Fragment
Fragment 2110
I stroked once a rose petal soft as your skin;
it grew beside a brook so clear it shone
that precise color your eyes have
in common with the moss that grows
on rounded stones – its voice was
more musical than yours, and more
constant. I recall a school of small fish
clouding the green as though thoughts
behind your eyes. Longing is like this:
an attempt to grasp any particular
handful of water from that running stream,
only to find hands cold and wet
and the stream never the same . . .
winter froze it over, the fish are hidden;
when shall come the spring and thaw,
or is this moment a longing prison?
David M Pitchford
1 February 2010
New Manuscript
Howdy folks. Thanks for dropping in.
I am working on a new manuscript of poems, and I would like your help. Please drop me a comment or a line telling me what poem(s) from my blog (or others of which you know) you think should see publication in a book of poems. This invitation is of course to any and all who drop in to read and offer an opinion.
Your input is greatly appreciated!
David
Last Room on the Left
Walking Within Empty Rooms
He can’t seem to help himself. Compulsion.
This ten by fourteen room his prison, his
sanctuary. He comes to pray, he comes
to rant and petition God and himself:
God grant me the serenity . . . to find
new solutions; the courage . . . to use them;
and the wisdom . . . to know what works. Forgive!
That lonesome word the litany ever
on defeated lips—within his aching
heart. He holds faith that God forgives, and yet
he clings to self-scorn as though unable—
by constitution or weakness of will,
there is no telling—to forgive himself.
God, grant me the serenity . . . to let
go this insanity before it kills;
the courage . . . to value this gift called life.
David M Pitchford
30 December 2009
Farewell to Harms
Farewell, My Love
One final sonnet to say farewell, Love.
Final chamber of my heart closing late
against a past of failure and mayhem.
So good the days of sunshine with you, so
sad the clouded day. I loved you not well
always, yet not always badly. I loved
you with all I was for those fair times I
did, and yet love was not enough. We loved
as though we invented the concept, we
loved as though no vengeful god could tear us
apart; we loved as though love was our final
defense against life’s cruelties. And yet
it came about that our own surpassed what
life might throw our way. So, farewell my Love.
29 December 2009
David M Pitchford
A Souvenir Unbrurnt
9 August 2001
Last night I searched my soul’s swirling maelstrom,
seeking memories of bliss some time prior
to madness, some precious point before now
before the bottle’s betrayal. It came
smelling of Chicago rain. Where did we stay;
was it the Carpenter House? I like to
think so. Trivia and beers, dinner at
Timothy O’Toole’s. And afterward,
delighted romp in a sudden downpour,
our walk in the rain back to that hotel.
What was the date? What year? Recollection
escaped me until this morning, pulling
Stanley Kunitz off the shelf—Passing Through—
that precious receipt marks a sweet poem.
David M Pitchford
17 December 2009
Poems Between Lovers
After the Vows: Poems Between Lovers
Available now via Diminuendo Press (and the usual places).
You are not Orpheus
You are not Orpheus, love, nor would I
have you be, and I will not slip in to
Hades hands. Understand my love is new
even when mundane is the order of
the day and I wish for words of passion
and wit. My days are incomplete without
a kiss from your lips, in a smile or pout.
Fanciful dreams in romantic fashion
still find their way into the world around
me, but now my prince has a face I can see
and when I look in your eyes, I see me.
My name in your voice is sweeter, I say
more musical than any poetry,
or song, Orpheus ever thought to play.
Siobhan M Pitchford
Aphrodite in Your Shadow
So well you take me as I am. I fear
to imagine what would be should that fair-
fortuned force that fogs your eyes suddenly
shed the scales that put me in your vision
as you describe it. I see no such man
within my mirror, but thank the heavens
that you see me so. And how do I see
you? Aphrodite shone as bright, I’m sure,
yet your steadfast nature is earth scented,
unlike Venus’s too fickle fragrances,
therefore so much the more desirable.
Yet, how can I compare you and be fair
when she is myth and you of fleshly make
she I wonder of—you I worldly hold.
