Waking To The Storm

I

They say the wind whips but it doesn’t.
It hits like a wet sheet upon a metal pole,
slapping in a rhythm only it can understand.
Laced within the slapping are the nettled
raindrops, cold and sickle sharp.
Like mischievous cubs of ursine mother,
together, they come marauding.

The storm. Quickly she comes. Born of
Neptune’s peeving, angry and wet, she bares
her bones upon the world raving. Beast and
woman both yet not one, this thinking/thoughtless
monster rips a weary man from his sleep and
sends him thinking of those still on the sea.

II

Fools go down to the sea. Drawn by the
fascination or driven by the need, we pit
mere yards of wood against oceans of deep.
We hunters of pelagic flesh bed down
where there will never be a home.

To some we are two different breeds,
the weary and the worshipful. To the storm
we are equals. Motes to be flecked, insignificant.
We see the infinite when halcyon spells
occur, and fear the immediate in other times.

III

Sine and Cosine of disaster, the waves tower
or toss us up. Countered by endless hillocks
we yearn to be hidden. Dwarfed by narrow
valleys the cry is for the mountain top. Buried
in foredecks of frozen hell or balanced on
the precipice we count on fortune to serve our turn.

Holders of stolen fruits, we wonder what fare our
passage may tally. Casting our lot, we think on
those who paid the final toll. Word stolen cries
communicate an urgency without human message.
Together we are alone.

IV

Battered sideboard and roofing wearily shoulder
the assault. Saltbox shackled, my shelter grips the
soil with taloned foundations and leans into the
squall with an aged merlin’s grace. Fingers of wind,
muted into drafts, scratch my feet to let me know
that even bundled, I am never safe.

Pity for the sailor. Pity for the lost.
Wonder renews itself to the torment of the senses.
Drifting within the howling, I listen to branches
buffeted into drumsticks beating a wind-code:
messages from spirits loosed upon the tempest.
Listening to those painful sounds, I simply yearn for sleep.


Stuart Andrew Marshall Tanner

The Dark And Dry Of Night

In the dark and dry of night,
I look to my inner fright and see...

Years spent looking for "her"
Parents finally buried in memory
A career never found, taunting from the bushes
A perfect me hiding in the mirror - behind the chesterfield
Love
Peace
Passion for flowers
Resolve
Watered fields awaiting the sun
and finally...

Sleep.

~Stuart Andrew Marshall Tanner~

Heart of the Rainbow

Seek the heart of the Rainbow
And ponder much on what you see,
For sight alone will not allow
The freedom that a thought can be.

Thrown across the heaven’s canvas,
Watered fire in layered arch;
Brings my faith to fuller confess,
And evidences nature’s march.

Come promise-mark of flood’s remission,
Come patterned sign of Gods’ true law.
Infect the mind with renewed vision
Of daily life in daily awe.

~Stuart Andrew Marshall Tanner~

Sardines

Scissors cut paper wraps stone.
Sitting and wondering why
Persistence pays me little
And never enough.
Sitting alone and wondering why
Everything hovers in circles and strains the senses with overload.

Scissors cut paper wraps stone.
You played with me and I always chose wrong.
Once again you got to be "it" and I had to look
For your call.

All'e All'e Oxen Free.
One - Two - Three on me.
Slow running children agree.
Trading potatoes and never the three but he...

Waits in the lilac bush waiting to pounce.

Everything hovers in circles and then comes down on your head

Scissors cut paper wraps stone
Mortal wounds need not apply
Persistence pays me little

And never on time...


Stuart Andrew Marshall Tanner

When Morning Comes

When morning comes I am not vain
to see a mirror reflect of me again.

This promised moment. The apogee aspect
recalls what midnight terror has not wrecked.

We have survived the depth of thought
which scourging self has dearly bought.

And now aurora, harbinger dear, lights the sky.
We rise, to dry the night sweats and bid doubts goodbye.

~Stuart Andrew Marshall Tanner~

Prayer For Rain

By the unhallowed skulls of our ancestor’s passion
we cry. Our tongues find fire in the air, we
drink of dust within our spittle, pained.

Down the clouds in torrents fall.
Spear the sky and make it roil with lost
Containment for our powerfully crowded grasping.

Oh Mother of the World, complete our sorrowful
lamentation’s need.

So soon we’re forgotten. Motes of no worth. Locust
stripped of all which stripping leaves us.
Fire of the belly creatures, not refined.
Crowding ourselves in need of what we do not lack.

Hear our sorrow with heal forgiveness.
These cold, misshapened dolls of clay whose
meanness stops the flow.
Cracked and favored by the dust, we cry out and
plead our hopeless case.

Wield the springs of winter’s passage.
Sooth our need with nurture wet.
Light the load of self-torn loathing.
Bring the rain which quells the heart.

~Stuart Andrew Marshall Tanner~

Dedicated to the farmers of Kansas.

Ode To The Box The Freezer Came In

The cardboard expanse in which we kids could meet
held worlds of wondrous measured fantasy.
It was...

§ The tank which rumbled across the plains to upset
Rommel and turn the tide.

§ The fishing boat in which we braved the waves to
wrest our living from the sea.

§ The house on the prairie in which we hunkered
down to meet the wind which blew the dust into our
meals.

These and more it became. Bright imaginings.

These the monster box became.

More precious than the freezer which came within
and now took pride of place in our home, the box
filled our play with a hiding place,
a jail cell,
a gold mine.

I wonder at what a few cents of paper, ridged
and stiffened, can do to the child's mind. What
can we fill within the void of holding?

Why do our parents buy such polished gifts?

Give me a box with room to hide a dozen kids
and I will give you the foxhole in which we regrouped,
from there to win the war.

~Stuart Andrew Marshall Tanner~

To Be

I wait upon this hour in silent discourse
both question and inquisitor arising.
Reason a questing and silent remorse,
broken upon decision's devising.

Vision and visor or parceled out times,
Truth, beauty and all that sad jazz.
Truckled tempo mark remarked as crimes
when unable to attest to surpass.

Looking for slackening painful remind
I grab or devise eyes quite valid.
Then dilemma inclined I must pick a tine
harsh realizing makes me pallid.

Though Shakespeare said it best I fear,
I try in crippled fits to engineer.

~Stuart Andrew Marshall Tanner~