Thursday, November 29, 2018

I don't know where the flowers run anymore,
I don't know where the brick path leads.
Once, I searched for bottles on a deserted shore--
I knew well where sky and ocean would meet--

But our certainty crumbles like sand over time,
We live as things are, not how they should be,
And all our right paths turn left in the end,
Or dead-end at a pondersome sea.

So I don't know anymore why the willows grow tall,
Why the skylark calls, why the sunset bleeds.
I really can't say what I want from this world,
But the world will always have me.

Wednesday, November 28, 2018

Quiet, Beautiful

June 1st, 2018

Quiet, beautiful
Back to the road where the tower waits

Back to the gray mountains
Back to the dead plains

Back to the mist where he kept you
Back to the throne where you slept
Back to the frost windows, the curtains drawn, the poison drank, the skin cold, the gums white,
the blood dried, the door cracked--

Go

She escaped for a time, she did

Go

but she couldn't

Go back

Who are we, but a voice
singular and powerful,
a letter written to the stars
 of a civilization wandering--
the lonely soul of a planet, drifting--

Sunday, November 25, 2018

Cemetaries

From a young age, I loved cemeteries.
Their smell, the fresh cut grass,
     (in the old kingdom, always a layer of dew or frost)
the endless mystery of named stones
stretching far away. I wanted to run deep into
those woods and find the lost tomb of Annwn
that stood like a gateway, a pyramid—
     (In the old kingdom, it led to the white land
      where fairies roamed)
—where treasure was buried—and a legacy—
a family affair.

Wherever you are....

March 14th, 2018

I hope wherever you are
The sky is far deeper and more expansive
The clouds are far lower and vast and full of moods
The grass is tall enough to touch your palms
And the music is so much greater
Swelling through the firmament of the storm and building into your soul
Wherever you are, that music, that love, that spirit,
I hope you know.

~T. L. Shreffler

Railroad

March 13th, 2018

So what is it?
What are the train tracks?
What is the railroad?

What is
The roaring sound in the background
Growing behind you, spreading in front of you, building to the second it finds you --
What is that screaming steel running through you?

Perhaps it is you.

~T. L. Shreffler

Tomb / Light

"Tomb"

Here is the tree where the tomb rested,
and here are the roots where I've been asleep;
deep you must go to find your peace.
Only in safety will the past release itself.
Only in layers do we reveal our true selves,
our true hearts, not to be healed,
but to be inspected and adored
like stained glass bottles, salt-worn,
under caring fingertips: delicate, distorted, brilliant.

* * *

"Light"

I need the days to be brighter and longer.
I need the sun to stay upright.
I need the warmth, the bond, the touch, the caress, the light.

Northwestern Summer Rain

March 16th, 2018


Suddenly I can smell the grass after a Northwestern summer rain.
Early afternoon, open window,
crisp golden air
the sunlight slanting over her shoulder
onto the pages of a book
as she reads, her mind in mystery
the floor is deep mahogany
a sense of permanency
a garden, a roof, a memory
of apple trees.


~T. L. Shreffler

Saturday, November 24, 2018

Spin

It was a pattern we fell into,
me and you.

You’d say something to bait me;
coming from you,
it was easy.

Eventually, I acted
only to provoke you, and neither of us knew
how to rein the other in, so we would
spin spin spin.

Even young, I had a name
and you miscalled it again, again
so I would fight for you to see me as I am.
You moved like a propeller.
I would push and you would pull; together,
ever ever ever
we would spin spin spin.

Friday, November 23, 2018

Balance / Flowers

"Balance"

When are you going to leave behind your balance,
     teeter forward and fall
         in love with the world?

When are you going to plunge into humanity?
Submerged by the wave
the salt stings your eyes
the ocean presses on every side
feel them
rush toward you
mouth gasping for air
throw open your arms
and rise.

*
*
*

"Flowers"

Healing takes time.
Being able to care
for small things first, like a new rug,
a succulent on the windowsill
or a couch for friends to sit.
Then the invitation.
Bringing others inside.
You need new friends, dear.

This might take longer, but
in time you meet a kindred soul—

have patience, for
a year reveals all to those
who wait to see the flowers grow.





Tuesday, November 20, 2018

Certain things might not change--
your trust in people, irreparable--
certain losses run deep.


You don't need to be perfect, but do

     be loving.


You might need to leap, but
     take your time on the edge.
     Enjoy your indecision.


Please, don't forget the loving part.



* * *



Let things happen organically,

     as naturally as possible,

like a leaf floating down from a willow tree

to land in a river. The sheen

     of water sparked

some wonder in me, as I watched this leaf,

     so patiently,

     leave behind its mother

     to follow its destiny

     out to sea.



