Month: May 2016

In Search

Thespian Drummer


In spite of all
That I have chosen
Along the path
Of my own heart
Eclipsed by the
Shattered dreams
Of my own Way,
I have never wavered
From the sanctity
Of our friendship
Nor its precious
Innocence and clarity.
This vision
I will hold for eternity
That line of purity
Connecting me
To the One True Self
Of who I was
And at its other end
There is only you
Who witnessed my birth
By way of Blind Naïveté
And utter self-forgiveness.
There, I (we)
Walked through a door
Of what was otherwise
A deserted path
That led to Now
And once again,
I am whole.

© K. James Ribble

Galatians Knew

Thespian Drummer

Building temples Galatia saw fit to idolize Augustus
In a gesture to show loyalty
Whereas my own heart builds a monument to Love
As a motion to embrace the only God I will ever know

I dedicate that building that venerable structure
To my loving Father who brought me to this Life
His gift beyond all reason, unfathomable in its depth
Human understanding undone by its breadth and scope

So I stumble to conquer my fears of living without creating
Attempt at all costs to emulate Him and all the ways
In which I can fulfill my own dreams yet find
Notion that vilifies the very seed of that creativity

It breaks my heart to think that I am not alone
In finding my skills to build among men once again
A bleak and lonely path to self-revelation wherein
My premonition is a reflection of the very building
I live in by my Self
 
©  K. James Ribble

Being the Vessel

Thespian Drummer

On the broadest sky, in the bluest tempera of ocean,
I envision a wooded hiker’s trail leading to my heart
Opening the wind to the sweet touch of summer
Like the fine grain of oak in the sparkle of my hand

Where this path creates a place inside my dreams
And I am transformed, an image, a man
Of alloy and cloth placed on a field of greenery,
Lined with cedars for truth and lilies for compassion so

That hill after hill, the mountains speak in chapters,
The pungent grace of memories fill me with
Aromatic strength finally released from the sky,
Returned to me with the capstone of my home laid down

Just like the Spring and I am melting, melting
Flow from ice to the arctic camber seen only by the
Sun and the night all too high for any season tempest,
Fiery lacquered stations to the arbor from my mind

 
 © K. James Ribble

The Voice

Thespian Drummer

February has begun now
In earnest, her decidedly
Cold and wet beginning
Foaming into a lost
And snowbound year.
Likens the start to
The cold forlorn birth
Of a frozen stream,
Current all but spent.
Attempts to conjure up
Even the weakest,
Lost spill of power,
All exist just outside
The field of winter’s
Listless embrace of cold.
Even more insidious
And cruel is the sound,
A weak and seemingly
Crestfallen murmur, a shrill
Her alto voice often
Sullen and sounding alone.
This voice is the sound,
Which knows only cold,
Long winter nights,
Has a chorus behind it,
A vast choir of sounds
That summon the heart
To rise above and through
The despair of the season.
It’s as if her precise
Timeline of winter
Has become a stanza
Of warmth, a vocalist within
A score of dynamics,
Tones struggling for control,
Straining to perform along
Intimate structure,
Signatures of time,
Sensuous rhythms of syncopation.
I know of no echo, no voice
That has her power and
Emotion of the day
On this day a beginning
For this day in a season
All set up for a
New chance, becomes
A better voice, emerges
And begins alive inside
Found and fog-ridden days.

© K. James Ribble

Earth at Perigee

Thespian Drummer
Yesterday I came in
From my self,
Sat down beside you,
Began to sing.
Aspiring towards you
Quelled by midnight
With a voice of one
I hummed down long stormy
Sheathes of your smile
As if I had tilted the sun’s
Axis for a better view
Of earth at perigee,
Your closeness like a
Journey, like the rain’s
Finishing touches
On the common day.
 
© K. James Ribble

“Earth at Perigee” first appeared on this blog in May of 2016. It was since published in Figroot Press – Issue Three December 2016, a wonderful collection of poetry, prose, art & photography, found here.  Check it out!  >KJR<

Aurora of Life

Thespian Drummer
On this morning
In the glowing aurora of life
Atop the blue, blue
Continent of my yearning,
I am again awakened
Upon the arrival of an overture,
The incandescent unisonance
Of your love, its perfection
Acknowledged only by way
Of my tears carried upon the
Chrome light of gratitude.
Here you inaugurate the
Moment of my dawning heart,
Teach me Rites of Heaven
As I watch my being
Take on the simplicity of joy,
Opulence of purity.
Here I see you again now,
Forever becalming
The sails of my heart‑ship, 
Fulfilling them with your breath
Of total innocence and integrity.
Launched, I view land of
My yearning, the port
Of your warmth drawing closer,
Realize I am listed
In your register of beauty
Impelled by the emotion of God
Where I stand
At the helm of longing,
The bearer of your loyalty.

© K. James Ribble

What Cost

Thespian Drummer

Just on the edge of memory
Steeped in the wash of time
Waves of her image flood my vision
Catapult me to that moment
Cast aside by the depths of my emotion

A toll that cost me all but my heart
Seeking but not finding my
Way above the differences we shared
I am still haunted by that place we occupied
To the detriment of everything I believed in

Catering now to the tributaries of a sign
That begets its own proclamation a signal
That cannot show its face as I cannot see
My own in ownership that I owe to the
Memory of you and all that you were

Beside me now just like a first kiss
Your breath upon my face your hair within my hand
I am caught like the moth like the mayfly
To the light just before dawn drowning in my
River of memory and the Light of all your Love

©  K. James Ribble

One Urgent Afternoon

Thespian Drummer

I’ve been forged
Formed between the wet
And the moistness of a Day
Where time in its timid but awkward way
Unlocks the bridal of the sun

As I am

Cheered not unlike Thomas
At the rock of our birthing
Just a star’s journey towards forgiveness
My eyes trade left into a blackness
Where light bends into Summer

Seems to me

A crass array of solitude unhinged
By blueness just outside the reach
Of dawn as in down-below the heart-line
A case of intrepid jesters lining
Outside line-of-sight inside lining of a dream

By way of

Velveteen bolts of linear sound by the
Halictidae of this vast ocean floor of desert
Resting upon the thinly veiled neck the
Sorting of taste beyond all clothing the
Closing of my days the exit of my heart inside my soul.
©  K. James Ribble