it surprised me, how
love had somehow settled in eternal,
like a shroud.
but have I yet died my death?
or you?
living our hard choice
is close, in a way
generations rise
from the sea, then dwindle…
vanish…
what will it matter
that we paid a price?
I, for tempting, you for
desiring…each clasping
all the wrong reasons
like an innocent bouquet
we could only find
answers in drama'd adieu,
knowing now we
still had too much to
learn to even be
will the soulless
deserts of time even
care that the gutless should have
mowed grass at the cutting edge?
surely not.
we were only a temporary
cast in a long running show
new lovers will discover
that karma…however laughingly
evoked or depicted…
kicks ass
--Jo VonBargen 2011"Beautifully written!" Time capsule for the future. FROM THIS FAR TIME (The Human Saga) Fierce, taut #poetry! http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005KJLCLC
Was it you, unknown hand
pulled me into the wreck of my life?
I leaned over the bridge
the air, black
blood in my veins like ice
your hand held me hard
its grip in the blackness tightened
strangely warm
rain braided down, down my hair
you groped for a vestige
inside a mountain
a barrow of sand heaped in my heart
to suffocate love's voice
rain eroded the sand,
exposing your footprints
in the hardpan mud
your grinning skull emerged
rain became blood
beating down on me hard and
with it your claw
your handsome impostor claw
my cross's fiber
juts skyward from rotten flesh
of these fragile
and shattered dreams
--Jo VonBargen 2011"POWERFUL" "I fumble for keys as you fall on the ground and roll under the tires" YOUR THIN BONES Letters I Never Sent You - on Amazon http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005LKBR6A
See in your deepest, strangest
imaginings, how we blazed
like crimson sleds
over silent, powdered snow
in a headlong rush of
years, singular experiences a white
blur, moments nothing tactile,
insignificant after all
White blur. Uncountable
crystalline flakes lying in drifts
of undefiled connectedness, soil of our
imperfections covered and dark
beneath, downplayed by
the magnitude of infinity
Landscapes of stark,
savannas of white, our
tears and celebrations muffled
in the cruel, icy wind
of centuries
Mysteriously, love abides
undiminished in all that vastness,
each act building on the last,
a continuance of what was
our splendor mid the sanctuary of
flurries,
a radiance of
hearts across the eternal,
reflecting a brilliance outward,
upward, to warm the cold,
clear stars
--Jo VonBargen 2011"Beautifully written!" Time capsule for the future. FROM THIS FAR TIME (The Human Saga) Fierce, taut #poetry! http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005KJLCLC
Didn't Ulysses, eyes tired,
weary of wonders, weep
with absolute joy
upon seeing his Ithaca,
beautiful and green?
We have those eyes...
seeking...no...needing,
an endless, verdant
eternity, all dawns
and sunsets, humble
and immortal
But the eyes within,
white-tipped canes
negotiating the way
through the outrage of
our lives, provide instead
our truth, our humanity,
the poetry in our
daily living
When we see what
is laid on the fine paper
there, we weep with
wonder at our Ithaca, our
experiences weedy,
green and alive,
our gift to eternity's rolls
past the death of our eyes,
our bleached bones,
our ashes
--Jo VonBargen 2011"Beautifully written!" Time capsule for the future. FROM THIS FAR TIME (The Human Saga) Fierce, taut poetry! http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005KJLCLC
During my long journey down
the creek without a paddle,
there was the inevitable
satyr, recognized by the miraculous
lope of his stride, his soaring
step that alternately bound
and divided, kicking up gravel from
beneath my body all moist
and conquered, and surely
all but I witnessed the darkly wavering
light spilled from his eyes as
he gazed into mine, or saw
the wiliness of his easy amazement
or the havoc of my feathers mangled
by a single clutch of his
faux-cherubic hand
He was a tender carnivore, that
faithless, alluring genie of the
briar patch, and didn't see that I was
a child, nor the wings gracing
my shoulders or the sign on my
brow, this bloody cross, chrism,
incantation, vow of damnation, disaster
and salvation!
As for me, I couldn't see then
whether he was weasel or wonder
but he got under my skin, so with whom will
I share that journey's discovery?
Where will I bury the gold I carry inside
me?...that bittersweet ember still
hissing within as strongly as
before leaving me,
he turned away and never
looked back
--Jo VonBargen 2011"Beautifully written!" A time capsule for the future. FROM THIS FAR TIME (The Human Saga) Fierce, taut #poetry! http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005KJLCLC
You have not fooled us, you hawks
sitting tall in our halls of proud Freedom
You have fouled Earth instead,
with waves of red blood on every far shore
We have seen how you plunder and
plump up your coffers
and how deeply they hate us
from without and within
We have seen our fair mothers with fragile
hearts broken, how every dead soldier
becomes a rifle with eyes
Watch how quickly for each of your crimes
a bullet is born that will one day
head straight for your hearts
We are long-burning wicks that have faith
in our dead who are not merely roots
neath your bloodstained stones
but shove fists through dirt and life rises!
Mothers shed mourning, forge tears
into metal for the long deserved strike
in the night
Broken eyes keep vigil, you
unfeeling vipers from the pit
of Hell
Our swords are at the ready, filled
with courage and fire
and our visions of dawn, you
quartered and hung
--Jo VonBargen 2011"Beautifully written!" Time capsule for the future. FROM THIS FAR TIME (The Human Saga) Fierce, taut #poetry! http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005KJLCLCPhoto of the WWII Memorial by Jo's son, Ken Phillips
Even by the bushel, they
didn't last long, those sweet,
juicy apples from over
by Corrales, way, way down
North Rio Grande past
long haciendas, lushly
treed land
From sleepy roadside stands
they beckoned, Yellow
and Red Delicious, fresh from
the orchards, dirt cheap
Sundays, Sandia Crest
loomed blue over valley below,
the fast-spreading city and
ten thousand hazy
tomorrows
Turns hairpinned down
through aspen golds,
wide russet oaks,
and apple stands stood there
as well, with spring cold
cider, sparkling,
undeniably made
by the gods
Here, too, a hand-picked
bushel, polished with promise,
(top layer only), and
as paragons go,
an only occasional
worm
--Jo VonBargen 2011"Beautifully written!" A time capsule for future generations. FROM THIS FAR TIME (The Human Saga) Fierce, taut poetry! http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005KJLCLC
Perched above the river
on the overlook
of our farewell encounter
an underwater
brightness flows, distorting
the womanly curve
of hills, our faces
Climbing down
in front of the falls
we wade out
into cool water
and it wavers,
our agonized gestures
cutting away
then appearing,
disappearing,
in this medium that absorbs
every wake, closing over
our passage
We have wept the
last tears and
you have kissed me
goodbye; our once-love
and this rarified air
settling down, down
down, sealing
the sleep
of stones
--Jo VonBargen 2011"Beautifully written!" A time capsule for future generations. FROM THIS FAR TIME (The Human Saga) Fierce, taut poetry! http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005KJLCLC
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