,
wrapped in a white shroud,
a brilliant, blinding
Light.

a better human

by Randy Billings

raze the city
and drown
the ashes at sea

far from
transcendental
prosperity -
..............&let
the poets, painters
and musicians
roam free

the grey concrete
unyielding brick
glass-&-mortar cages
will encage them
no more

possessions seem
a residiual error
that serves only
to weigh down
the fancy -
make dumb-found
hermeneutic minds
.................where a
one-powerful imagination
is now employed in making
believe that careers
are as important
as lives

Dionysus may reign again
if the people permit him -
if the women are willing -
and the poets worthy
the music

ominous minor chords
of intent -
..........lurk
beneath conscious minds
setting the tone

mind intoning feel
at bequest
of muse alone

only pragmatic death
in a tragic world
of form - all

to the sound
of rustling leaves
in the thrush
of spring -

sun may as well set
. - plummet to sea -
and erase this mistake

and let chaos
create
a better human

Thousand-Mile Drop

by Randy Billings

Since 1893,
the bell at Saint Dom's
..Cathedral - to both
God and congregation
..did call.

But the Hand
that once pulled it
..pulled too hard,
..and pulled it -
down to the ground.

No more
the Diphthong
..resounds down
..the hillside.

No more
the beckoning
..spirits call
the ocean's kin -
fishermen, sirens
and riggers alike.

fire-engine lights
punctuate the tragedy.

a very steady rain.

police tape
defines
the territory.

the huddling masses
can only gaze
at the enormous height
they once again must raise;
so that, their Gods will not
..feel abandoned,
and their inner longings
remain accounted for.

the Irish hands
from centuries yore,
yonder, now-living,
begin to sift through
the steel-brick
..and despair,
before the dust
has even settled.

To restore
the emblem of
their faith.

And atone for
a thousand-mile
drop.

he has not lived

since 1977
he has not lived.
when sundered
from the womb
his heart began
….to beat
….on its own,

cast shivering
and helpless
from the cave

into a bright world
of sterile hands
and masks

..how unprepared,
….the young,
..for the dirt
and suffering ahead.

since that warm
plasmic unity, the symbiosis
of eternity,
………and being!

has been
broken

shattered

a wedge in the form
of Forms
has lobotomized
sleep - poetic dreaming:
the hearing, thinking
listening mutation
of that which is not
one’s own
and making it for all

where the raindrop
on the lotus unblossomed
is heartbreaking
and tragic.

where the whisper
of sonorous wisdom
resonates thru and for
the ages, yes

since 1977
he has not lived
in the timeless
..meditation
..of space …

Coughing and wheezing
come thirty miles around
all-diesel engines come roaring
thru quiet sides of town

these rusted fenders,
the loose red ambers
of tail pipes
sagging and dragging ass
atop the hot top

a loose-nit stitch
of jizz and blood
road-kill dreams
& highway musings;

That weren't no Jake-brake, boys,
letting out that long sigh of relief
that was me
half-reeling from the evening
the rest from the ramblin life;
if I fall here, please
let me rest
for I'm done with this feeling
of loss and regret -

that feeling of sleeping
restlessly
throughout the night -
caught between Paradise
and Hell -
not knowing if the blade of a flower -
with all her beauty - will kill you
with her defenseless liberty,
or the blade of the knife
of one more depraved
and desperate than yourself

Empty ambition grows
hungry
as the body grows
older;
that is the tragedy of life - the mind,
cultivating the dream
the body fleeting at the prospect -

and the youthful masses
awaiting their turn ...

so write

in the horizon the colors
saw god
and in the mischief
a re-arranging