Month: October 2021

“Sea of Trees”

On By Mike U.In Poetry9 Comments

“Sea of Trees”
(c) 2019 by Michael L. Utley

To slake my thirst
With dew from leaves that never see the light
Arboreal the tears that fall and quench
The darkest dreams

To fill my bowels
With loam whose cloying scent bespeaks of death
Arboreal the taste of living earth
My hunger begs

To see the gleam
‘Neath tenebrous shadows and rayless groves
Arboreal the blackest night in day
Below the boughs

To run rough hands
O’er scabrous bark and hardened boles and moss
Arboreal the pillars scrape the sky
In breezes weep

The silence holds
Forbidden knowledge
The silence holds
The universe
The silence holds
The truth

The path wends through
This living thing, this thing that sighs and cries
And dies and eats itself a cannibal
Whose roots betray sorrowful sentience
Whose trunks hold back the sky with anguished might
Whose limbs strain forth in melancholy pleas
A beckoning

A reckoning
The path into the gloom is just a path
With littered leaves and lichen on the rocks
And overhead the canopy to keep
The sky from falling down under the weight
Of lifetimes filled with torment and regret
It’s just a path

No need to fear
The forest welcomes me it knows my name
Envelops me in arms of somber green
It sings to me a song of silent peace
It pulls me down the path on wings of leaves
It whispers of a place where I may rest
And leads me there

There are others
Herein among the endless sea of trees
Herein among the caverns and the gulfs
Herein among the secrets and the cries
Which echo faintly in sepulchral voids
Herein where many come and none return
There are others

These are my kin
These shades that linger far beyond their time
And welcome me with soundless empty stares
And follow me along the darkling path
And shimmer as mirages in the air
And fade away as if they’d never been
Into the trees

The silence holds
Everything

Arboreal
My personal Aokigahara
My sea of trees my jade remembrance
There is a place just off the path ahead
A place of sodden leaves and broken twigs
And bitter cold that numbs away all pain
A resting place

I am not that boy who saw the sun
I have never seen the sun nor shall
I see only trees

“It’s Much Too Late”

On By Mike U.In Poetry3 Comments

“It’s Much Too Late”
(c) 2017 by Michael L. Utley

Autumn rain
Cannot slake
Summer’s thirst

It’s much too late
For yellowed grass
And barren field

Leaves which fall unseen
Litter ground in mounds
Scarlet memories

It’s much too late
For mountain leas
Devoid of hue

Flowers fade
Petals drift
On chill wind

It’s much too late
For drought-cracked earth
And bitter weeds

Which cling to parched dirt
Brittle claws succumb
Snap like frail bones

It’s much too late
This autumn rain
Which rills the ground

Sweeps away
All that’s left
Of summer

It’s much too late
To heal the wounds
Of all that’s lost

All that’s left behind
All that’s left of life
All that’s left of me

It’s much too late

“The Golden Door”

On By Mike U.In PoetryLeave a comment

“The Golden Door”
(c) 2017 by Michael L. Utley

The golden door is caked with blood
A patinated crimson tracery
Its gilded crest a filigree
Of ruined hope

There is a sense of something there
Beyond this barrier intransigent
A light a balm a restful place
But not for me

What lies beyond is out of reach
No matter how I pound my broken fists
Upon that door immutable
I can’t get in

My voice grown hoarse, I cannot call
Aloud, my screams which echoed through the years
Are silenced now, a whispered wheeze
Is all that’s left

The gulf that separates two shores
Impassable, impossible; a leap
Too great for wretched mortal minds
And riven souls

What have I ever done to earn
The wrath of all creation? Even stars
That light the velvet void grow dim
Regarding me

With pale scornful eyes, the moon
A frigid face inscrutable, its gaze
A blazing condemnation of
My life’s disgrace

And still I stand at golden door
With bleeding hands balled into angry fists
And pound away as stinging tears
Burn blinded eyes

In futile faith that things will change
Before I can no longer will myself
To fight this fruitless battle and
Abandon hope

That something better lies beyond
The golden door

“My Jade Remembrance”

On By Mike U.In Poetry2 Comments

“My Jade Remembrance”
(c) 2019 by Michael L. Utley

I used to know you
9,000 tears ago
A tear for every mile
That kept me from you
A tear for every moment
Not spent with you
A tear for every hope
Not shared with you
9,000 tears

A jade remembrance
For my brown-eyed love
A dusky green heart
On a silver chain
I keep in my pocket
It was for you
Everything was for you
Everything I had
Everything gone except
My jade remembrance

