Foxler Poetry

It's not a song of anything
But maybe it can help.
It's not about hope, or pressing on
You wouldn't want to hear that anyway

It's not a mile I'd walk in your shoes
A poet's hope can't sustain you
And the miles I'd go, they can't tell you so
When you have to walk them anyway

Because you're fighting the fight that's fighting you
Why would you want to press on with that?
You're fighting the fight that's finished you
When this is all you ever wanted to be

So don't be who you are
Look in the eyes of the healing
Don't be who you dreamed you'd be
Just look in their eyes and start healing

I know this is hard for you to hear
That healing isn't about you
But you'll only miss what's next to you
When the mirror is all you see

So let the angels wrap you
In their staying, and passing
And let them take your eyes away
From the one who lets you down

Because you're fighting the fight that's fighting you
Why would you want to press on with that?
You're fighting the fight that's finished you
When this is all you ever wanted to be

So don't be who you are
Look in the eyes of the healing
Don't be who you dreamed you'd be
Just look in their eyes and start healing

If you think there's no good
In the life that's all around you
If you think there's no peace
In the moment the sun comes up

Change your eyes, child
Keep looking outside of you
She's still there for you
Waiting to hold your heart

Not long ago, winter's prime of light and fires 
Led to chimneys smoking. It stayed the ice
That crowded around the window’s edge,
sneaking to steal the warmth which always
Waited at the door. Apples roasted for the pie as
Butter melted, the sweetness rising with the scent
That whispered, stay...still...see...stay.
Heart thundered at chopping block mutters. Both
Clung together as animal-bound hands reach to tear
Apart what iron could not. A brother's craft.

Harvest gave her soiled bounty to heal
All she knew winter would burn in time
To come. We worked the ground to the bare of both
Our bones, and she has watched us well; gifting
Her strength in wheat and hearty barley to
Face the ash of winter's so-called mercy.
I see the gray-once-red bush of thorns. 
Does it remember the hummingbird? 
It flew on children's laughter. 

I will not want as much as they, the constant
Ones, who always stay and cry and laugh and
Die with the land that gave them life.
But now they cry for me too, the changing one.
Discontented by the roast we killed, or the land
that raises sage, juniper, and those crab apples
That mother always wished to make into jam.

I am a sail torn by starboard fair of
Grass unseen and muses unsearched, harvests
Unmet for my heart to ponder; yet port
With garden memoirs and soiled doors
Planted in me. If roots of trees are not touched by
The frost, why am I so cold? The tallest trees die
From the top down. They stay…still…see…stay.

Non place, non time, non sense.
My compatriots, silent as always in
Their conversations and movement through.
Through what? I say. Through what? Here I could be anywhere. 
Managed as a wing-ed stripe through blue that revels in petrol cloud, 
relinquishing any hold it has on the ground. 
It takes me here, a place abundant in newness, 
Never relinquishing its wonder.

Arrival is intrinsic to me being. And it has done well; I. Am. 
Here. Here in the by-alley waste that paints architecture 
and lightens street corner haze, stretching into the distance.
What makes this so familiar? I feel I've been here before. 
The hills become fire in my memory, as if forgotten, 
a whilst of Eden's compromise. To me, 
as it's always been, but never fully known.

We see the buzz that's wasted on all 
who live here, reveling in newness and plight.
We run for the steeple that rises from ancient 
and holy ground. It lifts the words that are lived by: 
Ego via veritas et Vita. Other buildings are not 
held as high as this belief. It graces the people too, 
marking every head and shoulder in reverence. 
And these cold walls hold a place of stillness for me too, 
keeping my gaze high, as the one who builds desires. 
The saints may smile as I tread the path they lived upon, 
shown as a veil that brambles the sky.

Time dims. Cities wake. Beams from the gaslight 
arise. Joyous sounds color the water, bliss and 
blossom spindle the eyes. I have only been here in 
longing, but now, without rest, I feel.

