Fluid Love

A liquid, fluid love

that flows from heart to heart

in rivers fast and thick,

to carry out to sea

in current unopposed,

our leisure deep and blue,

a bottom, endless falls,

nor reckless we return

to shore where loveless stand

to stare with painful risk

at we who have no fear

to drown as one with arms

around no one but us.


©Eusebeia Philos 2013

A poem of iambic trimeter written for dVerse Poets ~ Open Link Night #107

Breeze

Let the breeze blow through,

blow through you,

cleansing in the corners,

clearing from within,

the old that's stayed

for far too long,

taking stock what to

throw in the air, to be

carried away to the

swarming arms of fate,

the new needs the room,

welcome it now as the

same wind-tides carry

your scented imports,

something novel, foreign

delights, from high across

untraveled boundaries

to your open door,

make space, receive it,

let the breeze blow through,

blow through you.

©Eusebeia Philos 2013

Speck In My Whiskey

A dot of a speck
floats casually
in my small,
clear glass
of aged whiskey,
a tiny bug
with a long,
tongue-tied
Latin name
that I surely
cannot pronounce,
but can
easily
swallow.


©Eusebeia Philos 2013

My Old Dog

He mostly lies around
on concrete or green grass
and clover, avoiding the bees
that favor the same spot,
stiffly getting up to change
position, circling around
a foot away, surveying the yard
til all is secure, dropping down
in hesitating steps, deciding
whether to lie on his white belly,
snout resting on his fore paws,
or roll over with a satisfied grunt
to his side, listening with
his ear to the ground.
It's always one or the other.


©Eusebeia Philos 2013

Another Pond

It sits naturally in the
low land of these rolling
hills, surrounded by acres
of corn, beans and oats -
the pond is quiet
except when the frogs begin
their call and answer serenade
around dusk, after the 
dragonflies have buzzed
out for the day, and swallows
still perform maneuvers,
swooping at speedy angles
to intercept the flying bugs
in open space; cat tails
and crack willows make it
their home, as do I
when the mirror-like surface
pleads to reveal a deeper
truth than the grasses
will tell; staring into its
spring-fed depth, I see
the heavens above and their
submerged secrets eager
to speak a hidden story.


©Eusebeia Philos 2013

Written for dVerse Poets Pub ~ Water, Water Everywhere

Harvest

Last harvest,

the fields cleared,

cut short to the

soil and rocks,

it's when I first

felt your blade

in my roots.

©Eusebeia Philos 2013

Accusations

Can I still protect you
from your self hurt,
can I ever guard you
when the accusations
you hear are not 
spoken by me, but come
through the restless
dreams of a young woman,
an old vision that grows
wispier by the year,
speaks more stridently,
pleading for one last
embodiment before she
separates completely from
your soul, absorbed into
the routine of life that
keeps chaos outside the
family gate. This fragile
empire you rule inside of you
divides itself into the voices
of your lost past, each shouting 
out wishes and commands
for the day and the hour,
impossible to please.


©Eusebeia Philos 2013

Flight

Oh, I know of wings
and their power
to move, to take
up air, to hover in decision,
whether to come nearer
or fly further away.


©Eusebeia Philos 2013

Someone Had To Change

Long days ago, early in the union,
in our bedroom (mine as a single),
on a box spring and mattress
low to the floor,
a panel of the Taj Mahal
screwed to the wall behind,
a headboard perhaps,
the opposit wall had
a bamboo curtain
hinting at another way out,
eastern tapestry hung across
four corners of the ceiling
like a net full of the day's catch.
It was my retreat.
She sat cross-legged on the bed
and lit into me over some trivial
matter, amplified by
lunar cycles
emotional demons
family histories
full of failed daddy days
where are you
Gone gone GonE
mommy control issues
NOW i said
mocking sisters mocked
in their mocking mimicry
decibels rising and falling
the world falling apart...
I was mesmerized
not looking away,
rubber-necking my own high speed
crash on the autobahn.
It was my first time,
so I might have attempted
reason before parts of me
receded into the walls
and ceiling, and I was
looking at the scene
from far away,
knowing now
the wisdom of
subverting
myself
to keep the
precious peace.


©Eusebeia Philo 2013

Neighbor

Better change your ways,

I hear the Teacher say,

when we question
who our neighbor is,

not just the dude in the pew

who sings like you,

off key and all,

or professors and their

obedient sheep tuned to

the classroom sermon,

all those in faithful repetition,

appear alike,
sound the same,

uniform in the outrageous

dress of the same tribe as you,

no that won't do,
get up and

cross the road that splits

your comfort from your disgust,

and do for others

what you do for yours,

clean up their bloody mess,

stash a few bucks in their pocket,

and promise to check back

till they're on their feet,

and ready to be

your neighbor, too.

