Rose Aiello Morales

Time after time,
it all adds up;
weight upon weight,
all seeming lighter,
more fluff than substance.
Worries about nightmares
dreams and foolish ideals
fall to the sides of roads
where Spring rains
wash them away.

Pain upon pain,
aches magnify
with remembrance
of passing years,
youth stored
in forgotten muscles;
pain’s sensation
felt in methods
of dealing.

The counting
of negative integers
soon becomes positive;
colors of aged beauty
show in charcoaled lines
etched upon beloved faces.

Dirt between atrophied fingers,
smell fecundity,
feel soil shift,
fall as plant nourish,
meant for sowing,
not burrowing.

Age is not
numbers
on blackboards,
just a subtle rendering
of old
to new.

I am poured concrete,
fossilized excretions,
nematodes in
forgotten boxes.

That which you want
does not exist,
in my world,
water doesn’t flow,
bile is never coughed.

I lead,
by drastic change
and life saving
necessity,
a bloodless life.

So dig
if you must,
drill all you will.
I am
an archeologist’s dream,
an abandoned civilization.

You cannot find
what you seek.

I am a stone…

The ancients knew
how spirits hide
and thrived amongst
all living things;
the rushing stream
the just threshed wheat,
the sky, the sand
and every tree.

Cognizant spirit
in knotty oak
residing far beyond
the Roman’s scope;
possessed of knowledge
wise and terrible,
chose endurance
of dull blade’s cut
and stripping bark.

Knowing he would be the one
to touch a god
and hasten his journey
back to Heaven;
and when he cried
for unearthly father
would wrap him in
his sinewy arms
whisper his secrets
and carry Him home.

A spirit doesn’t cry
but neither would he let
divinity die alone
for the unwise choices
of a god made mortal
to shoulder the sins
of unholy hoards.

He blew in the ear
of the grass, the mud,
the scratchy shroud,
the boulder, cave
the ground
from which
the man would rise
to fulfill the promise
the spirits knew
He could not deny.

A spirit doesn’t cry,
but from the sky
a kindred being
let drops of dew
fall down
unto the parched,
red clay,
in memory of
that faithful day
when everything changed,
but remained the same.

Lovers tumble
in the arms of Death;
infatuated with the feel
of omnipotence.

won’t be me, won’t be me

They stand aloft
of the raging sea
teasing the pull
of the crashing waves
with a laugh on their lips
and the spray on their face

won’t be me, won’t be me

Tiptoe across the railroad bridge
the bungee nooses round their feet,
the ground so tempting
the air so sweet
the thrum of the rails
as the steel wheels meet
the edge of the grave
the beat of the heart;
the shiver of fear
in the deepest parts
of psyches unhinged
by a lust for life.

It won’t get me, it won’t get me

But time before time
and much too soon
in the black stench of night
and the light of the moon
in soft, velvet boxes
with scented pillows
buried in gardens
beneath weeping willows

They cry for you, they weep for you

Who read every tome
and still never learned
that we all will surrender
to hunger’s burn…

And that Death always wins…

All the time.