Tuesday, May 22, 2012




Print by: John Ambury

Interlock

Join with me my brothers,
and we shall build a world
in which we can all live in peace.

Reach out from South America,
from Europe,
from Africa,
from North America.
Reach in with us hand in hand,
allied as one providing a strength
that only unity can deliver.

With a single disposition of mind
let us lock together
and battle those emissaries of racism, hatred, injustice
in whatever corner we may find them.

Help us to share, teach and love
spreading the word,
sowing the seeds of tolerance and acceptance
that all mankind should know
we are all the same inside
no matter where we begin.

We can overcome those old attitudes that keep mankind down,
the oppression of the soul in so many courts,
but we need to do it as one,
linking hearts and hands,
succeeding together.

© George Arnold                                                                 May 11th, 2012.


Image by Margret Clayton


Are We Alone?

Hellooooooooooo…………………….

Hello….?

Are you out there?

Can you see us,
here on our little blue orb,
tiny speck in an immense cosmos?

We are sure you have been here before
the annals of faith record our allegiance
if not agreeing on your person

So many peoples,
over so diverse an area,
for seemingly all our history
have chronicled the stories of the gods.
We have awaited your return
in various forms
for so, so long,

We have built temples and pyramids to your glory,
left signs and symbols only you would understand
on such a scale as to be useless for any purpose of our own.

Did you come long ago
with a promise of return
our fear and adoration in tow?

Why have you not come back to us?
Are we so ultimately unworthy as to merit your interest
or have the mighty gods fallen, unable to return?

Are we alone?

© George Arnold                                                 May 11th, 2012.

Monday, May 21, 2012


CURVES, BLUE
 
I watch you as you sleep
relaxed and oblivious
the arrangement of your naked curves
unplanned and guileless
profiled in the stark blue moonlight
reflected in the mirror, repeated in the shadows.
Epitome of nature’s design
template for abstract steel sculptures
inspiration to millions of artists
            from cave painters to Rubens to Picasso.
 
I watch you as you sleep
remembering the feelings we couldn’t escape
the phrases that turned back on each other
like twisted Möbius strips
fascinating, surreal, and endless.
Recurring patterns: he said, she said
you meant -- no I didn’t
but you said -- yes, but -- no, but
I love you -- I know, but …
reiterations of a cursive motif
            with no resolution.
 
I watch you as you sleep
remembering how we got here,
coming from such different places
the heedless urgency of our passion
the eager but incremental growth of trust
the cautiously spontaneous process
            of gradually curving together into a couple.
 
And I watch you as you sleep
            trying to understand how we got here
                        with pieces broken off and fingers burned.
 
I watch you as you sleep
I know your every curve and line
but I wonder if I ever knew you
and I wonder if you ever knew me
and I wonder
            if this will be our last night together.

  © John Ambury, 2012. All rights reserved.



SCENE WITH BIRCHES
 
Tom Thomson was here
moving alone through these woods
rucksack on his back
images forming behind his eyes
seeing this the way he or Harris or Varley did
not the way you and I do.
 
Tom Thomson was here
stepping back for perspective
seeking the one vantage point
from which he could see the composition
in his abstract mind
Ansel Adams said it’s all about knowing where to stand:
where to place the tripod, or the easel.
 
Tom Thomson was here
he sat quietly on his canvas stool
sorting tubes and brushes and knives.
He closed his eyes for darkness
then opened them for light
to see the vision fresh
new-made in front of him
needing only his inner sight
and his guided hand
to make it appear on the board
interpreted.
 
Tom Thomson was here
spending the day alone
letting the shadows drift
making the birches live
with sure, unhurried strokes
portraying the scene
as no one had ever seen it before.
 
Tom Thomson was here
alone.
 
A few days later
his body was found in Canoe Lake.
 
 
                                                     © John Ambury, 2012. All rights reserved.
                                                                       (Image © Derik Hawley, 2012.)



Daybreak Be Gone





Be gone and let me be, oh obdurate morning
‘Tis an unwelcome and unasked invasion of my privacy
For here am I, lost in mysterious musing
of what is, and was, and what may yet come to be.

Your glaring, blaring, beacon is tearing.
Its uncaring, tumultuous, slashes through venetian apertures
Leave lacerations in the ebon body of deepest contemplation
rupturing ruminations with unbidden coercion

I wish only to be alone, without distraction
Left, to my precarious darkness of mind, and mood, and thought
where ideographic thoughts intertwine
unrepentant and unsolvable in their murky complexity

I have no desire to cross that bridge to daylight musings
To become the jilted paramour in an elopement of my reflections
Abandon us then, my conjecture and I, to our rayless bliss
Come not, and grant us furlough to tarry in our nocturnal embrace.

Be gone, be gone and let us be.


©George Arnold                                March7th, 2012


My Heart to Yours

Come to me, love,
and we will seek that place
where only truest lovers can be found.
We will make that mysterious elopement together
beyond the distraction,
beyond the voices and the teeming of life.

Let us love each other in obdurate oblivion of the world,
holding only each other’s hearts and souls,
to the exclusion of all else.

