A Portrait of Original Sin

Outside, barbed wire drips rain.
Inside, in a gray corridor
water trickles across the ceiling like a vein.
The condemned shuffles,
head down, manacled. From birth
he walked in the light of his father,
with the shadow of his father’s fathers;
Now, he walks past cells of solitary light.
The chamber awaits…

Bound upon the anti-throne
his arms are splayed, bare.
A tattoo of barbed wire twists
along his upper arm.
Lower is a portrait of his son,
a vein bulging across its forehead like a snake.
The spiral tube is drawn.
The death seed drips.
The lights flash off.

- Robert E. Petras

(featured in the poetry forum 07.24.12)

editor's note: Not a pretty picture. Not a simple subject; not so cut-and-dried nor easy as looking in the mirror on prom night. - mh

SEEDS

Are we dead
before we are born?
Do we sense
the long void of husked
silence, lying
like a seed,
dormant?
Do we suddenly spring
from our cauls
to swirl
in the cycles of light
only to wither
and return
to the wombed earth,
dead again?

- Robert E. Petras

(featured in the poetry forum 03.06.12)

editor's note: Seek meaning in the asking. The answers come too late to matter here and now. - mh

THE SEGUE

The woods shimmer with sound—
chained murmurs, red echoes.
The cricket chirps, the crow caws,
the nighthawk drums its wings.
Wispy mist swirls from the woods.
The wind shushes.

Inside, the house creaks.
Inside the body, blood courses,
air bellows, the pulse beats.
Only the cricket can hear the segue.
Chirping stops. Silence hums.
A shadow floats.

- Robert E. Petras

(featured in the poetry forum 12.07.11)

editor's note: Eternal silence between the beats; entire cricket lifetimes happen in that space. Shhh, do you hear them? - mh

TIME

Time is a piper
but I cannot hear it.

Time is a river
but I cannot feel it.

Time is Eden’s apple
but I cannot taste it.

Time is a glacier
but I cannot see it.

Time is an inferno
but I cannot smell it.

Time is senseless
but I can always sense it.

Time is the edge
of eternity.

- Robert E. Petras

(featured in the poetry forum 10.27.11)

editor's note: Yes, dance along the precipice and thumb your nose; can't see it, etc., so, what's the problem? Uh, don't trip on that apple. - mh

MAYFLIES

Slinking down like negligee,
a cloud slid from the moon.
On the water
I could see the reflection
of your shadow,
naked to your soul.
Our reflections now one,
we fell to the satiny earth…
They rose from our mirror,
the mayflies,
nymphs of the water,
now angel-winged,
thousands upon thousands,
a cloud
boiling in the sky,
each seeking a perfect mate
in the dance of life,
in the game of death…
Below, I too soared,
swallowed the light,
and surrendered.

- Robert E. Petras

(featured in the poetry forum 06.19.11)

editor's note: A choice must be made: The dance of life or the game of death; no matter how madly lovely nature is, it cannot compare the madness we—the judges of aesthetic, the beholder of beauty—feel. When we (hopefully) daily wander like lonely clouds, what happens when we find what we wander to so wondrously? "MAYFLIES" tells a tale of a world that can never be up or down—it's just a constant Swirl. - tm