To The Fair

©  Steve King

All rights reserved

We walked the road through twilight,

nightingales teasing from small shadows;

the emptiness ready for all bold spirits.

There were faint stars enough

to draw thoughts of a deeper night,

and of summer pleasures to be gathered at the fair.

As we rounded the last curve we passed the tree—

the grave and heavy circumference;

slowed our march,

so quiet.

The tree was a killer.

We saw, the week before,

the carcass of the ‘65 Corvette

as it was towed to town:

covered with a shroud of canvas,

hidden in the furthest corner of the salvage yard.

But we would see beneath it, and we did;

marveling with high amazement

at dark stains spilled across bucket seats

as if by some new miracle

of upholsterer’s art.

Marvel we did, but once,

joked just once,

timid laughs falling to a kind of sigh.

In our retelling to the less bold,

we spoke brazenly of gore,

as if we had become attuned

to that kind of death,

or to any kind;

spoke the way we thought

the others would best hear,

the way we thought a soldier

might have spoken of his battle ground;

or the way a cop might talk of routine carnage;

spoke of bits and pieces that were scattered in the car,

pieces not all metal or at all mechanical;

intoned at length on what the scattered pieces might have been.

The tree at dusk on a country road.

The tree had only done what a tree must do:

stood its ground,

age and dignity unshaken

by the race of passion or hubris

or even careless indifference.

And the car had only done what a car must do—

yielding to great stressors that were never meant to be.

The unknown couple, too, complied with due necessity:

shattering—not neatly, it was said,

unjoined, but not at logical places.

We counted out our steps,

knowing the roads intimately,

knowing steps and distances

from one place to the next.

Headlights marked us.

We might lose our number,

but there would always be,

away in the near distance,

hovering above the forest line,

the glow of the fair,

faint music growing stronger step by step;

and finally the great wheel,

alive with rainbow lights,

coursing a path skyward,

to yield it’s shining vessels to the night.

Talk soon overtook the nightingales,

and rapt imaginings

made bright the evening sky.

We moved in a strange kind of present

that held a dawning future in abeyance:

knowing we were doing all that we were meant to do

that summer, that night,

along that chosen road,

the summer sky a canopy

for all small charms so soon to be embraced…

I looked back.

Our road had left that tree behind,

just beyond the reach of the long curve,

lost in the tide of encroaching shadows.

The music louder now—

that eternal present soon set to pass

into the lightness

of a temporary balming dream

of many brief inviting moments

all at once just waiting…

Away from the shadows,

and the grasp of hard necessity;

away from subtle curves

that skew even much-traveled roads.

Then quick steps and laughter,

the pull of vesper gratitudes,

for what an evening might beget…

I prayed that I would one day

better care for a Corvette.

Driftwood Dreams

©  Steve King

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bright sands raked by an unyielding wind

grey sea trimmed with white breakers

gulls adrift pure of flight on their distant azure plain

and the driftwood holding at the center

still through tides and gathering dunes

unmoved

as if in rapt dreaming

of dark mother forests so long gone

and damp wooded ground

a hint in its sere core

of the taste of ripe loam

from some other distant shore

dreaming all one

bright sun and sands

‘til it becomes a hatrack

             in some idling tourist’s hand

Preposterous Analogies Drawn From Late Night Reflections On Gravity

©  2012 Steve King

All rights reserved

The highest laws notwithstanding...
there are things 

that accelerate to vacuum,

hurtling straight through complex time and space

across the undisplaced fabric

of infinite emptiness—

unbalanced quanta at the helm,

terminal velocity,

scanning for some fixed horizon,

tumbling to a missing point of mass—

ah…these vectors of surplus desire!

Each habit of affinity

instills a mad sense of place,

even to uncentered orbits,

even in an empty room.

It’s easy to remain relentless

on well traveled paths;

dying hard, the  habits,

tracing new maps written in old scars,

so many things so well-survived,

scars so profoundly you,

there would not else-wise be a you.

So forget that silly inverse square—

just another law that begs repeal:

things at the furthest distance

always pull the most,

and absence yields the one metric

to reckon all strong forces of the heart.

The Fire

©  2012  Steve King All rights reserved Well— this fire begot something to trim the leavings of the night: ancient spirits in the smoke; rekindled hope speaks from each tongue of flame; ember upon ember, old inclinations leap to light, then sift their ashes through my heart again. I know the fire shall shortly die, just as all regret is said to wane. I taste these ashes one more time, and know there is no reason to complain. A taste of ashes may remain, but no one ever need explain; I would relive it all the same, and take no moment to complain

All Is Well

by Steve King

© 2012

All is well, I promise you.