David M Pitchford
Hardwired Humanity: Cyberwizard Productions
The storyalone , “Shadow”, excerpted on the publisher’s webpage, is worth the cover price . And yet, there’s so much more to enjoy. Her first story struck me as a more mature version of something out of a Heavy Metal movie. Her scenes are clearly enough depicted to recall numerous movies; her pacing never lags for overabundant description. It’s a quick read for those who want a quick read. For those of us who like to wade in deeper waters, there’s plenty here to start more than a few deep philosophical ponderings and discussions.
“Shadow” is definitely the best novelette I’ve read this year.
David M Pitchford
Father to Son
Letter to My Son
Something I want you to understand:
Words are merely words!
I’ve said a great many words to you
I hope a select few
have sunk in,
touched you to your core
reinforced the bulwarks of your selfhood
I hope many more
have watershed
rain off a duck’s wings
However;
I know
you, no duck, are
a thunderbird!
nor no mere swan.
What I really want
you to understand:
words are as important
as you take them to be.
In awe I have ever been
both of you
and your brother
your quicksilver wit
your abilities to comprehend
complex topics
some intellectual
others emotional and ambiguous
My point:
I want you to trust
yourself, son
your reason
your thoughts
your knowledge
your intuition.
Tumultuous turmoil will occur
over coming months
unforeseen years
entire lives . . .
David M Pitchford
9 December 2008
Caveat
Caution to Readers
My heart knows of despair,
my mind keenly perceives tragedy.
Lines I write speak of these many
black moments, these desolations.
And yet the light in my eyes remains,
for they recognize as well each silver
lining, each lesson to learn of failure,
each hope concealed in shadow:
it is the heart’s purpose to pump blood
out into the world, to bleed into life,
and it is also the heart’s purpose to pump
blood from the world into the flesh
that the flesh might recover, might heal,
might retain its ruddy resilience.
David M Pitchford
17 April 2009
Love that Was
What was True No More
It really happened. All that happened was
real. Though we experience so much life
within our imaginations, it is
the sharing that lends us that which to call
real—consensus reality—we felt
what we felt, knowing what we learned as we
went along together. Love and life and
all that accompanied these. But changes
come along with life, define life, present
choices—some we make better than others . . .
Love did not change; it abides still despite
separation. But conditions evolved
into distances that seem unbridgeable—
“irreconcilable” the term of ending.
David M Pitchford
9 June 2009
Super FREE spec fiction ezine
http://www.cyberwizardproductions.com/AbandonedTowers
If you haven’t check out Abandoned Towers, now is a great time to become a regular browser and supporter!
Swimming through Stone
Swimming Through Stone
“The drowned cannot swim” and yet drowning comes
harder than once thought. That whiskey river
flowed deep and fast—twenty years swimming drunk
through three marriages and more affairs than
any man should curse himself with, and you
were my rock, my respite buoy and lifeline—
I tried to drown to protect you from me,
but courage failed. Living that way—dead end—
thinking you’re drowned only to find yourself
swimming through stone, heart and mind in the grave
while your stubborn soul clings to earthly life . . .
longing for death, sinking in denial
and swimming against granite grain, we strain
toward life, striving to sober up and live.
19 October 2009
David M Pitchford
Too Late the Echo
When the Echoes Die
For months I clung to that hope: “No such thing
as too late . . .” Its echo the gravity
holding me close to that old orbit. Now
its echoes die away if not into
impossibility, then into slim
probability. Lost outside her light,
I listen for hints of hope, search shadows
within shadows without knowing not what
these distances hold outside love’s orbit.
“No such thing as too late . . .” echoes far
off, trailing into the past—such thing as
too late . . . these echoes die . . . and now spinning
into outer darkness, swallowed by these
shadows of my own making, I hear, “. . . too late . . .”
Daivd M Pitchford
18 November 2009
True, Love
True, Love
Question not love, my love, nor doubt our love;
love was always true between me and you,
was truth and Truth and remains ever—Love,
my love, was our mutual sky, star-filled
and glorious, lifting us beyond our
limits of self toward higher potentials.
Yes, love, our simplest truth was love itself,
organic though eternal immortal
despite our mortality—
enter here
Eden’s serpent and our fall, ejection
from paradise: love failed not us, nor we
failed love . . . it was relationship and trust
betrayed that came to part us, grew into
that sword-bearing angel standing between.
