Saturday, July 18, 2015

The Dawning



The Dawning
By: Jonathan G.

The rooster unfurls and crows at daybreak,
Baton tap for the morning overture.
Percussive koi pop hungry in the wake
Of a flippant, fledgling wren’s loosed feather.
Honey bees work in a buzzing ballet,
Tulip toe-points and primrose pirouettes;
While butterflies resplendent flit and sway,
Tears from a rainbow pure and delicate.
Yard dogs curled, shivering in shadows wait
Patiently for the warmth of dawn to break
Over the Blue Ridge Mountains’ stolid gate -
Aurora’s kiss to soothe the midnight shake.
A sunrise symphony’s timed crescendo;
A lover’s tender heartbeat, soft and slow.

Saturday, July 11, 2015

Cocytus



Cocytus
By: Jonathan Garren

Where is our Eden?
Not this tapestry of Nature clothed,
The barren resplendence masked 
Beneath budded beguile and
Perfumed blush, the sibilant
Tongue of a wind divine
Bearing the fruit of Spring’s resurrection.

Where is our Eden?
A symphony of sanctity led
By the Anemoi’s song,
Lone bellows, murderous brothers all.
The other canceling the other,
Canceling the other to non.

Where is our Eden?
Woven amongst the reeds of Cocytus,
Rueful for the sins of our bearers -
Oh amenable father, hapless mother
Where is our Eden?
If not plowed fallow by your dreams,
Thirsty for the tears of our reclamation.

Bradford Pears in Early Spring



Bradford Pears in Early Spring
By: Jonathan Garren

When Bradford Pear blooms fall in early spring,
Snow petals twisting in the four winds’ bellows,
A chorus of songbirds minutely sing
Of once vacant nests filled with newborn sparrows.
The scent of wild onions weaves through the air,
Mixed with the redolence of yellow bells
Wreathed like a braid through your curled, chestnut hair.
And in your smile my discontent dispels
Winter’s final fatal freeze, covering
The last limbs of unwilling buds beneath
A crystalline dew of tears left smothered
By a Bradford Pear’s seasonal bequeath.
Still, every season’s change brings brighter skies;
Snow petals lost in cerulean eyes.

Friday, July 3, 2015

Ameles potamos



Ameles potamos
By: Jonathan Garren

What remains of me when the fugue breaks
And I am left alone on the sleepy banks
Of the Lethe? Will my love drown beneath the
Grasp of shades, my humanity left to drift
Like listless flotsam fated for the eternal
Wash upon Elysium tides?

Shall I drink instead from the Mnemosyne?
Shall I remember all, yet still be far
From your touch, still lost to your memory?
Shall I know you always from a distant shore?

Will I find you when I break from this
Disease that occludes my mind from the fruited
Tongues of Paradise? Will my soul return with
The golden bough and escape these bleak
Immortal chains?

Will time still sibilantly sweep the years
From our faces? Will you grow old
While I remain young? Or will I return,
Only to find you languishing drunk
On the fallacies that wash perfumed
Upon the retracted felicity of Lethean shores?

Wednesday, June 10, 2015

Among the Unfamiliar (For K.)



Among the Unfamiliar (For K.)
By: Jonathan Garren

Like the moon in the morning sky
We sit pinioned among the unfamiliar.
A love presupposed in wilder lands
Now lies festered and sore in tepid hands.
Still the desire lingers beneath the pulse,
Beneath the swell, beneath the neck so smooth;
The heavy warmth of lust woven in a kiss
Stemmed to blanche the chill of skin yet underhand.
With the hunger pains of passion frail,
I yearn only for love forbidden
And taste the secret sealed behind your smile.
Held in your arms against the light of a sallow sun,
Like the moon in the morning sky
We sit pinioned among the unfamiliar.

Thursday, February 26, 2015

The Warmth Between Whiskey and You

The Warmth Between Whiskey and You
By: Jonathan Garren

The snow fell in a slow rage
Like Kamikaze pilots
In the dim, yellow street light.

Dark asphalt and brown fields came
To life with a pale brilliance
Like the mirrored reflection
            Of a full moon night.

As day breaks behind the blue-
Ridge backs of giants, the snow
Slowly bleeds the sky’s color
From brilliant hues to a steel
            Gray of ambivalence

The flakes swirl restless and wild
Like a flock of translucent
Birds in the wind, alighting
In fallow fields blazed brown by
Winter’s kiss; the snow collecting
On dead shoots of panicum
            Like a thousand tufts of cotton.

I stand there alone among
The electric mist of white
Noise as each flake dies violent
And cold against my wool hat,
Watching as the empty promises
Of winter fall at the fury
            Of a jealous spring.

Wrapped in the cold I have come
To know, I watch the snow fall
With a silent barrage and
Wonder if I will ever
Find the warmth I felt between
            Whiskey and you.