Do not be concerned by my

sometimes detached bemusements.

These are but easy retreats

to unspoke and stubborn dreams

where the past pursues new forms

and new wants reshape old charms.

You must not think ill of me.

These diversions inform but

my own still imaginings—

sparring with my old designs,

sanctuary from keen foils,

or just finding silence there—

call it whatever you will,

it is just a tiny step

removed from your waiting world.

Yours is no thin shadow place

to leave behind.  No burdens,

satisfactions unfulfilled,

no wasted unique glories

to drain the measure of me.

All is well enough, I know,

there in the outward brilliance

of common sight, where you wait

for my strange quiet to end.

I would explain everything

of this musing well within;

but there is still mystery

lying at the heart of it.

This mystery, this darkness

will not yield to my desires.

It’s a backdrop set against

somber glows from ancient pyres,

whose light never penetrates

inward from its waning fires.

And so shall the darkness grow

with accelerating years,

swallowing whole things once known,

making my dreams slip their grasp,

while old songs reprise as sighs.

I would trace each scattered spark,

and would try to harmonize

each echo, each fading note.

So far will my eyes not see,

nor ears own such reverie.

Yet all is well, believe it.

All remembrance must be so.

And so indeed, I wager,

are the unsung harmonies

a-play beneath your calling.

I will wait when it must be,

while you linger inwardly,

while you the passing choir

illumine with the flickering

of your own secret fire.

No Man's Land

©  2012 Steve King

All rights reserved

It seems I’m caught between competing instances,

the push of past and pull of future,

nearest bit of each disguised as ‘now,’

the mask of an eternal present.

And here I stand:

empty as the eye of a needle

through which the thread of all must hang,

history and destiny drawn slack,

‘til someday they shall serve to scribe a kind of ragged seam,

and unify this narrative of dreams.

Here,

a patient link

in the contingent tale,

cleaving to each instant, first and last,

listening for fanfares and echoes

of distant ends and fast receding means;

spinning a biography

to binding futures

sprung from some unknown predicate;

working through familiar inklings

though without a syllogistic claim…

The racing times clamoring to distract:

new and new and new,

whole worlds turning in the instant,

madnesses and bright imaginings—

I would be grateful even for what madness would convey.

Now, sharpening my seeing to that needle’s point,

finally to know those things my fates may soon endow,

when—

far too soon,

each dawning moment

slips to some other

now…

Goodbyes

©  2012 Steve King

All rights reserved

So much formality I should not force—

this coolness and austere reserve,

the unrelenting conversation

disguising just how little

there is now to be said.

Soon there will be silence,

and phantoms better suited

for this ceaseless shadow play;

the shrinking reservoir 

of common memories

must serve to drain the leavings of each day.

Then shall I drink quickly of the lees,

and wonder freely of what might remain:

listening for echoes where once were sundry sounds;

inventing better days that should have been.

John Brown

©  2012 Steve King

All rights reserved

I sing only of a man—

the rage must find some other muse.

Of arms and readiments for war,

the patient reader must excuse.

I seek one spirit of that time,

to wonder how it so inclined.

True, Harper’s Ferry had the guns,

bristling in a phony peace.

There was fratricide enough,

and death was hard upon the land:

the time was torn, the spirit fouled:

while Kansas bled, Missouri howled.

A house divided must soon fall.

How sooner must a man decay,

no passion there to unify,

to pull and pummel and upbraid

when destiny would sound a call.

All high-born aims must come to naught

when deeds undo promises made.

And so he felt his place and time,

and raced a path his heavens laid.

How empty is the soul that goes

to any easy pathway shown,

but hesitates at the Abyss

and trembles at the great Unknown.

Like Abraham, like Joshua,

the million stars would light his way.

A black tide rising to reclaim

its covenant would seize the day.

The problem left for later minds

was how to gauge competing crimes:

did subjugation and the lash

bring on itself the fatal clash?

Did slavery itself reward

with bloody recourse to the sword?

Could any reason yet accord

the place of minion, right of lord?

He led his sons through Treason’s gate,

held them all as ready tools,

as acolytes who would delight

their father’s will and share his fate.

In the old Books, fathers are stern

but few would so expect this faith,

and, contemplating on their ends,

seek sacrifice and not amends.

