The Last Poem Of The Year

Thespian Drummer


          Poor New York New Year…
1988 lay scattered on her streets
Like the calendar pages of a year
Thrown casually out a window
From the twenty first floor of Pain –
          In the shock of a New Year,
She dilates herself from too many tears,
The autonomous reaction of too many people
With too many sorrows…
          I feel her grief like the
Excruciation of a diver rising
Too quickly from the depths in an ocean
Of her streets,
My blood boiling as pressure becomes
Imbalanced, a Harlem summer night,
No food on the table, children screaming.
          I walk her streets in 
Traffic jam quietness,
Acquiesced with thoughts that
Her suffering will be released someday,
The gridlock of her life purged with hope.
 

 

 © K. James Ribble

At Dawn

Thespian Drummer

I am prompted
By an ambered, saddened sky
Beyond my sacred heart
Of dreams of you,
Across this loneliness
Drenched in calm,
Importing just how much
I’ve missed of you:
An entire lifetime of
Your gentle touch
Your loving kiss
Your royal embrace –
To wake at dawn with you by my side.

© K. James Ribble

Ritardando

Thespian Drummer

I. Breathless I emerge un-cleansed,
Tantamount to the arbitration of a
Suggestion, and usher my own
Greenery of choices bearing witness
To passionate decisions – in spite of
My own dismay – thus,

II. I see its why, aside from
Political metaphors
Ringing hollow, (as
 Ascendant depreciatives
 In a non-descript world), – only its

III. Color, yellow-fisted, reminds
One of winter-sky at dawn, an
Immersion of Cloudlessness and
Absence combined with resolution
And absolution in grays.

IV. I rise now, fettered by the light,
A common undertow of reason under my wings,
Faculties ablaze with conscience, while
The choices amass an unlikely ally,
While the Greenery resolves to act upon me.

© K. James Ribble

Into The Daylight

Thespian Drummer

Concertos of music have never known the tranquility of your look –  like the undisturbed resonance of a lake across the threshold of true innocence. . . I recall that gaze over time and draw upon its strength, as if to drink from a well of Life that spews forth from His heart.  Instant upon instance, the Image plays over and again, that line I willingly spanned in my life which emerged from your original eyes:  I cross over into native land, holding all that is my own never once doubting the truth unfolding from your integrity and arise into the Daylight of Dawn.

© K. James Ribble

Childhood May

Thespian Drummer

In the rain
On spatter-clean lawns
Overcast feelings pour
Like milk over cereal  

I am a child once again
In this memory, a recall
of living dreams
Inside my life

Where most always
I am joyful
like music on a silent evening
In the midst of New York City.


© K. James Ribble

Awoken

Thespian Drummer

Unjust thoughts
Lying prostrate
Stretching thin like
The toes of a cat

A dreamlike state
(No – just like a dream)
Basking and waiting
Like willows unadorned

Seeping, seething
Just below conscious weight
Catechisms gone mad as
I watch and behold instinct

Compare and wonder
What of those who imagined
The First Thoughts of man
When becoming aware for the first time

Their Being now becomes
Undone to the wherewithal of Light
Unmasked – a treasure of his own tomb
Casting to dawn the knowledge of Self as one.

 

© K. James Ribble

“Awoken” first appeared on this blog in August 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<

Summer

Thespian Drummer



Concomitant without parallel, we walk again,
Dance well behind the continental shelf of utterance,
That which we know to be true.

A wedding of reticent decisions made knowing
Full well a sweat on my brow was forming, just her
Look brings cool on a hot summer day.

Her rainstorms purge all the Gulf air into
My New York, while a burning sun hides under concrete clouds,
Gray stellar beings tearing at the thought of air.

But, like her, those same drops of water give life to me,
Becoming vapor long enough to know that
Hidden clouds don’t cry.


© K. James Ribble

Morning’s Love Asunder

Thespian Drummer

Morning’s daylight breaks above the roof
Sun’s gold liquid fills drops of grassy dew
Enchanted trees create dreamlike shadows
Enables all light to speak of you

The cicadas with all creation sing a
Clarion call to morning’s slumber
As birds dance unadorned by human cares
Their freedom speaks my voice of wonder

For who I am in this world that calls
In this time of truth and wonder
Life embraces all my senses filled
Captures me in deepest love asunder

Enveloped now by the sun’s true grace
And humbled by birds that fly above
With Cascade of Light before me now
It is your face of daylight’s love.

© K. James Ribble

Impromptu

Thespian Drummer


Unknown.  Unforeseen.
She came to me unlike any other.

A wisp of origin blown apart by her eyes like
The golden brown of sunlight in late afternoon.

Completely and utterly caught
Within a millisecond of her smile.

Her face, framed by long black hair,
Instantly projected all of her: genuine and genuflected

Straight through to my Honesty –
So I began to speak with vulnerability of truth

As though the world stopped all around us,
And we were the only two people alive.

At Fourth & Broadway by the foot of palm trees
My life changed forever,

Where her smile is still carved
At the root of my soul.



© K. James Ribble