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Webmistress Note:
Sometimes
life doesn't seem fair.
It is
one of those times
that Debra has
vividly
captured
here
(at
right.)
Read, absorb,
read again.
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A Stitch in Time
12/25/00 © D. Tenney
In that space
where origin and consequence
collide...
I embrace this uninvited guest...
observing the Sphinx's Riddle.
Heaven is a two way street
a shooting star heralding Ceasar's
ascent and the descent
of a savior.
Us mortals like
an unwitting Herod
grappling with the
kismet of both,
jackals, eating
flesh from bone,
the remains transformed
into promise
upon the desert floor.
Metamorphose, eternal saga
rearing its onerous head
in this inevitable dance.
Like the Pharaohs...
I have built my monument
upon the shifting sands
of occasion...
weaving a perennial dream,
spun with gossamer and stone...
Cleopatra and the asp
caught between eternity and moment.
In that moment,
purpose unraveling like
thread in a hand stitched quilt...
caught between the stitch and
the seamstress.
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Desert Summer
Shredded tire rubber
strewn along highways, evaporating
into forever mirages,
token pools of cruel illusion.
Tin cans, broken glass swept
along sand, dry arroyo beds
offer windless shade
to torpid lizards, scorpions.
Seared watering holes, cracked mud
adorns mesa tops like desert lace.
Castoff refrigerators,
chicken-pocked with 22 holes,
coolness bled dry
beneath gathering
summer clouds, spitting lightening
- unfulfilled promises.
Fervid sunsets boil like swarms
of red ants, soothsayers of
preordained
fire-storms, purging
parched mountains.
Buzzards pick clean
the bones of decaying carcasses
shielding dormant seeds, coiled
like rattlesnakes
in sand and ash
awaiting
the first drops of rain.
© D. Tenney
In the Next Yard
Between the rhythm
of a rocking chair
and hard wood,
loneliness cries out
. . . in the next yard
a robin, red on brown
lights on a limb,
paling green with spring,
dichotomy running
sweet and sour
sequestered
in each note
the bird sings.
Peering
through metal links,
which embrace exile
within exposed symmetry,
sitting beyond
the edge of gray
a tulip blooms,
solitary
inside a whiskey barrel . . .
splintered by thirst.
Its fragile bloom
wilting above
the dripping faucet
as weeds lap up
the moisture below.
© Debra Tenney
Awaiting the Bus
Dragonfly wings whir
to the thrum of the city.
Sky leaking through
the cracks
of downtown monoliths.
Circular hum of
rubber churning asphalt.
Honey bees buzz
around patches
of color trapped
inside geometric stasis,
creating harmony
in the midst of
discordant structure.
Singular atonements
in this connect the dots
labyrinth of
one way mayhem.
© D. Tenney
Transformation
The argument was a mullein dream
deep violet on emerald,
velvet passion cut short
still drooping
from years of drought.
A mute swan,
broken wings beating
within the ken of my desire,
I found myself drowning inside tears,
those sapphire sisters of pain,
engulfed in lovers pride,
consumed in crystalline despair.
You reached out
limitless in your compassion
transforming iron pyrite to gold
gently unraveling the filigree cage
which bound my heart,
breathing essence into stone,
impregnating it with joy,
making it transparent
beneath your gaze
and I am lost in free fall
your tenderness the mossy bed
into which I surrender,
at peace at last.
© D. Tenney
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Ode to Poets
Lines
explode
like hailstones,
remembering
the joy
the pain
the love
despair,
tender moments,
eruptions of rage.
Moments captured
Blow
by
blow
caress by caress.
Words woven into
mosaics,
like origami birds,
folded
twisted
into
static form...
seeking to contain
emotions
which strike like
lightening
then evaporate.
Leaving ghostly notions
an aftertaste,
vague memories
spun dry of essence
by time.
Making poets of
average people,
who try to capture
in words
this fleeting moment
called life.
© D. Tenney
Angles
I awaken to a bed devoid
of sharp angles & deep furrows
and I am reminded
of a light house
on a windy strand,
September waves
rolling over its base,
and of yesterdays
when that was enough.
Of time when
the chilled wind
of February
did not fill me
with spring longing.
buried beneath this desert
of tangled bed,
in which I am drowning,
in a space once my asylum,
I am a winter cottonwood
surrounded by tumbleweeds,
static form amidst chaos.
I lay awake
and drink deeply
of your pillow's essence
hoping as the first hyacinth
purples March's burnt umber
I will hear your footsteps
in twilight's first blush.
© D. Tenney
Stasis
Suspended in time,
I sit here
in trembling stasis
between twilight fever
and remembrance.
Your being explodes
through plastic and
passionless wire,
voice rekindling the fervor
of a day old touch.
This current raging,
feeding itself...
fire and air, until
the water bearer
spills her urn
upon the crystal pool
which is your domicile
Intoxicated by every nuance,
I am drowning in the
golden umber of eyes
that look beyond my soul,
exposing me to myself,
naked and unashamed
beneath your gaze.
These are the moments
that myths are made of,
the obsession that sends
young men into battle
and poets into eremitic
frenzies of verse,
The Authurian chalice,
from whence pours
the sweet nectar of Gods.
© Debra Tenney
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