No plan is safe that must depend

upon the vagaries of men,

and so the army he would raise

was lost before his rifles blazed.

This blow to challenge infamy

was short of force and long of pain;

the dreamy triumph was undone

and only martyrdom remained.

Then it was over, he was gone,

or so they thought who strung the knot:

the great uprising would abate

as only force might demonstrate.

As if his gravestone would provide

a dam against the coming tide;

as if the blot the nation held

might, without bloodshed, be expelled.

       *   *   *   *   *   *   *

And now the bones lie peaceably

as far from rage as they might be,

forgotten in the farmstead turf,

his blood a fountain to the earth.

(Executed in 1859, John Brown remains one of the most important interlocutors in the United States’ continuing moral dialogue.  Those who are interested in particulars should refer to W.E.B. Dubois’ biography, John Brown, and Thoreau’s A Plea For Captain John Brown.  The John Brown Farm near Lake Placid, New York, is the final resting place of Brown and several others—including a number of his sons—either killed at the raid on the arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, or hanged soon thereafter by the State of Virginia.)

The Wars

©  2012 Steve King

All rights reserved

Old wars began with the fog of incense,

screaming rams, weeping queens;

ships to sea, armors flashing to the sun,

reflecting gladness of the smiling gods

guiding armies to their onslaughts.

And then the cries attending butchery:

spent victors draped in gore, each one a deadly priest,

invoking well those mighty smiling ones

who parceled from the heights all precious days to die,

even at the hand of such another.

So Time unwinds the warriors’ thread,

Time, that even old gods learned to dread,

now wraps its glories in new gathered song.

But still the call of deadly priests invoking the stern one,

days to die awaiting yet, attending each new sun,

new rages to bring down the veil at last;

armor blackened with the smoke of shattering sacrifice,

proud ships grounded on the beaten sand,

sprawled broken-winged across the sand,

each day to die an eon of gnashing and lament,

the wars still ending as they all ever began:

one warrior at a time, all gallantry and banners and drums,

and incense curling round the weeping ones.

Summer Sudden

© 2012 Steve King

All rights reserved

…then evenings

and leisured memories

of each receding day,

bright and perfect,

brilliant mirrors to our sly designs

no matter how we chose to look at them.

Slow slipping to twilight,

faces turned to painted masks,

purple in encroaching shadow,

bared limbs unweathered by the lateness.

We knew it was no longer spring

no matter what the calendar implied.

It seemed the change would never come,

sun would never leave us

to abandon and dark dreams,

whisperings and star-lit conjurings;

our silence at the last

amid the calls of crickets,

and low insect hums,

other shadowed harmonies,

gathered in dark corners

of the shrinking day.

Dense air made wet the tall iced glasses,

leaving dew on ready hands,

teasing ready lips with thoughts of quenching,

quenched lips taunting ready ears,

sighs of easy promise,

leaving for the moment

all prospect of renewal or regret.

All ready.

Rings clicked on the cold glasses,

jeweled facets in rose sunsets

glimmering like lesser stars

as hands moved through shadows

back and forth in fading light;

painted lips curled for the sipping,

tongues for languorous rolling

of all bright sensations;

heat and summer air,

all breath enfolded,

words poised for saying,

if words would even serve a purpose

in the long twilight;

if words would substitute for sensations

waiting close upon the tongue;

if words would better serve the tongue

than soft summer bites,

dark appetites there waiting to devour

the ripening fruit of lingering summer nights.

The scent of perfumed bodies

swift touching,

sudden feeling,

all unspoken accident,

that needn’t be explained,

wouldn’t be undone (how?)

by words or faint regrets

unsuited for belief

or even for remembering,

(how might it be undone?

how could they be undone?).

It was the season made us move,

could not escape the touch,

the scent

the feel;

wondering of one’s own scent

and how to touch

and what to feel

and what to say;

endless twilight fading slow

to ease all pleasure and repose.

Yes, summer indeed.

Just summer.

And the guard was down,

because by then we held nothing

not gladly surrendered.

Summer.

Just summer.

Season of long twilight

and brimming retrospect,

though briefly were the morrows

presaged in each rising moon,

light breaching that horizon,

looming ever larger,

casting our faint shades

through the blaze of magic lanterns.

I wondered of the morrow,

small dreaming of another day,

the long wait for new twilight,

new games to play.