* * *



He doesn't mind
we can't always speak to each other.
I'm a quiet person anyway, he says.
I guess we have more than speech to share--
we have music to write and notes to compare--
the two of us make an excellent pair--
she smiling sad-eyed ragtag girl,
a wayfarer in a half-seen world,
he knight of earth, patient, strong,
his arms, her home. His heart, her song.



* * *



Of course the wind would fall in love with the earth.

She likes dancing away, spinning up to the sky and

returning with gifts, the sun in her eyes.



Of course the earth would be enwrapped by her love.

Watching her dance so far up above, waiting for her

to come back to the ground with leaves, and rain, and dust, and song.

Turning

I am putting away
the past today
in exchange for a new way.

The heart has infinite space.
There's room enough
for a new day,

new love and morning times
grown from the compost
of coffee grounds from yesterday,

egg shells and dried sage,
onion rinds and decomposing
leaves from the driveway;

I turn the heap, leaving behind
the backyard for the front porch,
the sunrise and the highway.

Monday, November 19, 2018

Are we still echoing?

Soul on soul
resounding

we collide,
layers of us
unfurling

like smoke curling
in a glass,

we are
a melody

becoming.




Ghosts

The ghosts are heavy today.
Did you know they carry weight?
My passengers are crowded in close.

The small one wails and wails.
The tall, cold, skinny one hunches in his coat
and lurks, and watches.
The fat one trolls back and forth, the most oppressive
of the three, rampaging about and throwing bottles,
breaking glass on the floor of the train
as we roll and roll
through an autumn day.

Their voices become so loud, drowning out my own--
I've bid them to leave a thousand times
but they need me, a place to belong, a person to be--
they accompany me traveling,
we bicker like a strange family.

I guess I belong to their ephemeral ways--
of all who have left me,
they choose to stay--

so I carry them,
a comforting weight
on an autumn day.


~T. L. Shreffler

Friday, November 2, 2018

I was wrong--
you were the stone
and I was the wind all along--

you stood
while I flew past you
as the wind is prone to do--

you reached and we
clasped hands
as I showered you in leaves--

then I was gone,
sailing past your head,
a riverwind of song.
Back in those days, water
dripped through the roof when it rained
and pooled on the bed next to me.
It was OK
because I didn't sleep there
and you didn't sleep there.

Back in those days, I heard a ringing sound
at night
like a finger
'round a wine glass
and I knew a demon haunted my house.

I wrote a letter to a priest in San Francisco
asking what to do about the demons. Were there many?
Could it be multiples, like three or four?
Did they scratch on the walls and tip plates over in the kitchen
and crash all over the roof just to taunt me?
What did this mean for my soul?

What about all those broken appliances in the backyard?
Or the musty furniture building up in the livingroom--
the Scuba tank--
from that foreclosed house--
Is this normal demonic behavior?
Or is this more like a haunting, a ghost?

I remember when the noise stopped.

Finally gone, you,
the suffocation, were ended.

I know now, we summon demons.
Black holes of parasitic nature, we invite them
into our lives, bid them to stay.

They will eat the soul right out of you.
Exorcism is the only way.






Splitting slugs
with a spatula
in the driveway.
Sprinkling salt
to watch the slime dry up
and those fat, quivering grape-bodies
wither.

Saving the head
of a snowman
in the freezer
so we could take it out on 4th of July
and smash it on the pavement.

Climbing a mountain
of dirt that seemed ten stories high
when the septic tank broke
and they tore up the back yard to replace it.
All the bodies
they found
were moved to the cemetery.

I think sometimes the ghosts must have choked
on our childhood,
so sick
of laughter and games
they sabotaged the tank
and left us haunted
by yard reek.

Sometimes I think
an echelon of troubles arose
from that house and followed me
down every driveway since.
I blame all my bad luck
on that one winter
with the salt curse
and the septic tank
and all that rot
in the yard.

Homecoming

Do you remember the red
shade of mahogany wood floors
and the face in the back of the bathroom door
and the bruised
prunes split open
in the grass, in the back yard?

Do you remember the black
alley in the back
of the garage, where spiders lived
and grandpa's ax, and the wood pile?

Do you remember running
down the hallway, doors slamming
and the old groan
of electric heating?

The countertops were laminate with ivy printed in green,
The cabinet doors heavy enough
to crack your head,
and one winter, do you remember, the basement flooded?

Mold grew up the walls beneath the house.
I remember the stains--
we lost so many boxes.


Books are sacred things to me,
Binding worlds inside trees,
Binding people inside me.

Books are open just to me,
Each page like an ocean deep,
Full of thoughts beyond the sea.

Books are like a gift from me
to younger me's that love to read,
so full of wonder -- what's to be?