Highland Visitation

a visitation of cloth draped about you; a pearl
to link the lady therein –
a weave of highlands revisited,
 more than a name can give –

amid water of memory cast shallow,
long shadows promise
of virtue filled –
beauty concealing a thread
unwritten ... word you
shall hold in concord -

presented by course of the highlands,
as the hound stands in
watch of a maid,
draped in weave; the cloth found worthy
of life held to binding cause -

be it the tartan revealing
my namesake; your heart entwined
that I succumb -
to its bearing, my lass,
my lady,  I bow to
the highlands in
pause


bkmackenzie
copyrighted 2008



This is one of my favourite pieces that I wrote a few years ago....I thought it appropriate to post today as I am heading for my yearly trek to the Scottish Games in Woodland CA.  It is a wonderful event and all the tartans are beautiful... There is nothing like hearing the mass bagpipe bands playing Amazing Grace .... the dancing , and listening to the Wicked Tinkers doing the MacKenzie Charge a wonderful day of events...

This poem was also featured by Gordon Mason at Catapult to Mars last year...as well as one of the poems read on my podcast linked on my sidebar....now it is off to the games.....bkm

reluctant rituals

some say journaling or writing has a way of averting suicidal tendencies
well, i believe that true only because the lead is never sharp enough
to do fatal damage except maybe to the ego sketched and doodled
across a page.  dull lead injected into the heart only weighs slow
on the blood feeding further insanity to a brain capable of abstract
visions repressed. there are those (like the i) who never get their aim right
(blind fools -  the i calls them) stabbing both occipital lobes in order
to relieve pain, like our Francis
totally unaware of his future following
robed and un-robed.
how many has he lead
in path and prayer...
now many a wolf has been befriended...
or nourishment shared.  he knew he
was an instrument, a cave dweller - are we all instruments (reluctant)?
or is the instrument in our hand?...to turn it on ourselves
is a personal choice i suppose.   my sharpening tool is a but forged
dull knife, unless i can instituted funds for a more modern tooling any
damage i could administer would be more painful than reluctant rituals written.

bkmackenzie
copyrighted 2011

i read this book  Reluctant Saint by Donald Spoto -a couple years back now..Francis was a soul that could not truly know the impact he would make on the world and its future...some say he was saint, some say insane...either way no one can deny his legacy....bkm

Posted for:  Magpie Tales

as Paris knows of it...

i wanted to send post

from Liverpool, but not having in-tersected

not having clue to its street, the

 beat of it, i could not fare its postage

and sleep well

on it

but i have been in love, yes in-love

knowing well of it, as Paris

knows of it, as the heart

 knows of it

 having fared its passage

 as any heart fares

tethered by beat

first to last

able to move well on its own, throughout the

 sculpted streets

of loving, willing to host its

flight of fancy

without discard or tourist

sentiment posted

as Paris knows of it, Love

bkmackenzie

copyrighted 2011

Fear of Falling

there is this fear
that haunts me. it comes over me
each morning sipping coffee from 220 feet; like
a spastic eyelid trying to focus
on the world in its
naked truth. so wanting to scope it out for what it is;
with what remains of my analytical sense before I see
myself just a mirror image of those
misguided fools down below.

they walk aimlessly drinking in the
words falling from above.  obliviously moving
to the cadence of a city on chaos.  and another sip, sucking up
time enough for my hand to stop shaking and
rest in the mist of this habitual insanity. an insane
myriad of subjective and objective phrases
falling into the shadows
of trees and park benches where the homeless
gather them up, carting them off,
waiting twilight when with words they make their bed,
laying their head to dream on print of empty promise - and souls
without hope left, stagger to the gutters
baptizing their worthlessness with piss one last time
before sentencing them to the underground.

few still notice any usefulness
of letters set to type, but only to complete that last section
of yesterday's crossword or to fire up a heated discussion
at Tuesday night bridge with the boys; all in all
not a bad lot for breathing in 80 years of this city, (we all should see
such a day).  but this new

class of twitter, they
have little time to ingest value
from any truth or lie presented, puncuated
in paper or plastic, as instant news only needs
bandwidth and buyer of time.  and this leaves

only god knows, the same condition (that condition)
our fragmented un-human humanity, unaware
of the real fallout all around us.  thinking the delivery mode
of madness really can change
something larger than self - and while I keep puking
out parables from a skyscraper, youths superiority
is skyping our demise from a street cafe. the only difference
being they pay extra for coffee flavored, while I
still sip my watered-down folgers expecting
something new to excite me....

bkmackenzie
copyrighted 2011
 
Posted for One Shot Wednesday: Where Poets and Writers Meet


 

Heart and Bone - Rondel II

Heart and bone seem move together,
As with first breath pulled us from still.
Does it matter this dubbed free will,
Or bask I as all fair weather?