Flowing the wine and ripple, we relinquished our grasps of doubt. 
For the praise we met neath Saturn's light, we gave thanks.
I have never seen such light. Castling the darkness, reaching
It's fingers across the water, touching the stars. What murmur
It makes against the might of the mast, and the countenance
Of the masses. On these they look on in wonder at the start,
And triumph at it's passing. Once again, I. Am. Here.
Here with the whisper wind and velvet ground that rocks 
in solidarity with every turn of the wheel. I am removed, relishing
The existence of so much life, while yet, forgetting my own. 
Oxymoronic wonder. And yet it's what heals most.

But so in this stilling, e’er I mete the dealings and steps, 
Time yet has its place in wonder. Though myself forgot, though
Healing comes in fold, and reverence on the way, I need.
And so in sleep of this place, I rest once more.

Between revel and rest, this existing bequeaths such
Thought of more. To move in the Haven of youth that 
keeps my ears the hearing and sight unsaid.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end, 
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use! 
As tho' to breathe were life!*
Afraid then for the losing space of four suns, I set 
To burnish the tinge of the marmot, who pries
the dirt from the eyelid to wake. Wanton in the way wonder, 
I promise I will not let die the sake from which this 
metre plays within me. I know and hold.

I know what keeps the bridges fast. I know the strength required 
is like that strength to keep me still. Strong, reliant, we trust 
without knowing. But I know that I may trust. And I remain still.

I gave it part of myself, so more may come with me. What 
is easy to forget, just means that what is left is remembered. 
I cross the Danube at last, to meet again the companions 
that go anywhere. The petrol cloud, an unseen tail of a bird 
that forgets to revel in flight, beckons me to the next. 
Beyond which I am nothing. In that empowering non sense 
of my place in existence, I am not. I do not. I feel not.
But I feel it here, the light and dark, of doubting my riddance
Of doubt. Doubting the surety in what I yearn to seek.
Yet one last look, and she reminds, like gravity. So,
For the last time, for now, I. Am. Here.
-
*From Ulysses by Alfred Lord Tennyson

And now I've seen the ocean
One small part my gaze could fit
And wondered how far it goes

The waves hold no answer
They only flow on
The gulls call as always

The ships in turn and anchor
Have seen much
And go farther without me

The white lines that crest waves
Show me like a map
The way the ocean moves

By crest and wing and iron
And I, this one small part,
Here to see and find and yearn

But in all this unanswering
I think I felt the truth
Of how far the ocean goes

Friendship is a milestone
Wrapped around your neck
And bound to the heart,
Never given away.
It is there to write in stone
What can never be held
In the air.

A moment that's true,
And honest, requires no voice.
A time that's safe,
A warm embrace,
Is never lost
When freely held out
In the rain.

Grass will grow.
For this is true friendship:
That you find joy
In the company of those
With whom your heart is safe.

On the silent side
The song that plays
One of nature's best
The stream, I know, has it's nooks
And cranes, that flowing and flowing
Flow on.

A constant, million pulses,
Each with it's own voice.
They carry aloud the autumnal
Demand to be known by its dying flash
Of red, brown, and gray.
The music is seen.

I know and I know well,
Assuredly as the sun
May wake the tear,
This ethereal falling
Is Eden's second death.

What does this mean for me,
As I'm sitting here alone?
The death of Eden alive again,
Cuts as deep as cherubs sword,
And the ice-ed wound won't heal.

Day after ashen day,
When small fire is all
That doesn't add to the pain
Of this season,
I can't walk without the reminder.

But once upon once, in all time,
We relished in Caesar's joy.
Now it's all I remember,
Sitting here again, hearing the song.
It carries away the snow now,
The scars of Adam's falling.

I look to the stream again,
Still flowing and flowing on.
I look to the skies and see,
Nothing is falling now.
Not snow. Not leaves. Not stars.
It is not a wish I make.

The trees reveal the lilt,
Of Caesar's long promise;
That winter is not death
And snow is not for life.
The land and the river still play
The same song it always has.

And just after dawn,
when green spring is gone,
And flicker of leaf chance to fly,
The flowers of morn
Are newly reborn
As myriads of trust from the sky.

