Ken Gierke

Brilliance
 
Her light is an oasis
in a landscape
of seeming darkness,
 
the world around her
dimmed by comparison.
That light holds a music
 
to wake my mind
from slumber with passion
that echoes my own,
 
offers assurance of a path
through any shadow
that may lie before us. 
 
As Above

so below, within the pulse
star fields emerge
flames engulf, recede, reveal
depth in layers always there
currents conceal nothing, everything
perception eclipsed as stars dance
light washes away perception
an amorphous birth
confirmation of connection
in a quickening pulse

Better Left Behind

A dropped bone is no loss,
once you realize
it was your own, gnawed
by the scavengers
surrounding you.
What is prized by you
should not be determined
by others. You may
come out limping,
but you will walk tall.

Moonbeam Picnic

I listen to our shadows on a night picnic,
visited by words in raining moonbeams
that bring dream sense magic.
Giving them our real names,
I sing to the stars of my love for you
with controlled abandon.
What is our image? Poems and the body,
think of them as one, alive on the nights
you love me most, over the moon.

Limp Bellows
 
A hearth glows with deception.  Flames lick
within, between, around, at the edges
 
of forms sculpted not by those flames
seeming to rise from embers not embers,
 
beneath forms not charred logs,
lacking life as ceramic will do,
 
denying the senses further of the crackle of life,
the shifting of a form succumbing to the seeping
 
of energy at the end of its life.  Instead, fueled
among unchanging forms by a source metered,
 
piped to that hearth by a provider indifferent
to the romance meant to be conveyed by the flames.
 
Speak to me directly, without deception
that fans flames long gone out.

Tapestry

Fathers and brothers, sisters and mothers
Triumphs and trials, happiness and sorrow
Woven through tales past and those yet to finish
Blended with those of our children’s children
A tapestry with folds that hold a fortune for those
Who understand the wealth of those tales, a texture
Felt in a moment of revelation with a child
An afternoon with a friend, a lifetime with a loved one
A brilliance in its deepest folds that inspires
In times of darkness or light, then and now
Woven as we come together to share that wealth
Ease the depth of that darkness, our compassion
Among the finest threads of life’s tapestry

Harmless Lunacy

I greet the full moon
with anticipation,
each month waiting for
what it has to tell me,
each month finding myself
putting words in its mouth.
I never tire of this game
with no solution,
no wrong answer,
and never a reason to doubt.

Binding Light

An interstellar pulse   	measured
through passing clouds   	survives
occlusion in the syncopation of two hearts
that breathless moment   	between.

Eyes turn from the night sky
find each other   	the darkness
meaningless   	a spark passing
between   	joining them.

A pulse quickens   	knowing
the difference is less than
the distance   	between
two hearts         beating as one.

~~~

Ken Gierke writes primarily free verse and haiku. His poetry has been published or is forthcoming both in print and online in places such as The Short of It, Amethyst Review, As It Ought to Be Magazine, Ekphrastic Review, Poetry Breakfast, and Silver Birch Press. His first collection of poetry, Glass Awash, was published by Spartan Press in 2022. His website: https://rivrvlogr.com/ Ken was first featured in 2020 and then again in 2022. You can find his work HERE.