Hiding in our privacy,
let our fingertips intertwine,
the joy of our passion becoming a bridge,
from my heart to yours,
from your soul to mine.

Let the heat of our love
be as steam in the midnight,
filling and penetrating the most precarious apertures,
that the morning light may find us
surely united,
indivisibly as one,
and forever true.

© George Arnold


Seeking the Bridge




The mind whirls,
perched on the edge of precarious thought.

With obdurate intent I probe psychic apertures,
archly insisting on cogent arrival
at the morning of realization,

That tenuous point
from which synapses intertwine,
forming a mysterious connection.

Relentless pursuit rules
A harsh and tyrannical dictator.

Mental distraction be damned!
I must realize that vantage,
that vicarious elopement
by which to bridge emotion and belief
privacy exposed no obstacle in dogging that elusive spoor.

For it is there, and only there,
that I can find the path to expression.

I know it exists if only because self delusion says it must,
hiding between the cinder piles of dogma and fancy,
caustic pitfalls to be avoided in the pursuance of clarity.

The path to enlightenment and enlightening is here, But where?


©George Arnold                                February 26th, 2012.



DISNEY LIED
 
Reality check:
no kiss awakes the dead, ever
there is no talking cricket
no flying elephant
no metamorphing pumpkin
no Beast made princely
no wicked witch thwarted
no dragon slain.
 
Wish upon a star? see where that gets you
Santa Claus? ask that ghetto kid
Easter Bunny? a predator
Tooth Fairy? a night prowler
Tinkerbell? a glint of illusion.
 
Yes:
The magic wand is a powerless piece of stick
magic ring a bit of metal
magic cape a length of fabric
magic elixir a fool’s quaff
magic spell a silly saying.
 
El Dorado is a leaden slag-heap
Fountain of Youth a stinking sewer
Bluebird of Happiness a carrion crow.
 
There is no Arizona
no gold at the end of the rainbow
no Shangri-la
no Paradise.
 
We live in vain, die in despair.
 
            And yet we hope --
            always, we hope.
 
                                                             © John Ambury, 2011. All rights reserved.

THAT I CAN GIVE
 
Take what I have that I can give
Don’t ask for moon or stars
Or diamond’s glint
Or gold
 
Take what I have that I can give
Don’t ask for endless bliss
Or a heart all yours
And true
 
Take what I have that I can give
The life I've torn away
From other lives
For you
            
Take what I have that I can give
The piece I keep for you
That small, bright shard
I've saved
 
Take what I have that I can give
The fire that burns inside
My longing need
My self
 
Take what I have, my love, that I can give –
The part that's yours
The part that makes me live.
 
 
                                                © John Ambury, 2009. All rights reserved.
 
(First published in Canadian Voices, Vol. 1.)

#305 Embers

A flaming fire has beauty of its own
that Man’s cold fingers can’t claim to possess.
Science’s  flick’ring myst’ry can’t condone,
the lusts which young boys and girls can’t confess,
For youth has innocence that’s once consumed,
by embers which of flames are memory,
that make combustion from fresh air resumed,
Insane reality to fantasy:
The flame, the heat, the smoke, the noise, the light,
the mind , the heart, the breath,  the song, the soul,
crackle with an incandescent might,
sparkle with a reckless cruel control.
            Yes, fire marches with a slow surprise, 
            I sigh when I see burning in your eyes.

By David Billings © All Rights Reserved 2012



#310 The Discussion

What is this state Men call “Insanity”?
What men amongst us show us that they’re sane?
How can mere flesh conceive reality?
The three pounds of hamburg we call a “brain”
Is just a thin veneer above the beasts,
lowlier by far than angels pure,
So are our lucid claims just poor conceit?
And of our wisdoms how can we be sure?
To some the answer’s biological
while others turn to their theologies
yet our emotions are not logical,
such is the study of psychology.
            Such questions challenge our sobriety.
            Our answers define our society.

© All Rights Reserved 2012 by David Billings April 13 201 2


April Forest

 A tree in April is a splendid thing,
 her boney branches fan out their design,
 now free of winter snows for coming spring,
 while birds’ nests to her still are not assigned.
 Lifeless she seems, yet within her sap
 flows a hidden power we can’t see,
 now she’s wakened from her frozen nap,
 and thus her  promise: days of May we’ll see!
 But now she stands, devoid of foliage,
 roots thirstily suck ooze from  thawing ground,
 such sweet long instants seem a privilege,
 before the forests roar with leaf blown sound.
        The bones bloom tall as stark shadows contrast
        the spring buds which clothe bare Nature at last.

 ©  By David Billings  2012


John Pingree's Photos

Blues

Blue Curves

Drifts 1

Laval Lake

Stairs


SPRING ON THE POND
 
animation suspended
no life in snow
 
just days from now this pond will teem
with newborn beings
to stock the world
          with every species
                   two by two in billions
                             the genesis of all existence
 
but now the pond lies still
 
no life in snow
animation suspended
  
 
                                        © John Ambury, 2011. All rights reserved.