Awake and still in buried dark
Wanting and waiting away.
The moon casts her shadowed mark
As time, her branches, sway.

Out upon where dire leaf
To withered branches clings,
And feels the bite of cold relief
That flies on wintry wings.

I wish the wind, her fearless dance,
Had made some wings for me.
A sleepless night is naught to glance
For one as ancient as she.

Yet here I am in all abound,
Wishing and waiting away,
Time to pass and hear the sound,
Of wind and the nightinga'e.

Oh fly! Oh fly! Oh fly away!
Above the snow-lit ground,
Over the winter and over the fray
And over and over the sound:

Of the wake and the still of the sleepless night,
Of the watching and waiting away,
Of the dreams and the tears recalled to sight,
Of the love I am losing in gray.

To a place in the night where town bells ring,
And the light from the doorway splits.
Where the arms of my trust recall to sing,
And the fire warms hearts and mitts.

But a dream and a poem is all I own,
In this waiting and waiting for day,
When all I can think is the love I've known
Is drifting and dreaming away.

Oh take me from the thoughts of night,
And wing me a'winding away!
To the time and place that you're in sight,
And the sleepless nights can't stay.

The tea shon gold as silver string,
Tied in ribbon on glassy wing.
Her finger here to linger where
She found the warmth to tarry there.
The leaf had left its own.

The northing star upon the head
Descends the summit, turns to bed.
To rest and rest, as if to dream
She'll find her healing- shine again!
Though war starts within.

But through her sleep, she cannot lie.
The sun reflects, and moon is sly!
To trick the midnight to a'light
And steal from her the erring sight,
As feet begin to run.

Away! away! from resting sway!
Toward the moon and wounded day.
She'll not fear the blood-bourn beam,
To dance free 'neath moony gleam.
The light her truest friend.

She'll dance in fields of evergreen,
And pick the hyssop, ever-clean.
To her the moon doth bequeath
Upon her head a silver wreath
Of joy-light from the stars.

Yet scars of day may reach the light
And scatter moons in dreams of night.
Round and round the ribbons go,
The tea is but a chilly glow.
Your hand has left the wing.

Now you search the star-lit west,
To set upon a sunlit quest,
Where hope is full of better days
With love and joy that finally stays,
And gives you more than rest.

As I pray you will be healed,
By comforts that the moon revealed.
You'll find a day where surely you know
In picking your hyssop, you also sow.
Thus, healing is at hand.

To the first and the end I've been here.
They smile in silence as the Tay
watches o'er me,
a sole mast at the top of the sea.
Fire washes eyes in the dead-silence
of bird song and bitter-sweet farewells.
I am not ready to move.
For bonnie is the greenish of the law-cresting pine, 
silver as sky-reflected sea,
Hollowed are the steeples in grander bristling sway, 
The wind is still in the song of the free.

The road on my toes pulls down, grounding me
to my memory so far beneath.
Weighting and waiting is the stride that carries beyond the way. 
I bid farewell.
Hearing again the voice of many collected,
it drowns the senses in a pool of chamomile flower. 
Once lived, it echoes in empty space only known.

Shall I know the sage of summer?
Can I taste of the mint in your water?
Will the gulls cry for me as I leave
like the ships lost at sea? I will go on.
New in my journey and new in my return.
I will go on, fairing far in farfaring.

Yet now life is distant to this gazing, left in separation 
From the rosary dusting from the hook. 
Never knowing the height of this land, 
It calls me, tells me, yearns me stay.
But I, the wandering child, will never be the same.
I see it here, now, as it deepens in depart,
a stranger to love and land and life.
She turns away unburdened and unknown.
And I do the same,
drooping eyes that never meet.

Falling away from the cradle, branded, marked 
By those who could never understand.
Feverish to turn to restoration, 
Ever reliant on the flashing of street lights for constancy.
As newness reigns in me, 
Transposed by my rambling mind and feet, 
Its curse and blessing will not fail.

At the fastest, rising pull of gravity's alite,
I shall see you soon enough.