The Warrior

Combat--the ultimate physical competition. Superiority to the winner, death to the looser. 
Attraction. Repulsion. War. My experience with the concept. May be complete. 

Warriors

Warriors die on the battlefield 

if they don't walk off.  

Good warriors die before, 

knowing all things 

of the enemy. 

There. 

And within.

The best die daily.

To know. 

Soul is life. 

Is God. 

Is Love.

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© 2016 Ardi Keim 10/11/15

Boy. Dog. Woods.

On our twenty acres the back fence kept farmer Jones' turkeys on his place most of the time. Togo was the first dog I remember. He got old before I knew anywhere else besides home, school, church and cousins. Oh, there were trips to town shopping at Tipton's and a Christmas movie too.

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Friend at Nine
 

Cold nose, black

Red tongue panting

Togo, brown Chow friend

Sticks and creek and woods we run

Turkeys were too slow.

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Boy Dog Woods
 

Douglas fir bark

moss on black dirt

kid Fort Flint in Fishback's woods

Togo always with me.

  © 2015 Ardi Keim

A Stretch of Peace

       (Don't think too hard on this one.  I didn't.)

Starts with a mocking bird

hides in a willow still weeping.

Sun sets the table of inspiration.

Yes, March … to horizons lost

           in thoughts

                on the thawing song

                     of last winter

with its never-ending chorus of another.

Yet never mentions poetic stretch.

Like elastic--when rubber comes from

           the family tree of memory.

           Or is it a whippoorwill?

Notta lotta money tree.

 

This master checks off on all particles

           lit and sonic.

           Vibrating endlessly.

           Harmonic

 

I live. I love. I write.

           Of love and life.

           Is One.

 

There is no end.

I leave it ALL to you.

Can't say what else my M o t h e r N a t u r e calling.

           Wide mouth and holy.

Too loud this language of secrets.

           We have none.

                 Well being is never left

                       without a mind lapse.

 

Has purpose in forgetting lets the head stuff off

its chronic condition.

Feverish before peace

           to the pace

                 of a sun fish.

Luke warm and perfect

           with your smile.

A Convening of Feathers

Long winters may shunt the creative, but a scene rich in symbol caught my eye last week.

 

 

A Convening of Feathers

 

Three pheasants on snow and litter under brush.

A crow squawks from their side a jump or two away

with sisters above on lamp and bare branch.

 

Disturbed birds of china retreat by quick feet

then with a call of oriental chime in low flight west.

Black chatter hovers to chase in curious report.

 

Was there any agreement on the nature of late winter?

Or can birds of cross feather ever see the others' light?

I convene with my kind and hope to touch heart.

© 2015 Ardi Keim

Song of Predawn Space

Mornings I come back. Choose my place and my day starting in sound before solid. Permeates my being, my space when the window is still open. You know? Like the life spirit of a new shore. When awakening is still silent. Listen.

 

 

Song of Predawn Space

Slow the pull from speed in peace

Retake and slip, and rake the sleep

From bright to fog returning faint.

I muscle forth 'gainst limbs still bound

From pallet down to love seat choose

The peel, the toll of other rules.

 

Open book, yet half unwritten.

Write a seed of peace decipher

Between the lines then voice, a master

Clear till mind choose chapter pages

Lines to x and white-out writing

What is the matter gray not wasted?

 

Stop in halted thought and listen

Sound the room and sing the inner

Spring from deep and dream the race

Now heard the essence of this rest

The song we sing in predawn space.

To bless this day as we awaken.

 

 

© 2015 Ardi Keim