Shunned

out of nowhere

this concentration of us

shun one another too easily

long days progress to nothingness

unrepentant we walk heads bowed through the chill

earliest of springs

ache of tired branches

you say the daffodils aside the thin road are courageous foolish to show themselves now

I don't know daffodils

only the spikes of sunny yellow

piercing the stony silence cowardice

hard ground

of my lost

thoughts

jppestana

Shunned

March 20, 2021

 

Something Else

on the southernmost edge

of some mostly worn uneven place

of rock sun dust

rivers from the mountains are no more

there are no flowers but there were

an old man sits smokes in his aloneness

the voices in his distance cease to exist

he struggles to be

sees the last pieces of sunsets

swept away from what he was

across the hard dirt road

her summer flowers grow freely

her garden is only hers to see

she asks her own clouds to open

rainwater flows through her fingers everything grows

at her feet a kitten plays in the roses thorns

she believes she sees her beauty for the first time

or her horizon melting deep purples

or maybe just something else

Something Else

JPPestana

1.13.2021

 

Immortality

 

in your eyes what light blinds

shatters this normalcy what more

word or whisper or kiss

it's all the same to me

enter this light redeeming willingly

it is the summer of you

a brilliance becoming

a warming heart beating

healing the scars

on scars loss upon loss

the immortal impatient

waiting restlessly

at the door

 

Immortality

jppestana

12.19.2020

The Rummage

it is a day that never begins

from the window dead leaves die

die again fall away

a cold wind breaks against a stone wall broken

vultures hunched on old silos stare coldly

an old man on the road stares back

there is no why

seeing the dark masses of rising starling falling loudly are they

what passes for sky

a woman's voice calls to no one

the attic stairs are darkly worn

a dim light creates more shadows than light

the woman's voice calls again

bothered her words are buried deeper

then again

jppestana

The Rummage

12...8..2020

 

Before and After

when there is nothing left to see

blindly pleased you see everything

before me

and what little is left you feel escaping

like some bandit desperately riding away under an all consuming sun

and strangely you leave me abandoned

a victim speechless here

in the before and

after

jppestana

Before and After

12.8.2020

My Desire

bring the beautiful flower to me

it is my desire

it is the sum of all things in this minute

of all things

it is the striking sound

of a breeze repeating in frail leaves

all around me leaves reveal

a season nameless desiring

waiting for the lightest caress

let today be the day when paths cross

when a smile used but once

fans the flames of a sun in bare fields

a fog rising from dampened earth

a shimmering puddle of desire

shaking off the wings

of darkly nervous

birds

jppestana

My Desire

11.26.2020

Spanish Dance

slowly the crow lower than ever overhead

shed the remaining rays of day

their wings move thick air pulse

the boy in him lies in the same place he was born

lies in the subtle disguising dim but wonders out loud

stares into the flood of blue space

bridges collapsing in the stream

this is the distance in him speaking

this is the travel of one

freely fearlessly he dances dances

at last ecstatic he applauds

there is no one to hear

no one to see

the last of this

his spanish

dance

JP Pestana

Spanish Dance

11.22.2020