I wondered of tomorrow…

still nothing beckoned from beyond,

save moonlight falling empty;

tired shadows fled across the vacant lawn,

while magic lanterns guttered

one

by

one…

Seeing

©  Steve King

All rights reserved

I thought seeing you was best,

watching as the light would change,

waiting for the night to gather us.

But dreaming holds strange vision too,

that flickers through reluctant shadows,

touching on all wanting spirits there.

Those shadows, spirits, dreams, reveal anew

and serve as well as sense

to picture you.

Today

© Steve King

All rights reserved

Today I will greet sunrise with a glance.

It will have to be enough, just seeing—

Empty of new words for the old things,

I’ve done the best to rid myself of them,

shaking bare the word-bins,

purging old and occult motives

with a stream of gilt verbosity.

Emptied are all ill-stocked compartments,

shuttered now, swept clean

of all compunction and desire,

leaving few the rooms that must be kept

to tend a winter season of the soul.

And I will see

what I will see.

It must be enough today

to ply the uses of proximity,

make of it a ready world,

here, where I may gather and restore.

Further words would only draw my thoughts

back to an unintelligible map

filled with strange detours and false starts,

crossroads where I’d be constrained

to choose approaches to unknown ends,

paths a fickle will might not refuse.

No loss, or not so much…

Words often either aren’t enough,

or ring of hubris.

At their simplest, just cries of the heart, I guess.

Aren’t there enough of those to go around?

And how the heart itself does change…

Who would ever trust those cries for long?

I will see…

When I’m ready, you’ll know.

I’ll pick up the phone,

bring more complication to your afternoon.

You’ll see the number flashing,

perhaps recall my voice

and what it said last time.

You may even smile as you reach,

expecting me to say—

But you would be dismayed, this day:

remembering that I was out of words,

I’d probably hang up before you spoke…

I trust there is some way you’ll be assured—

if I have given up on the old words

it’s only to divine another way.

More quickly than I might foretell from this present refuge,

within these moments of…not saying,

it’s certain some new musings will emerge

to win exemption from intemperate vows.

They will populate these shadows,

the silence and the empty space it fills;

will reach beyond old words,

beyond the weight of wearied thoughts

that lead only to this...

It remains to be seen.

I’ll relish what this solitude allows,

but just as gladly draw the curtain

on this closing day.

Old silence will beget a welcoming void,

to echo with new murmurs of its own.

All pious tribulations gone,

grim musings undone;

each ready moment

filled with whole new seasons just begun,

crowding out those tones of twilight,

calling, as a larkbird lauds the sun,

upon a waiting chorus of tomorrows,

new gathered spirits singing then as one.

After

© Steve King
All rights reserved


You rose like a fawn this morning,
wild eyed, yielding.

Perhaps you fear my aftermath:
Am I safe?
Am I content
with mild indecencies?
Had I keen edges
your soft senses
mistook from the first?

What vessel am I in daylight
that cannot hold your evening dreams?

You are kind to linger,
so busy in another room.
But have you morning bitters brewing even now
to curdle this confection?

On the Waters

by Steve King

©  2012 

All rights reserved

The surface had been broken sudden,

ripples shake the sky to muddled gray,

mixing clouds with infinite azure—

clouds that seemed so bright before,

floating high upon a sea of light—

but not now in reflection,

not now, writhing on the fractured sheen;

The sun, bent to funhouse shapes,

a wandering balloon

set loose upon the world,

unencumbered child’s play

making light of all the day.

The certain picture gone,

hostage to the least of winds

that touch and go and leave no trace

or any true pathway.

The face upon the waters

puzzles now a dawning mystery:

eyes flash across each gathered wave,

changing with new currents,

now hiding in roiled shadow,

then glinting in that funhouse glare;

lips, fickling with each rise and fall,

first smile, then frown to bottom out the depths;

no Narcissus charm to beckon

from the spirit floating there,

countenance remote, delicate,

hanging just beyond an easy reach,

trapped within an ever-changing tide.

Watching for a certainty to settle of its own,

to hold a master vision once again,

an image, an idea that might stay,

knowing sure that all things seen

linger on their own thin edge,

ceding fragile form and gravity

to random ripples of unthought design

that shatter calm reflection,

spin still contemplation and regard

out of their sometime world.

These beauties that the image now betrays

are drifting peaceful on the deeper reservoir,

reflecting for an instant only on the broken shoal.

Such shadows may not be embraced,

nor should they even slip to light so much,

for all that gathers on the edge

is scattered as I stoop to see,

ruined on the muddled shore

as I do reach to lay a heavy touch.