David M Pitchford
23 November 2009
The Foil-gilded Chain
Letting It All Fall Away
It’s a matter of living day by day:
embracing the now, dumping this baggage
salvaged from seasons past, exile’s luggage,
heavy loads—letting it all fall away
for the sake of living life day to day,
stowaway on Life’s ferry—no passage
but the willingness . . . no need for courage
or remorse. Letting it all fall away.
Encumbrance of the past weighs too heavy,
an anchor tied with a foil-gilded chain
to memory, fault, failures, guilts that go on,
and unrealized potential heavy
as lead and precious as gold—and as pain—
Let it all fall away now; life goes on.
David M Pitchford
24 November 2009
To unwound wounding words
What Words Return
Could I take back every word, I would not:
oh, but what wondrous comfort we might find
in more recent words recanted, but mind
you selective extraction we cannot
accomplish. Could I but, I would plot
the demise of all hurts those words might bind
to you—what a fool, I, to strike out blind,
stupid though not dumb, damned rebellious sot . . .
Could I exchange each cruel word one rose,
a garden of gloried blooms to blush fair
Babylon I’d build. But my voice falls still,
longing for a song fair enough that grows
from a heart so grossly kept unkempt. Dare
I utter more; or fear that speaking’s ill?
David M Pitchford
8 December 2009
Moonlight Poem
Reflecting on the Moonlight
Golden glory crowns her, yet she cannot
see herself in glory, for she is the moonlight
and lingers within shadowed orchards
dancing among trees clad in seasons’ array
too often seeing more the darkness
than her own luminescence
And I, dry drunkard poet, admonish
her: remember that you are beautiful
never knowing when she might
realize that words are not empty
platitudes, but magic spells cast
at midnight to glamour the moon.
Ugly, they say, goes to the bone
but beauty, I say, shines from the spirit
to illuminate the minds and hearts of all.
14 January 2010
David M Pitchford
Carved in Imagination’s Sky
Thinking About Elizabeth
Is it your hair, your eyes, your luscious
laughter? What was it got me so caught
up in you, Elizabeth? I think you know
I think I know, but it’s hard to define
that peculiar lift of life, a bright of eye
and lilt of voice that feels like brooks
bubbling down the Rockies
or bubbles tumbling up the flute sides
to announce the essences of champagne
and Napoleon Brandy. But it’s more
so much more . . . acceptance, and a joy
so innocent and bright that I cannot
thinking of you now, believe that evil
could exist within, say, 950 miles of you.
And I know it is you, but more, I know
it is the ideal of you, the romanticized
image I created of you—built on real
bedrock facts of your smile, twinkle of eye,
sparkle of laughter, and lightness of being.
You’re . . . how far away now? And I am here.
Perhaps someday . . . but I am tethered to today;
if I ever grow up, I want to meet another
lady like you—like this portrait of you
I’ve carved in my dreams and sky.
David M Pitchford
12 May 2009 (rev. 13 January 2010)
Competing Addictions
Whiskey & Writing
“What makes you happy,” she asks.
“Whiskey & writing,” I reply.
“I suggest more of the latter,” she says,
trying to sound neutral though her bias
is obvious (thinks I’m a lush).
“Yeah,” I agree, apathetic, “it’s cheaper.”
“And?” She stares at me, expectant.
“Healthier?” A fiendish grin tickles
the corners of my mouth, suddenly
dry and wanting for the rich, full flavor
of Pendleton’s or Bulliett Bourbon.
“Much,” she agrees with a nod.
“What depresses you?” she asks.
“Whiskey and writing,” I tell her.
“How’s that?” Her right eyebrow arches.
“Seems there’s never enough,” I reply.
“Whiskey or writing?”
“Yes.”
“Do you prefer them together, or . . . ?”
Indecision grips me, pinches my lips
together. She awaits reply, pretentiously patient.
“Not really,” my mouth lies. “Whiskey
and writing don’t go so well
together. It dulls the senses too much.”
“What else makes you happy?”
“Poetry and cognac.”
“Together or separate?”
“Yes.”
“What are your plans?”
“No plans,” I shrug. “Goals and
ambitions maybe. No plans as such.”
“What ambitions?”
“Whiskey and writing, cognac and poetry.”
“Reading or writing?”
“Yes.”
David M Pitchford
13 May 2009
David M Pitchford
a few favorite poets
Blogroll
Poetry
Rank my Blog
