Carrion
Her children were segregating her belongings
Into two heaps, 'Litter' and 'Cash.'
She had died two days before, and they were tearing
At the carrion of her being.
From a stack of papers in her son's hands,
Several pages had blown into the shrubs.
He had not bothered to pick them up.
Unable to lift himself higher than his character could arouse,
He threw her collection of old love letters, verse and journals,
Into the trash bin.
As he discarded the treasure of her thoughts,
I gathered three poems from beneath the bush.
Reading the last lines from one:
'Forget, if you can
All the dreams we began,
I really had a lovely time.'
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poem by Lynn W. Petty
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They Smile
They come to work in pastel uniforms,
And, greet their patients with their brightest smile.
They meet and know each patient by his name.
They bring to this most cheerless place a warmth
Of friendliness, despite the bone-cold fear
That floods the room.
Reclining chairs surround, the space where
Patients sit as chemo drips through needle-fangs,
From snake-like tubes that wind around the tree stands
By their sides.
And, yet, despite the anger, pain and fright displayed
Upon the faces of the patients, young and old,
The nurses smile while consciously
Aware that death stands shadow-dim behind each chair,
As cancer does its devil-dance,
While Hope and Faith stand ever by.
poem by Lynn W. Petty
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Verses of the Sikh Gurus
I closed the cover of a book, just read.
A book of poetry, whose thoughts had touched
The sanctum sanctorum of my being.
I sat in silence pondering the depth
To which the sense of my awareness had
Been moved. I weighed the immemorial
Message of each word, whose meanings had been
Divinely etched upon the copper plate
Of thought. I floated in a dim light
And shade, that tideless flood of nothingness,
Seeking a gleam of illumination.
While strolling through such words my mind drank deep
The inspiration found therein, which made
Intensely sensible the beauty and,
The power and, the majesty of its
Eternal truths. I found each leaf an age
Within the Granth of life, the text itself
Eternity.
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poem by Lynn W. Petty
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A Writer's Block
With pen poised over the blank white sheet,
Waiting to receive writings, inspirational or automatic,
Through some sphere of phychic channeling,
My mind remained still.
Bleak snow-covered tundra in an artic freeze,
The whiteness of the paper blinds the eye of my imagination.
Feeling the chill breath of solitude sweeping
Across the barren flats of reflection,
I cap my pen and swear to never write again.
Then, faintly seen, upon a distant slope of thought,
A vague impression, a word, a sentence lights the
Winter's sky; line by line trails of creative expression
Mysteriously appear across that stark and frozen plain.
Like some great river's ice broken up at first breath
Of spring, a poem is freed to float.
poem by Lynn W. Petty
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Pleadings From a Dead Poet
Oh Muse, release the locks that dam the flow
Of verse and song from my distended heart.
Find passion for my soul that I have lost poetic speech.
Let flow the streams of ardency to seek their source
Within the infinite, harmonious, consistency of words.
Embrace me Muse,
Allow the fountains of my mind to fill the empty pools
Of solitude with thoughts and sounds of dreamy visions
Worthily expressed.
Awaken to my reverence,
Breathe forth that harmony to which my soul was filled.
I stand in this anhydrous waste, in dread
My ever-present being shall be made invisble to life.
And she replied:
'Be silent fool, and listen
For the still, soft whispers of your inner Self.
Harken to the Counsel of your bosom,
Through which Creation passes.
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poem by Lynn W. Petty
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The Creation of a Single Composition
It has been said, poetry is nothing more that placing
The proper word in its proper place.
How simply stated for the effort of a single composition!
Beneath the primeval of our subconscious mind
Lies the clay-material of all creation,
The strata of spiritual sedimentation,
Laid down before our birth.
From this wet plastic matter comes the substance
Of our imagination, the foundation
For the architecture of our reflections.
Sculpting images by the vocabulary used,
The writer cast, molds and shapes
The verbs and nouns into their final stage
Of fluid acquiescence.
Thus, the poet, by placing each word
Into its proper place, gives power, vision and speech
To every inaimate object;
Translating the infinite invisible,
Into sacred symbols,
From the potter's mind of thought.
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poem by Lynn W. Petty
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Every Day A New Mourning
Considered once a creative man, whose mind
Was charged with life and learning, now at 86,
He sits and looks away in fleeting recollection.
Each day, like a dark shadow of mildew,
This thief of memory covers more
The brillance of his mind.
Unaware of yesterday, oblivious of tomorrow,
His sits in limbo, lost in the night of dementia,
That obscure land between the extinction of his faculties,
And the significance of his existence,
He asks again, the question asked before:
'Where is my brother? '
'He is gone, ' she said, 'He is dead.'
Each time, in grief, he is momentarily satisfied,
Until the drift of mind recurs again, and asks
The same as asked before.
With moaning spirit, he is left to weep and grieve anew.
Seeking a somewhere out of nowhere,
He enters into the gaping jaws of nothingness,
And disappears.
poem by Lynn W. Petty
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I Had a Vision
I dreamed a dream, a vision came to me.
Lost youth imploring, 'God, we beg of Thee! '
With lined and aged face, though they were young,
They plead for mercy, silence had no tongue.
At flooding shore, they streached for higher ground.
Earth slipped beneath them, cries the only sound.
Extending them my hand, they could not reach.
In tides of sorrow, eyes their only speech.
Debauchery engulfed them, steeped in brine.
Their temple housed an hedonistic shrine.
They struggled for the surface, death their fate.
Akashic records were the scrivener's slate.
Past hope, their childhood blossemed all too soon.
Depraved, they thought that life would not impugn.
Within the deep I entered in their mind,
So many broken promises, so blind.
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poem by Lynn W. Petty
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From a Painting of a Spanish Gypsy Girl
Her wind-combed hair surrounds her face
With tumultuous, unrestrained swirls
Of cascading molten midnight for its shade.
Her eyes, deep and dark,
Eternally veiling the window
Of my perceived image of her spiritual being.
Her slightly parted lips, pouting, full,
Passionately swollen,
Like velvet pillows of Spanish Gypsy Red,
Were meant for kiss not for speech.
The blending of her heritage merges imperceptibly,
As dawn into daylight;
Of the Saracen on frothing mounts,
With simitars held high;
Of Castilian pride as ancient as the Vascos-Celt.
A mystery, everlasting impenetrable,
Forever shading the essence of her spirit.
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poem by Lynn W. Petty
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His Crossing
He is dead. It is over.
Did you see his face before his death came;
The cancer deepened furrows
Of his brow; medicated dilation
Of his unfocused eyes;
His almost unintelligible pleading
For relief from pain?
Yet, at the threshold of his crossing
A placid recognition moved
Across his face, as if a splender
Approched his bed.
He seemed to see, he knew.
Was that the death his faith had taught?
Would he have embraced,
With ecstaic expression, a skeletal form
Robed in cloak and cowl,
Surrounded with shadowy dread,
Chilling the hearts
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poem by Lynn W. Petty
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