From the Balcony

©  Steve King

All rights reserved

i.

Through all seasons,

peering outward from the high window,

he would watch the boats.

On they came

through clinging fog,

curtains of rain,

breaking through the crowning sun,

and out of deepest night,

with horns, lights

and strange dancing nautic grace,

gliding beneath sheltering stars

emerging to his view

as if the stirrings of dream.

Familiar constellations shown upon them all.

Only the moon would change its face,

although he knew it dragged the stubborn tides

in some promise of larger constancy.

Unchanging stars alone made perfect sense.

ii.

The manservant brought wines

appropriate for every season.

They drank to the hours,

and to the stars,

and for fair seas and warming winds

to usher every pilgrim home;

and to the dreams of coming ships,

and to great beauty as it once had been.

iii.

‘She’ll know me, even now,’ he said.

I have the pictures yet.’

‘And you have the letters.’

‘Yes, musn’t forget.’

‘The letters.’

‘You have them safe…’

‘I have them.’

‘Yes, most; but there are still a few…’

iv.

The sea changed every night,

the color and the call,

the mass of harbored boats

strung with lights

that traced a captive swell.

‘Shall I turn on the light?’

‘Easier to look out through the dark. 

I can see the farthest reach that way.

I will know her when she comes…’

He paused to dispel a nearing cloud.

‘…and she will need no beacon.’

v.

And so the many seasons went,

and many servants in their turns,

and endless boats and sheltering stars

reflected in the slipping tides.

And staring far through forgiving dark

to feel good seas and take fair wind,

he waited on a gentle dream

now grown ever close at hand.

And in the measure of his dream

he held a gaze so patiently,

to linger long on beauty lost,

someday to find his shore again.

Abiding without place or end,

great beauty as it once had been.

Springtime at the Olduvai

© Steve King

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where brown earth

and green bush meet

unrolling to empty azure all around

the cats picnic in moving shade

painting red the sands with random feasts

while

spiraling above

great birds follow where ripe scent blooms

across revealed ages

The brown guide says

‘here is where they saw it first’

the older tourist in fresh khaki nods

(gravely)

‘they were more like monkeys yes

not so much like us’

‘oh not so much like you sir’

‘no, you will have an easy resting place

and a crowd to please you at the last

not a pack set running

at the sight of you

torn

‘or puzzling as your eyes lose their light

wondering how this all had come to pass,

wondering that you must have so displeased

the angry spirits of the grass

‘dying quick

belly pain the last sensation

birds nearer

nearer as you watch

‘no, you will have kind grasses and cool earth

and there will be no mystery of you

and no seeking after

for it will all be known

plain as may be said

between the corners

of your polished stone

‘even now for you

the birds are distant curiosities

just artifacts like all these other things

even now

seeing how it all began

seeing how it goes’

‘no sir not at all like you’

and breaching earth

the ancient rift

a piece of countenance revealed

hollow eyes

broken brow polished

from long confinement

in grinding sand

and heaving gravel bed

come again to sun

outlasting flies

and all the carrion feasts

waiting for the sands again

the shifting grave

without memory or expectation

no mercy dreams

to soften long night

or another day

another season

as much a cousin now

to all rough stones

as to the monkeys

even less to you sir

yet sir

no sir not at all

The Sacred Groves

© by Steve King

All rights reserved

The sacred groves have all been hewn to render fences, dwellings, and their neat décor,

and rafts of other transitory things that will not shimmer nor bend with the air.

Not so much for temples and their ilk; not sanctuaries nor remote retreats

to shelter mendicant reflections, or to echo with those quaint old prayers.

Gone, the children’s hiding place in sheltered fairy-bowers;

gone the shamans and their daylight charms; gone the wise birds and seers.

I’ve read that in old days, those times gone by when gods were still with us,

with powers fit to fill the ready air, their large presence would inhabit the woods;

and for the gift of hospitality they would endow the golden boughs

with full song of spirit to hymn the notes of the enlivened leaves,

bidding winds to sing; granting grace to those who dreamed as kings,

if only over those small shaded realms, if only for a moment.

And now the sacred groves are gone, and gods don’t live by ready air alone.

Vacant are those airs, and stilled the voice that echoed all around;

and scattered on the open ground, the ashes of what once were golden boughs.

Labors of Love

by Steve King

© 2010

All rights reserved

I have been reminded

many and enough ways,

that love alone will ever serve

to rectify our days.

