Don't Snicker

Don't Snicker
by Gideon Burton

Today I found a candy bar, forgotten.
It somehow made it's way beneath my bed--
a no-man's land where food goes to go rotten--
a place of dust and junk, ignored or dead.
I thought it would be harder, firmly stale;
I thought I would just huck it in the trash;
I thought my better thinking would prevail;
but I have done a thing both sweet and rash.
How easily its wrappered skin gave way;
how readily I tore the nougat's tissue;
how quickly spiked my gloucose in that spray
of burning chewy sugar -- how I'd missed you.
     So many things when lost dissolve to dust;
     a few, preserved like nectar, you can trust.

Photo: flickr - jennratonmort

The Smoke of Sleep

The Smoke of Sleep
by Gideon Burton

The smoke of sleep unfolding over deep

And hollow chasms of this streaming night

Of dreams, of semi-dreams and mist, of bright

Misprisions, shadows doubling in the sweep

Of unaccounted time. Like water, weak

And weaving in the loom of loosened earth

Uncertain of its rhythms in the dearth

Of evening's thirst. There is no place to seek

No antidote to coarse confusions, no

Arrest, no pacing of the ardent flux

Around the center, holding place, the crux

And argument, unsown where one would sow

        The softest seeds of waking in the mind,

        To grow alive to daylight and its kind.

Photo: flickr - Jason OX4

Refraction

Refraction
by Gideon Burton

Through which glass darkly viewing: book or page
or Latin, lens or focus, resolution, screen?
Along what vein projecting: inky age
or pixels perfect, language evergreen?
At certain angles textures cough and claw,
or smooth a prism's lancing of the black
confusions time accumulates in raw
and mute abundance. Certain masks retract
the numbness; certain fabrics sew the sense.
A pattern is an optic, matrix, stone
Rosetta, glyph unglyphed, thick verbs untensed;
dark algorithms make the darkness moan.
     Like sheep from goats, the signal parts the noise;
     simplicity's complexity that's poised. 

Photo: flickr - philobiblon 

Memory of Eden

Memory of Eden
by Gideon Burton

Do you remember, Adam, how we were?
In paradise. In innocence. How long
did we explore those misty forests, stir
the rivers, naked-limbed, before our wrong
exposed us, clothed us with our cold desire
to separate, to brood in barren shame?
I still remember, just before the fire,
how He would call for us, would name our names
to come and play with us out there -- that's all.
Before that taste, that bite, the leaves, the leaving.
What I remember most was Autumn, not the Fall,
our time before we counted time in grieving.
     As drifting saffron leaves in scattered glory
     so were we then, before we fell to story.

Photo: flickr - ennor

Holy Spirit

Holy Spirit
by Gideon Burton

A phrase that arches upward, over, down,
transparent in the flow of lesser things.
A quietness that sounds the depths of sound;
a softness, wind on petals in the Spring.
Not wholly ghost: bright shadows just in sight,
warm residue that stings me as I seek
and seek again His tactile calm, this slight
perception strength's returned to me while weak.
Rich present of His presence, plain and near
and nearer, breadth inside of breath, the red
of blood, the pulse of sudden healing clear
as creamy moonlight though the daylight's fled.
     A single note, a beacon strobing slow;
     this quiet, constant friend, this God I know.

Photo: flickr - familymwr

Asteroid Peach

Asteroid Peach
by Gideon Burton

A peach is like an asteroid except not hard,
much smaller, rarely tumbling off in space,
quite softer, really, fewer nickel shards
throughout, and smoother, kinder on its face.
A poor comparison? Digest it further:
once all the orange sugar globe is eaten,
a pit remains -- a horrid thing, like murder,
distorted, scarred, as though too often beaten.
Of course, when tonguing peach flesh on parfaits,
aglow with fruity perfume sweet to taste,
we act as though all peaches come our way
without that gnarled nut, that pitty waste.
     Both peach and planetoid have darkened cores
     that cling and cut: sharp pods of alien spores. 

Photo: flickr - verysubmm

Let Them Fail

Let Them Fail
by Gideon Burton

Let's engineer the nebulae, compress

the early elements toward a mass

of sparking hydrogen, this stellar mess

persuade into a string of pearls to last

as long as Adam's atoms trace their way

along fresh generations -- who will choose

their own elliptic orbits, how they'll prey

upon the fertile days, find ways to lose

their way, to weight the swallowed gravities

surpassing Jupiters in poisoned mass.

And let them sound the darker cavities,

cosmographies confounding present past.

     We've known the primal chaos lost in cold.

     We'll see Him light new suns from those grown old.

Photo: flickr - NASA Goddard Photo and Video

Fajitas

Fajitas
by Gideon Burton

Another pepper chopped to juicy heat
then slathered on a chip of salty corn
A salsa, with cilantro newly born,
tomatoes diced along the basil leaves.
The barbecue has blackened cuts of meat
that, sliced to lengths, acquire the needed form
to wedge among tortillas, flour or corn,
which we, sauteed with onions, gladly eat.
A spread of reddened rice to dress the plate
perhaps a dab of sour cream as well
the guacamole lingers on the side
The platter, a sombrero, filled with great
aromas, Mexico has cast its spell
that we consume with gusto and with pride.

Photo: flickr - ugod

Reason

Reason
by Gideon Burton

Is reason male? Spock-logical and sure?
Secure within its calculations cold
and bold? Each measured premise never lures
the passions: algorithmic, I am told.
Machinery of thought, the valid check
on wild distractions fertile in our minds. 
What comfort: in our world we may expect
behavior rigorously constant! Blind
to bias: major, minor premise, done.
Oh, I have felt this warm seductress draw
from me conclusions that have drugged and stunned
me with their elegance, no fault no flaw
no way this opiate goes out of season:
our lust for order, dressed in slinky reason. 

Photo: flicker - exper

thinkspeak

thinkspeak
by Gideon Burton

but also something's always in the mix
of demi-memories cascade parade
invade rechurn resmooth the remnant pricks
of constant conscious conscience where we wade
in eddies of the last recursion whirl
about the denser flux and turn and turn
go back returning to the sandy pearl
that strings along the sticky salve the burn
along the tongue or thighs or inner ear
where wounds the shape of words absorb the ground
is horizontally inept cohere
is my command the echo laughing sound
unsound of mined illusions forged and crushed
against the orange blood grow cool now hush

Photo: flickr - Darren Hester