©Eusebeia Philos 2013

Wandering

Stepping around the corner,
off the curb, into the street of
onrushing traffic, to hold hands with
a specter of loneliness, promising
the morning's sweet dew,
breakfast on the veranda,
for a night of walking dark paths,
imbibing distant thoughts.
A distinct vagueness lingers on her lips,
limbs engulfing, decency snared for
later release. Come wander with me
to find our way back,
we don't have far to go,
just out of sight.


©Eusebeia Philos 2013

No Signs

Tell me it's true
this road,
this one,
will arrive on time
to where high, lazy fly balls
drift to the warning track and
die happily in the
arms of jealous lovers,
our happily kept
appointments.

Motion far ahead
catches my eye.
It's soundless,
that far away movement,
it draws and shuffles
my feet in fits
of anti-climactic sprints that
whimper to heavy sighs,
pauses to stop and look
around to measure and define
my place.

Any happy markers
willing to oblige
the gazing questions,
a pilgrim for a sign
screaming continue
or turn here.
For the days picked up
by the astral wind
have blown from
front to back and
lie like sediment
in the ancient stratum.

It's unfamiliar
where I stand,
the vista spinning
through me,
though I've breathed
the dust of this trail
for the life of an
ephemeral eternity.
Forever wants to die
when the hand that guides
slips back into the sky,
covered by escorting clouds.

This open road has become the sign that directs.


©Eusebeia Philos 2013

A Place

I'm going to a place, maybe
more, where I never thought
I'd go,

it's beyond your understanding,
from the clicking room where
morse code is sent to a digital world
that only hears your foot tapping on
the floor, looking out the window
for a ride.

I've gone places I never thought I'd go,

once you went away, it
seemed the natural way, not
to follow, but to search for
you in places where I knew
you wouldn't be, to find the
one who'd never leave and
was waiting there for me.

I'm gone, in a place where I belong,

piano raptures and jazz riffs,
improvised solo with musical words,
materialize in sun-bleached shadows
of novel suspense, creation lives
to its name in endless growth,
and the soul feeds and gives
with no remorse for living in
a crescendo of delight.

Your distance makes this place
unreachable, so a postcard
is on its way to you,

from this place where I am at.


©Eusebeia Philos 2013

Burning Ship

What would my life look like
if I ran this ship into the shore,
grounding and burning it to the hull,
looking on in hypnotic terror and
something close to absolute freedom,
to explore this new land,
beyond the foaming rocks
and salty tasting spray,
foreign with new life,
the taste of unnamed fruits
running in the deep brush,
burning under the
high sun of a new land
with no way home,
maybe to stand in the warm sand,
empty my pockets
and throw the old ways
into the ebbing tide,
carried back to where
they mean something,
not here,
not now,
not ever again,
smelling the charred wood
of my native tree
in this chosen land.

Tall Ships 1 & 2

#1

the ship turns
maneuvers to
a broadside
exposed
portside
each gun fires at will
searching for
the blow to
end the battle

#2

she's a warship
a feminine killer
languid on gentle blue
ready to snort
pungent clouds
of hot metal
deadly flowers
to greet her
adversary

©Eusebeia Philos 2013

These two micro-poems were initially written as tweets while visiting a Tall Ships festival on the Great Lakes. A naval battle enactment was part of the festivities. I ran out of characters and could not include the hashtag #TallShips. So, here they reside.

Restraint

It's on my mind by hours
times days, a back pulse of
my universe, a subtle
vibration, the extent of my
reach into her life, what is
proper when the past grasps
at the present, when the
future calls to follow, how
does one stop when energy
redirects to the slow
push/pull of momentum from
opposite sides of what's
between us, when hooks are
set, connections made, when
goodbyes might, should happen.
It's her nature to be free to
say what I only think.
I restrain the deep me on the
scent of this exotic fragrance,

staying just out of her reach

knowing if we touch we will

fall together
unrestrained


©Eusebeia Philos 2013

I Read Her My Poem

It was a risk, I knew it
before I opened my mouth,
to read her my poem about
'explosions in life,' a simple
metaphor, and how they
open up 'mineshafts to
words in the deep.' She
gave a shake of her head
with a tilt, so I read
again this time slower,
working on my
enunciation because the
problem has to be my
smothering of the words
with my tongue. She said
nothing and had the vague
expression of being lost, so
I tried one more time with
changes of inflection and
tone. Still no reply or
change of expression, so
another time I tried,
begging for comprehension.
There would be no fifth for she
picked up her kindle and
began reading on the deck
in the sun, and I went
inside to write another
poem for myself.


©Eusebeia Philos 2013