Mockingbird spares not a feather;
But laughs out words that so would kill.
Heart and bone seem move together,
As with first breath pulled us from still.
 
Held now by clocks worn out tether,
To swallow whole a bitter pill.
The bird cries out now - longer, shrill.
Closed these ears to sound of  nether,
Heart and bone seem move together.

bkmackenzie
copyrighted 2011

Posted for Rondel II excerise.....feel free to critque this one too...appreciate what I am learning here....bkm

so if i lie to you

so if i lie to you today
would you follow me to the store
and watch the old men buy pickles
and complain about having
to listen to children beg their
mothers for sugar puffs and ice cream
or would you reach for
the doorknob on your own - without my warmth
and step away
into the night, its not that
i have lied.  i just
thought I'd ask
because asking questions (i read somewhere) keeps the dendrites
firing  
and thinking about things like there being more to the cosmos
than a sun that politely wakes me
in the morning, because you
and the cat
always forget - or maybe its because the seasons pass so quickly
and should i soon fall
under the spell of some evil fairy godmother
and take up lying
would i then have to
plan on purchasing bananas, all
by myself

bkmackenzie
copyrighted 2011

in a red bird

there is not always magic
            in a red bird
brown birds share virtue
and caged birds
though yellow will not always sing at given time

yet, i have
been given ample time, having squandered
some, thrown some
away and openly confess to killing my share of it; but
today i have been
forgiven it appears, for these transgressions
as if all is transitory if not
transparent - with choosing to see holding own its life, its own
candle to the hourglass, exposing sand
left for dead as still capable of  falling
under shade of day
or in Nightingale's silence

bkmackenzie
copyrighted 2011

Sweeping Corners....

I am so often criticized
for eating fruit whole or at least
in large hunks...a uneven slice of cheddar (sharp)
and a rip of bread...What? I say could possibly
be of error in savoring time
with the clock making faces at me
for liv(ing)...

there is no reason
to spend more
drops or drips of slow moving metaphors in a danger zone
No one - can declare I can not chef it or surrender
basil to garlic or lack ability
to spice up any one's life force, for

I am master of  sandwich
and vino...but bring your own condiments
if you choose to dine in....I can not
understand this form of sentiment,
worst being sweet over dill ...and mayo is but a clinic
I hope to never visit conscious

and, god knows I do not do bones
or fish eyes...trauma runs deep with raged tempest
for body parts no longer viewed as movable feast
a hunk is good...
loaf, provolone and un-skinned remedy of cider
because there is something
innately evil in detail ....and taking the time
to sweep in the corners....


bkmackenzie
copyrighted.2010

My Fate - Magpie #58

The ceiling fan it stilled
as I
all shadow too with sleep
Would I draw my sword to end
the still, and
my inner plight
rid self of demons - that walk
through a tortured night
Who then
would I duel?
draw sabre in my wake

To discard code of Musketeer
I will not take
to be my fate...

bkmackenzie
copyrighted 2011

Posted for Magpie Tales

I Crave to Write...

I crave to write something longer
than words upon a page simply noting life's emotions
of dear love or violent rage
I need to take but thought further, thread it
in a needle holding all of memory, stitch it
through millennium's
set past a very long ago
connecting spaces to moments
between a times hidden pause, trace all
letters to language released by an
eternal muse - and comprehend their meaning
as bee divines a lily's breast

I must sum up all fraction or whole
(with or without) manifested worth
binding it with shade or hue of a purest light
as it seeps from a holy prism ...giving all reason for knowing
a precious offering
cried sight

I need
I must write longer
so much further than before
stitch memory into time
space into so much more
without taking breath
not sparing hearts fervant race
and I shall call this place
(My Heaven)
and lock its secret door  -

should you want or choose its entrance
or feel you need step in -- write and leave
me a letter - where I am no more

bkmackenzie
copyrighted 2011



Posted for One Shot Wednesday - at One Stop Poetry

What Riddled God?....Rondel Excerise

What riddled God has lead me here?
The crag I've climbed holds no treasure
What's come to pass is all my fear
My heart bleeds beyond all measure

This lesson I set out to hear?
Glided stone that fools seek pleasure
What riddled God has lead me here?
My heart bleeds beyond all measure

The jester holds my soul to wear
Lost now heading to dreads fissure
No gifts of gems, gone too azure
My bones still have all sin to bear
What riddled God has lead me here?

bkmackenzie
copyrighted 2011

Posted for One Stop Poetry....Rondel Exercise

Can I write you a love letter?

