Saturday 29 October 2011

Burning Grace

Ron Koppelberger
Burning Grace
Needful, hemmed gently by the embrace of meandering
Rare profit, a passageway unto the quiet scrutiny
Of delicate silver contours and suggested jewels,
Begat by refuge and protectors in burning grace,
The professed sympathy of seasons in custom,
The cause inspired by the remedy of light sheltering
The shadows of calm reliance and dire perfumes,
Begged by romance and the sweep of cat’s eye essence,
A bewildering endurance of passion and manifest
Wisdom, a gem taken unto the heart of
Legends and wont, by the shimmer of
Stones glistening under a twilight
Dream.

Saturday 15 October 2011

Enemy Hands

Ron Koppelberger
Enemy Hands
The physical features of what he had to deny, of what was begat by the
Shadowy realms of insanity, were gnarled, aged ten-fingered albatrosses. He stared at the creases and wrinkles adorning his hands. A whisper of rage, a teardrop in contention with the act of bloodthirsty desire. Where was his salvation, he thought. Slender realms of light shorn to shadow and silhouette. He turned the faucet on and watched the water pour into the drain, whirling a tiny tempest in warm spray. He caressed the cascade and the water burned his hands. The heat reminded him of his awareness, his awakened passion for simple release. Old hands, young heart in speed and by the slow ticking of the clock. He sighed; what quiet decision had the fates handed him.
A terrific melody of echoing remembrance, rings and betrothal, What had he done? In guilty quests and angry passage, What had he done, he asked himself. The fact was he was wearing enemy hands and frail will. What bond have I accepted with these vile appendages? The act, the moment of contrition would defer the vision. Swinging the lamp, heavy gilded and with a crushing result, her head, his wife’s head had, “Gone South.” he whispered, “She’s gone south.” He paused picking up the hacksaw, bloody and already used to terrible conclusions. What in contrition, he thought. He reflected calmly and in a brief moment of understanding, he found love and an apology for the act. How would he cauterize the wounds? How would he lift the red hot frying pan to his handless wrists? How? He swallowed hard as he placed the hacksaw on the backside of his right wrist. Forgiveness, he thought. Enemy hands, enemy hands, he clenched his jaw in determination and the saw worked as he attacked the enemy.

Autumn Age

Ron Koppelberger
Autumn Age
The burning orange glow of twilight skies and sun burnished paths of eternity, the wind in synchronicity with the rows of wheat bloom and corn shoot, he lifts his arms in supplication to fall coronas of saffron glow and the faded underside of spring. Leaves quicken to brown and crackling exhaustions of billowy carpeting; crunching beneath his feet, flowing in rambling heaps around his ankles they flitter and fold in harmony with the onset of autumn fame. He blinks away the summer sparrow as the echo of crow caw fills the air and suspiring in breaths of fresh satisfaction the cool northern breeze blows like a mythical tempest.
He smiles a burlap buttoned scarecrow grin and moves through lanes of fiery summer to the changing chrysalis of autumn fare, an affirmation of pumpkin angels and concealed serenades of waiting winter wash, waiting in death yet animated seasons of change, waiting for unchained winds to shift in silhouettes of fall fathers and uncanny mysteries of rebirth, evolution, waiting for god’s yearly revolution and the hands of time beckoning the beginning of a new passage.