You were already dead
Before I ever met you
Your path etched in stone
I was just a detour
A distraction on your way
Into darkness
A temporary reprieve
An unplanned respite
For the lost girl
The girl who would learn to fly
Or die trying

And I was the lost boy
The boy who had
Never seen the sun
Until I saw you
The boy whose shattered heart
Had one last beat for you
A final crescendo for my
Brown-eyed love

I couldn’t fix you
You weren’t broken
You were destroyed
Crushed by the weight of
Damnation
Hounded by demons
Unknown to me
Yet you smiled at me
And pulled me from
My own abyss
And I loved you

My jade remembrance
Are you still there
Did you close your eyes
And take that leap of faith
Did you learn to fly
Or did you die trying
You didn’t just take your life
You took mine too

I keep your heart in my pocket
On a silver chain

“Ripples”

On By Mike U.In Poetry2 Comments

“Ripples”
(c) 2017 by Michael L. Utley

There are no ripples
On this frozen pond
The puk-puk-puk of
The pebble
Skittering on iced skin
Dampened by
Frost-thick air
Breath caught short
In lung-numbed gasps
Silent words
Suspended
In wintry sighs
Eyes pools of
Frigid tear-prisms
Bitter empty gelid rainbows
Where are you

You missed our flight to Tokyo
The cherry blossoms whispered your name
As Fuji, incurious and remote
Gazed white-helmed
At my solitary shadow
My empty hand
Holding more of you
Than my heart could bear
We did not walk
Beneath flicker-flamed
Paper lanterns
On blood-red bridges
Spanning koi ponds
Under the spring moon
The rising sun
Sought to kiss your cheek
But was denied
As I was denied

You missed auroras
Over Iceland
The Arctic colder
In your absence
The night sky draped
In shimmering iridescent
Thought
The emerald musings of some distant god
Snagged in dark desolation
My own thoughts of you
Caught in my own
Desolation

You missed the candent sands
Of Morocco
Capricious zephyrs
Erasing my footprints
In a desert bereft of
Your footprints
We did not dance
In the summer swelter
Beneath date palms
And stars that sought
To light your way
But failed
Your body absent
In my arms
The scent of your hair
A distant memory which
Hot breezes scatter
In the night

You missed our train
To the Rockies
Where larkspur and columbine
Awaited you with open arms
And later mourned in silence
My singular form without you
By my side
We did not hold hands in
Flower-burst mountain meadows
Azure lakes reflected only
My lone countenance
As conifers murmured
Demurely in cool breezes
Wondering if you
Would ever arrive

You missed our drive
Through New England hills
Autumn maple and hemlock
A conflagration burning for you
Yearning for you
The birches and beeches smoldering
In my heart
Red-orange-gold leaves
Suiciding in silent sadness
Loneliness wearing my face
Stalks these woods
You are nowhere to be found

You missed my arrival
In Singapore
The airport a swarm
Of faces
A blur of oceanic humanity
As I searched for one safe harbor
One stormless island
In this storm of chaos
Your face
A lighthouse to guide me home
Your beacon never appearing
No fog horn guiding me safely
Through treacherous surf
Your bottomless brown eyes
Nowhere
Your smile cut roughly from this mural
Missing
A ragged hole where you should be
In my life

Perhaps you were a
Phantom
All along

Puk-puk-puk
No ripples on this frozen pond
Not enough pebbles remain
To last until springtime thaw
One ripple is all I ask
One ripple to finally reach you
I’ll save a pebble
Just in case

“In Time to Come”

On By Mike U.In PoetryLeave a comment

“In Time to Come”
(c) 2017 by Michael L. Utley

She had that look about her again
Eyes like chips of coruscating amber
Caught in the westering sun
Her over-there gaze snagged
On some distant memory
Like thorn-caught thread
Hands prim and pale
In her denim lap
Amid foxtails and dandelions
And oak shadows

Things move too fast
When they move too slowly
The heat that summer was unbearable
A bludgeon wielded by a chrome sky
Its merciless swath pounding
Everyone everything into submission
We were not spared

I could reach toward her forever
And never touch her
I’ll tell you in time to come, she’d say
Her tired smile dying before
It reached her eyes
Time to come never coming
Never time enough
Time running out

Let’s sit and enjoy the shade, she’d say
The sun slipping languidly
Into oblivion
Her face haloed
In a warm orange aura
My ephemeral love
Ensconced in flames
Flickering
Flickering

Broken pieces of her
Litter the oak-shadowed grass
One touch and she’d shatter
One embrace and she’d be
All over the place
Delicate balance was
The ruse of muses who
Knew nothing of reality
Who knew nothing of
Love and sickness
And the terrible nectar
Of the tainted honeysuckle