Love is a hardening prison:

we toil in passion’s chains;

and when our term at last is spent

we seek that cell again.

Tangled in these fetters

I struggle not so much;

my torture is to languish here,

glad for my jailer’s touch.

I shall never weary

of love’s most shackling songs,

nor wonder, as you’re singing them,

to whom they next belong.

The Ruins of Troy

by Steve King

© 2010

All rights reserved

What matter'd it now?  She who made the sea move,

made it crawl with their ships; now she might well have been

just a fine polished marble, cold as that stone,

lugged off for booty, and stowed in the hold

of the man's mad desire.

Behind, the smoke rose so high o’er the plain;

and the cries of the dead rose too in the plumes,

and echoed the halls of the indifferent gods,

who heard all the groans as the gods always did:

so sated with god-love and smoke from their altars,

now giddy with griefs, and conjuring scores

to settle anon.

And the smoke and cries rose through the dark-browed clouds

long after the sails had dipped out of sight,

slipped over the edge of the smooth-seeming sea,

away from the cries and away from the smoke,

so heavy with swag, their blood-stained treasure;

and women they took, now sea-staring, weeping,

all huddled astern in the hard rocking ships.

It was all too quiet after the war years,

the blood men a-pace on the confining decks. 

They were near out of heroes, near out of their time,

out of sight of the smoke, out of sight of the land

and the army of graves laying siege to charred walls.

Away from the dark-browed clouds did they sail,

clouds carrying smoke and the cries of the dead;

beetles leaving the plague, scuttling back to their earth,

back to where it  began:  the azure-lapped land,

a twitch in the loin of the rugged spear-man.

Done

by Steve King

© 2012 

All rights reserved

I am done and gladly rise,

rub these letters from my eyes,

quell the music that abides

to stir old silence and surmise.

Finished as a guy may be,

abandoning this alchemy

of casting spells that soon reply

and howl their strange cacophony.

Noonday shadows rising high,

numbing rhythms twisting by;

idle dreams and compromise:

far past time to let it lie.

Though I’m done and gladly rise,

the dancing letters yet reprise;

the music stays, to no surprise,

to fill new silence, new surmise.

Folding close old revery

it sings occasioned certainies,

drawing forth the ancient ties

to meld with new epiphanies…

No matter that I gladly rise,

the music stays, the silence flies.

Before the Lotos Dream

by Steve King

All rights reserved

I thought that I would never be with you.

For you had always been a part of clamor—

joining tumult with a most profound

sense of peace; and you there at the center,

fending supplications with your ease,

adroit, alight, abominable tease.

I had never voice, nor had a choice,

except to watch it all, your pale hand leading

other souls in charmed communion,

one, then another, each in sacred turn,

up to a point of astonished silence,

their lips tasting the lotos of your wrist.

I wonder how it was our gazes met.

You always seemed to cast your eyes above

my station.  Where were you seeing then?

It was a darkened age, no gilding light

to mark the forming puzzle of my page.

I would not play the fool, nor strut the sage.

I worried that my presence had no gauge.

But you were well adept at listening.

Still, the furor rose around your aura:

you among what then were merely others.

Other than you and I.

I saw you step quickly out of their circle

and then were gone;  but you had shown them well.

They would embrace the spirit of your perfume,

the palpable mirage you trailed behind,

and love your idea as soon.

And then you stood

within the shadow that surrounded me.

Unbidden, you had come the unlikeliest way,

you unknown and I as yet unknowing.

Who knew why, or wanted then the question?

Now near my heart there was a sounding board,

your breast a solemn tabor for my cries:

my words now songs that will or will not soar,

but won't die borning, the old silent way.

I must hold quickly:  Somewhere in dying light,

amid the clamor that enchains them still,

I watch your clan of once-deserving souls

that sings no other dream, nor ever will.

Winter Stars

by Steve King

©  2012  All rights reserved

The sky is low with winter clouds.

I cannot see the stars;

my upturned face

at least may touch the winter sky.

I was told each star

is an unclaimed wish:

the heavens’ brilliance

a mosaic pavement

marking paths for derelict desire.

Such promises mean little.

Wishes are more free than stars—

there are longings to outweigh

a universe of light.

I have always held a star apart.

Should I see another one tonight

I know where I would ground its waiting wish.

Soon the earth will shift its heavy airs,

just the way your guarded eyes do change

to capture the next mood.

Then will the winter sky alight…

And then might old desires at last intrude.

Then shall wishes rain from winter stars.