Can I write you a love letter?
Who, capable of placing flame to page?
Not moonlight or love moments held
within this heart - words impossible to share
So can I write you letter? No, not of love, not here.

And yet,

you ask I sing you a love song
as the one frozen within my breast, in timeless
movement, as I have locked all song in fear. 
No, as I hold loves song  stilled
as my own guarded heaven - each note heard
only by my harbored ear. 

But bear me time eternal -  Love
its  flame, its  song.... that with this heart given 
you would give heart .. to me
...that I could pen and sing along, in

mercy, in loves meaning, in loves purest joy
fully expressed - between a giver and receiver
becoming fully blessed.   Thus, be my love, and
I thy lover with hearts  both entwined, and

I will write you a letter
sing songs in - loves delight
releasing word from - its fiery bondage -
and notes from
a sheltered night....

bkmackenzie
copyrighted 2011

Mystical Union

Where lies my Beloved?
Will I find him in the forest, is he at the meadows hand?
Can I touch him on the mountain?
Will he know me when I call?


Where stands my Beloved?
Shall I seek him in the sea, if I sail all the way there,
will he know it is me?
Will he hold me as his own, caress me in the night?
Where is my Beloved? I have been seeking so very long....


Is that you my Beloved? Is it you, in the moment,
you in my very breath, is it there you stand, there
in my walk, in my hearts own beating? -

Now,  I understand - you are there
in the eyes of  a stranger and in the eyes that I bear
looking back at me through the mysteries of
life's mystical mirror.....


bkmackenzie
copyrighted 2011

There is of course something mystical about the concept of living, of life.  We all feel this connection whether we choose to acknowledge it or not and with the word mystical summons magic and magic summons fantasy and maybe faith.   A world for wizards and witches, saint or schizophrenic not the common man or woman, not you or me. We work, plan, produce daily through orderly system and science of our earthly existence.  Yet it holds us captive this mystery in verse, prayer or vision of a springtime flower...and we take the word mystical to heart though it may not pass through our lips...the poet seeks to pen it, the artist paint it, sculpture it, the physicist prove it in theory and the musician bring to our ears and to our heart. 

And at the end of day we may find it hard to sleep because we place it in the window of our waking, but there it is running through our dreams and begs our notice of this - mystery.

"And he to whom worshipping is a window, to open but also to shut, has not yet visited the house of his soul whose windows are from dawn to dawn."  Kahlil Gibran

Who possess this mystical soul? Where is this window that Gibran speaks of and why would we open it only to shut it at close of day?  That window resides within us, in our heart and in our pen, in our instrument of work or wisdom and with it we breathe in its grace and breathe out its beauty.  We are all mystics and when we look into the eyes of  sorrow or joy it is there and we partake in the mystical union of life and with that we hold a responsibility to love all that is given, life's adversities and life's glory.

And as we question -Who is my  mother, my father?  Is it that we are all born from the womb of some eternal virgin, fathered by a merciful maker, a giver, a conceiver of life, melding light to matter breathing existence into being? And is it  in joy and in pain we seek our maker, crying out are you there in the desert, there on the mountain, there beneath the sea of my sorrow? Where are you.? Who are you?  We cry for this our Beloved as we walk in the faith of our fathers, or in in the faith of  another,  a saint, or the scientist, maybe through the alchemist's hand, or through the blessings of a servant of grace, but seek it we do.

Who will find it for us...this mystical union ...only us..separate, alone and eternally one with all - and that is the mystery..
our separateness -
our wholeness...
the eternal mystery of blood, of salt, of a cosmic seafarer...

And if you would know God be not therefore a solver of riddles.
Rather look about you and you shall see Him playing with your children.

And look into space; you shall see Him walking in the cloud, outstretching His arms in the lightning and descending in rain.