Even the birds are quiet

There is no darkness
As black as love
No pit as plumbless
As that filled with regret
Her brown eyes
Smiling and weeping at once
Succumbing to demons
Unknown to me
So much of her slate blank
Her portrait only half-finished
Before the paint dried out
And the canvas rent asunder

Broken pieces of her
Litter the oak-shadowed grass
I used to collect them
Their razor edges
Slicing my hands bloody
Only a few remain
Among the foxtails and dandelions
Her voice only an echo now
I’ll tell you in time to come

“The Farm”

On By Mike U.In Poetry6 Comments

“The Farm’
© 2021 by Michael L. Utley

Nighthawks scream
With evening’s descent
They know the truth
Black god’s-eyes
See everything
From salmon-hued
Heaven
As wings fold
Bird-bombs dive
Preying on the
Prayerless
Powerless
Oblivious
Strident-throated
Shrieks
A mindless alien-avian
Warning
Turn back
There is no hope here

Across the fallow field
Elk bugle mournfully in
Twilight cacophony
A hundred dim smudges
Herding in
Paranoid precision
Against the dusty dun of
Evening’s solemn soliloquy
Scatter
Coagulate
Statue-still
Amidst dusk ground-mist
Trumpet-cries betray blind fear
A prose of unearthly moans
As pinyon-sage-scented breeze
Lifts this omen skyward
Turn back
There is no hope here

Dead-yellow foxtails
And cheatgrass
Bend
Break
As I pass
A sickly meadow of
Thin-boned weeds
And cloying sage
Crackling underfoot as
Stickers pin-cushion
Socks and shoelaces
Ground beetles
And spiders flee
Stupidly
Languidly
Dissolve into
Cracked earth
Disappear
Each footstep
Dust-choke-inducing
The shrill trill of crickets
Distant
Distracted
Dispassionate
They know, too
Turn back, they sing
There is no hope here

A skeleton crew of
Haggard, stunted trees
Stands sentinel
Against the coming darkness
Pinyons felled by
Insidious Ips beetles
Squat
Naked
Bony
Sap-dried cones
Long dead
Among carpets of
Desiccated yellowed needles and
Sparrow-emptied pine nut shells
Tinder awaiting a wildfire
Fragrant junipers stand
Amidst dead-berry piles in
Shaggy bark-suits
Peeling like scorched dusty
Sun-burnt skin
Swarming with black ants
Pungent piss-scent
Overwhelming as
Paper-bark crawls
In the shadows
The subliminal hiss of an
Errant breeze
Wheezes dark portents
Among barkless boughs
Turn back
There is no hope here

Muffled yips and
Strangled howls
Ride chilly currents from
Far obscure fields
As coyotes practice
Weird secret sorcery
In the gloaming
The cries of the damned
Of pain
Of madness
Of red-eyed tricksters
In shadow-garb
Preparing for midnight hunts
And the tearing of flesh
Yellow grins reeking of
Fear and dead meat
Champ and drool as
Festivities draw near
Their primal chaos-chorus
Announcing to all
Turn back
There is no hope here

In hushed
Sepulchral silence
Muted coos of
Mourning doves
Float softly in
Penitential pleas
Stillness magnifying
Lilting lamentation
Grief too much to bear
Their sorrow-song
An ache that
Never ends
Unmendable
Rends hearts
Cleaves souls
Tears flow
Unknowingly
Purity and
Sadness
Immeasurable loss
A calming balm
Inadequate to heal
All that ails
Ineffectual against
Forces of fear
Reduced to a
Whispered admonition
Turn back
There is no hope here

The broken garden gate
Aslant on rusted hinges
Unleveling the horizon
Of faded, ephemeral corn stalks
And rotting squash-husks
A tangle of ancient weeds
And briar bushes
Encases this bleak place
Age-drained of all
Color and scent
Poisonous soil
Long since emptied of life
Only dead things grow here
Rows of sorrow
Trellises of despair
A forlorn bounty of
Loss and regret
A stilled silence
Proclaiming
Turn back
There is no hope here

The house
A gray thing
Hunched against
The gloom of
Bruise-tinted sky
Like some
Feral beast
Skull-socket eyes
Peer
Blackly
Blindly
Balefully
Through diseased elms
As cement tongue lolls
Cracked and pitted
From front door
To yard gate
Lawn only a distant memory
Weed-choked
Littered with
Shattered window glass
And random roof shingles

Silence

Stillness

It’s been years
Since I was here
Since I fled
Since that day
The monster was real then
The fear was real
And it’s been with me
All the while

