The Ash of Our Ruin

Failing them for fear
our oft desolate dreams
its becomes us a sensual search
for simple significance...
personal significance
Beating bushes
blazing trails
firing hills
and failing them all
for fear of failing
and a rhyme and resonance unrealized

Sift the ash of our ruin
What pearl of great price pristine
'neath unsullied skies
survives our stately scourge?
What is there left
having burned our bridges
fired our fields
having wasted ourselves for naught?
Looking within has yielded no fruit
no rhyme nor resonance
And failing ourselves within
what then lies without?


ELAshley
101507.082411.6

Nearer Too Empty

full, empty, empty, (full
and prostrate heavenward)
counting anxious minutes
full, empty, empty, full
(five, ten, fifteen)
an anxious watch of
hands too slow
minutes too creep
too full unempty
full, empty, empty, full
empty to weakness
and weak presage wellness
cleanliness nearer too
godliness
empty, full, full, empty
prostrate heavenward
(counting counting counting)
and nearer too empty


ELAshley
121407.041506.6

Going to Ground

In Memory of Christopher Scott Gailfoil, 1964 - 2007















Harbingers a knockin’
Dead leaves clatter chatter down the road
Cold dead knuckles a tick tick tockin’
All of my heroes goin’ to ground
There was time green and shining
Cool pressed smooth clean linen white
But time, come a time, come a chimin’
And all of my heroes goin’ to ground
Swiftly unwelcome
Swiftly unwelcome
Swiftly unwelcome
All of my friends are goin’ to ground

Insistence come a callin’
Layin’ to waste my palette of dream-soft dreams
It’s a thin tuft scrabble to keep from fallin’
All of my friends are goin’ to ground
Where is the time green and shining
Cool pressed smooth clean linen white?
And Time, now time, comes a chimin’
And all of my friends are goin’ to ground
Swiftly unwelcome
Swiftly unwelcome
Swiftly unwelcome
All of my heroes goin’ to ground

Swiftly unwelcome
Swiftly unwelcome
Swiftly unwelcome
All of my friends are goin’ to ground
Swiftly unwelcome
Swiftly unwelcome
Swiftly unwelcome
All swiftly goin’ to ground
All of my friends are goin’ to ground
All of my heroes goin’ to ground
Everythings goin’ to ground

ELAshley
120107.105852.6

From my blog post:

Something just spilled out of me this evening... lyrics to a song in my head in under five minutes. There was a melody when they came, but it has left me-- this has always been the case; I have always had to fight for the melody, and I have not always won. But here is the song nonetheless... not as I heard it in my head, but its pale mute caricature...