You shall see Him smiling in flowers, then rising and waving His hands in trees.  Kahil Gibran


And in our seeking we will find ....our way home....bkm


Writings from the Prophet: Speak to Me of Religion.....Kahil Gibran 1923

Krahe - Triolet

What laughter lingers in this pain?
Weathering all their words of sin
I cry for hope and pray for rain
Weathering all their words of sin

Who hears my cry, is all in vain?
I krahe, and krahe on my last bein
What laughter lingers in this pain?
Weathering all their words of sin


bkmackenzie
copyrighted 2011

Painting: Krahe by Rudi Hurlzmeier

German : krahe means:   Verb - crow, squawk, cackle,
                                          utter a loud harsh cry
               bein   means:   Noun - leg

Posted for One Shot Wednesday and One Shot Poetry - Triolet Part II

the poet's hand

she dwells between syllables

collecting gold and brass

melding magic to words

arising from the
 chemist's ash

 waking
to the sunset

she takes the poet's

vow -
 not to spill the ashes

or reveal 
places she has
 been

between
the twilight

and a morrow, between

 syllable and sand 
within a vessel
formed and fired
to fit the
 poet's hand

bkmackenzie

copyrighted 2011

marked consumption

the stockyards
have been shut down
for decades,
stench

of
dead flesh lingers
for marked consumption, or
decay

Pan yields to flawed
abilities
in quickening a body's,
renaissance

concedes, instrument
to a
younger god

bkmackenzie
copyrighted 2011

Posted for One Stop Poetry - One Shoot Sunday, Photographer Fee Easton

honey dries

clinging rain
honey dries wedged in
dying
fingers-nailed

desert claims
       ( I )

i shed
                          skin

neotreic sweat
feeds

a                  dead sea ...

      and
                         Rumi

                                      dances

bkmackenzie
copyrighted 2011

I have oranges

I sit in my bed
and drink coffee, the cars
rush by (going somewhere)
I sit, sip coffee -
the fields
down the street
in March
are still empty, but
soon they will
be full of produce
and people - I write
poetry

their promise is productive
commodity
spreadsheets
with lines, rows
of nutrients spoken in several
languages -
my lines are uneven, limited
broken
English - no vitamin C

but the coffee
tastes good - and I have
oranges

bkmackenzie
copyrighted 2011

Painting by; Svetlana Baibekova titled: Coffee and Oranges

and soon i must depart

i fear, you will not choose again
to love me soon, as
i sit in neighboring chair,
and watch you
whisper and to her woon,
to her girlish passions
as if i was not here
offering me but a taste
of glass,  as you offer her your heart

and soon you will not choose me
and soon i must depart..

be now a love's memory, all
that's left of when
we first did meet,  when over me
you wooned and troubled
both time and taste; too chair
and soon you will not choose me
i now sense it clearly in the air

so soon i must be leaving
as for this, my heart, you
now no longer care, as once
you did , gone so soon from
when it was i that sat
in now what has come to be
 - her chair

bkmackenzie
copyrighted  2011.

Painting by artist :Hassam, Childe (American 1859-1935) Impressionist

"The Victorian Chair 1906"

time to say good-bye

I never heard about your suicide

maybe because you could

not bring yourself to that "good-bye

cruel world" place you were always mumbling

about.   You did however, have no problem with

waving sayonara to this place or that

place where you left the dog all alone

and a big hole next to the tv.  I sat and stared

at it for the longest time, so did the dog and

the remote. "What the hell" it said

 "what did I ever do to him."  I do not know, I kept

saying.   I finally decided to I filled it with all

 your empties ( threw the remote

 in so you had a slave in the next life),

 the dog pissed on it and we called it good for

a one last blessing,  I told all your dudes that you died

and we already had the funeral.  Sorry, I said, it

happened all so suddenly; no time for all the

proper good-bye shit.   State Farm did however, 

honor the life insurance policy so I had that hole area

totally remodeled,  turned the tv room into a wine tasting

room.  The State Farm agent I found out perfers

his grapes from the Northern Rhone Valley;  I had

him move  in, after all the insurance money came

through of course.  Thought I'd let you know in case you

wanted to recycle those empties.  Also, don't forget

there are still plenty of good reasons for suicide, hope

there isn't anything I said or did that keeps 

stopping you from fulfilling your dream..

bkmackenzie

copyrighted 2011

Thought I would try some something a little different today....bkm