Concrete dust crunches
Bone-like underfoot
I reach the front door
Push through a
Latticework of spider-silk
Filled with memories
So many memories
Dust and the scent of
Ancient mildew
Rotting wood
Hang in mote-filled air
It’s smaller now
Empty
Hollow
Ceiling plaster
Coats rotting carpet
In a patina of snow
Water-stained drywall
Bent and bulging
My room is there
Dark and cobwebby
Kitchen
Sisters’ bedroom
Parents’ room
Bathroom
Everything accounted for
Except the monster

There is no hope here
Dead monsters leave
Memory echoes
Down the years
A legacy of pain and fear
And while there is
No monster here
Neither is there reason
For rejoicing
This place is dead
Just like my father
The monster
Nothing will ever be
As it was
So much lost
Still more buried in
Dark locked crates
In my mind
I look around
One final time
Then make my way
Out the door
And into the night

It’s time to leave
The farm behind

“For Bonobo”

On By Mike U.In Poetry4 Comments

“For Bonobo”
(c) 2016 by Michael L. Utley

I used to know a Bonobo
Who had a silly a grin
And every time I’d say “Hello”
He’d kick me in the shin

I’d feed him whey and kidney pie
It made his tummy sore
And when I’d tuck him into bed
He’d bite and scream and roar

He played guitar and learned to sing
A monkey tour de force
And afterwards could barely talk
His voice was much too hoarse

And then that fateful day arrived
When monkey ran away
To seek his fortune on the road
To be a man someday

The years have passed like faded leaves
That fall from solemn elms
I sit alone on evening porch
As sadness overwhelms

I watch the west as sun slips down
And stars alight the sky
Will Bonobo come home someday
To visit you and I?

Then hark! What’s that? A hirsute form
That gambols down the lane?
It’s Bonobo, my monkey friend
He’s coming home again!

He shares his tales of travels far
O’er whey and kidney pie
And plays guitar and sings his songs
With twinkles in his eye

And then it’s time to part again
My monkey friend and me
“I’ll come again another time,
I shall return, you’ll see!”

And so I’ll wait until that day
With happiness and glee
When Bonobo, my monkey friend
Comes back to visit me

“The Flower”

On By Mike U.In PoetryLeave a comment

“The Flower”
© 2014 by Michael L. Utley

A flower grows in distant land
Whose sweet perfume anoints the soul
Whose silken petals soothe the hand
Of he who seeks to understand
And reaches outward to console

This flower fair whose beauty hides
Such painful mem’ries of the past
Whose leaflets tremble in the tides
Of raindrop tears that course the sides
Of crying blossoms overcast

By fearsome thunderclouds above
And zephyrs cold that beat and rend
All things this flower’s come to love
With nothing but a mourning dove
To lament flower’s bitter end

Yet…

A gentle hand, a warm caress
On melancholy flower’s face
A touch of simple tenderness
By miracle can convalesce
A heavy heart and can replace

A broken soul with life anew
And joy that was there once before
May dapple petals in the dew
Of mornings bright with strength renewed
With blossoms glowing evermore

A flower grows in distant land
Whose sweet perfume anoints the soul
And any rainstorm shall withstand
And live in peace in meadowland
No longer lost; in hope made whole

(for Lizzy)

“The Apple Tree”

On By Mike U.In Poetry7 Comments

“The Apple Tree”
© 2013 by Michael L. Utley

The apple tree
Behind the house
Has long ago
Stopped bearing fruit

It stands alone
In sickness bold
Half its branches
Dead or dying

Leaves the hue
Of summers past
Defy the sun
The pouring rain

Bound there in
White-knuckled grip
On mournful twigs
On listless boughs

As autumn fades
The leaves succumb
Each one a
Small gold suicide

Each gilded drop
A dying spark
A universe now
Mute in death

No one knows
This apple tree
Behind the house
A secret world

Where eons pass
And ages fade
Unknown to all
Except to me

And chilly sun
And hurried cloud
And thoughtless bird
And bitter breeze

The pristine snow
Has covered all
A silent shroud
Has fallen here

An icy dirge
A funeral pall
As winter metes
A healing balm

In sanguine hope
That springtime sun
Will summon forth
The apple tree

But even so
It saddens me
This futile thing
This apple tree

That cannot see
It matters not
If life abounds
When living hurts

To live alone
Infirm and weak
While bony fingers
Seek the sky

And wretched leaves
In breezes weep
And shattered dreams
Litter the ground

In autumn piles
Of yellow dross
That go unseen
And fade away