Waking the Stars

All day long we wrap ourselves in each other and wait 

for the stars to wake us from a dream that is more 

treasure-hunt than sleep.

Your fingers run across my back like a fine brush 

trying to recover a temple buried in dry skin and 

old bone. 

And when I touch your pearl, the sea runs down 

your thigh and I catch foam on the tip of my tongue, 

tasting salt mingled with rose-hips and honey.

When night finally falls and a blue sky collapses

into darkness, we wander under heaven, and it is we 

who wake the stars.

High Wire (With A Nod to George W. S. Trow)

Old George knew a thing or two

and always said, as I recall,
“The higher the wire, the harder the fall.”

Time was, we could raise

a little dream to distant heights
and find some space above the lights
where it could grow and act like a promise
to those we left below
and never once did we believe
that the people who bet on us
would pull the net on us,
or that they'd ever leave.

Today a lot of us fall and no one sees
There are no nets: we fall invisibly.
We crash to whatever ground meets us
and wait silently but no crowd greets us,
to lend a hand, to provide some aid
until it dawns on us, bruised and numb
there is no help, that help will never come.

And when we rise again, if we ever do,

a bit more crushed, a bit more broken,
and we think the bruises will be invisible, too,
so the pain we end up living through
remains unspoken;

"We came so close, we were at the brink"

That's a lot of us now — More than you think.

Come, Old Friend, to Parts Unknown 
Where a Table Is Set and No Reservations Are Required

Nails can drive through flesh
opening wounds
not even gods can heal
and there are demons fixed
neither fortune nor fame can budge
and flaws too numerous to mention
but never too numerous to judge.

This Old House

This old house creaks
in the wind, aging rafters sway,
and a storm forces the wood
to turn out of a fear of tornadoes.
Twice struck by lightning ,
twice rebuilt, its dry wood crumbles,
falls downward to earth,
mixing with mortar that has drifted
to the base of the foundation.

Local children pick
at the foundation itself,
carrying off pieces
for building small castles
or for use as missiles
in their latest wars.
I do not stop them for fear
one may be another Frank Lloyd Wright ...
for fear the wrong side may win.

Or I do not stop them because
in the end termite and rat
will move in, colonize
in another example
of Manifest Destiny.
By that time I will have quite crumbled myself,
flesh gone, soul fled, bones unearthed by a nosey dog;
the spider will weave its silk from pelvis to vertebrae,
the worm keep house, the wind and rain bleach my skull
to a pale white.

© Paul Wittenberger 5/31/2018

What We Are

Keepsakes and heirlooms,
greeting cards and childhood toys,
a first kiss, the last goodbye ...

What we are
cannot be kept
like a locket on a chain
passing hand to hand
or heart to heart.

We grow
in the space
between stars
and in that crucible
we find our beginning
and our end,
our journey and
our destination.
We are fuel and fire,
flower and seed,
chicken and egg,
alpha and omega.
We are an endless
breathing of light
across dark waters,
causing stars
to ripple outward
until all circles are joined
into waves
as they meet the shore,
and we are those waves
that pound against stone
and we are the stones
that break the waves,
shaping the shoreline
with every breath,
shaped by what we breathe
and by that which
breathes through us.

Each of us an anvil
waiting for its hammer.

Revolution

Somewhere 

in that summer

we heard drums 

pounding in our ears

and hallelujahs 

swelled the blood

driving it upward 

to dwell in citadels

rising above 

landscapes of desire;

and we forced

those strongholds 

of the heart

to rail against laws 

tacked onto nature

like an afterthought: 

culture and civilization

struggled for release

lost their grip

and a new world

was born

When it's blue o'clock
in the morning,

predawn mist
thickens with bird-song:

geese honking their way

to the marsh lake,
where open stretches
of water still hold 

the evening stars

and ducks drifting among
cattails and lilies,

catching a squeem of fish
rippling up through dark water ...

the shoreline is alive
with herons and terns
and beyond the water's edge
kettles and eskers
drumlins and kames
and harrier, plover and coot

in that moment
a first burst of sunlight 

sluices through pines
stiffening in the wind

and we are like the lake
still mirroring the dimming stars

whispering welcome
to the light that has journeyed
so far to meet us.

Wait For the Night

Wait for the night to come, they said.
Wait for the shadows to fall.
Lean your ear to the wind, they whisper.
Wait for the dead to call.

For the dead will call
and you know them all,
the names, the dates, the places,
their manner of death
and what they left
when memory took their faces.

Wait for the night
when the moon is bright
and the dead will come calling for you.
They'll talk of their lives,
of husbands and wives
of children and how they grew.
They'll laugh off regrets
for the secrets they kept,
secrets that everyone knew.
And you'll cry for your mother
from under the covers
but she will be with them, too.

© Wittenberger, 26-2-2018

August 2016

I thought
it was August heat
smothering us,
making bedclothes stick
and sleep
an uncomfortable
tangling together.

The air-conditioning was poor,
the unit beyond repair,
vents placed too high
on the wall to be useful,
leaving us to swim
in a dark well of summer sweat.

We threw off the sheets,
kept the blinds closed,
the curtains drawn,
believing darkness
would keep us cool.

When you sought relief
in a room down the hall,
I chalked it up
as a quest for comfort,
but you found
the air in that room
just as suffocating
as the one you left.

Even after a portable A/C
cooled the night for sleep,
you complained:
about its size,
the sound it made
while it ran all day,
the traffic noise in the street,
the voices of children
at the nearby school,
and the heat — an August heat
that even the arctic
couldn't cool.

© Wittenberger, 27-2-2018

DAILY REMINDERS

Everything burns.
Everything ends.
Mothers, Fathers,
Children, Friends;
Time is an arrow
that never bends.
Everything burns.
Everything ends.

Everything drops.
Everything falls.
Kings and empires,
Towers and walls;
Time is the sunset
that always calls.
Everything drops.
Everything falls.

Everything gives.

Everything takes.

Love and honor,

Apples and snakes;

Time is a chain

that never breaks.

Everything gives.

Everything takes.

Everything burns.
Everything ends.
Mothers, Fathers,
Children, Friends;
A broken needle
never mends.
Everything burns.
Everything ends.