kitchen concert

last hot dish
toweled dry
stacked neat
a strong cup brewed

novice brings
Brother Ollie his guitar
tunes it up good
strums soft
slow
feeling it out

songs come
 Neil, Gord, Bruce
build up big
power chords
gutsy blue rhythms

solid kitchen concert

power

dark dreams

the last knife finally drops
no longer pinning shoulder blade robes
clanks to the ground
     done
an era ends

then one new keen blade flashes
stabs to the face

 monk jumps up
bedding flies
               3:37

brews tea
waits by the window
for dawn

one poet

his robes
gone
shaved head
grown in
sacred vows
forgotten

paths
don't cross
songs
left unsung
jokes
undelivered

in community
no more
yet connected
by poems

lingering

the monk waits
leaves the key turned
to that one power click
just enough to keep
the radio running

parking lot lingers
'til the last strains
of a beautiful song

gather

drawer tossed notebooks
beat up dog-eared n'good

binders jammed with poems
coffee ringed beauties

rumpled ragged songs
guitar case gems

loose and worn
my fallen, folded words

 - she says    gather
          gather them all
and find
   the narrative thread

ax

hammering thunder cracks echo
out back of the temple
ax explodes into wood
            it is good you know
            timber splits nice in this cold

the tired monk swings
   and swings again
logs n'planks smashed to motes

on forest monks

bike path is choked
push on
climbing over windrow trees

looking for signs, clues
some remnant of the old forest monks
     friends

a few planks from a broken bridge
   tea pot full of muddy rain water weeds
a roofless shack, and a fallen chair

they've moved on
good as lost
beyond this forest deep