Esmond Edwards – photography

Spell On Me

by J. Otis Powell!

Words sit

On pages echoing

Your voice

And mine

What we’ve said already

Could flood a valley

Fill sand washes

To overflowing  

And make ground swells

Shifting reality

Mudding assumptions 

In ways that change 

Earth as we know it

Tear trails and scar tissue

Are waiting arteries

For river runs

Smiling images of you

Are in contrast to

The duende of your saga

When your eyes

Are cloudy skies

I trust them more

Because they are

Courageous enough to rain

You confessed

I’m just me

       I’m not great

   I’m just me

 I have certain advantages 

The rheumatism of use

And abuse has brought

Me to the same revelation

Paring away the surface 



Down to essentials

Slowing my roll

Taking it one layer 

At a time and all at once

Quantum processing

At my speed

On my terms

You are Sirius

In my winter sky

More promising than

Harvest moons

You're heterotelic

And spell casting

Resistance betrays me

Scrutiny befuddles me

And I am caught

In a thunderstorm

When the rain subsides

I’ll grow new plants

Because no previous

Crop will do

My sand and soil are new

Composted with misery

Wretchedness

Distress

Privation  

Poverty

And shinny poems



Yet

Hopes are high

Again

Laughter is loud

The hand on the

Doomsday clock

Has spoken with forked tongue

We may run out of time

Or squander opportunity

Before we know if

Our love’s in vain

We may lose every

Note we know unless

We sing into each other’s

Mouths songs we make ourselves

We may escape the quicksand 

Of mediocrity and shame  

If we break from protocol

My heart rose to between my throat

And the top of my head

Anxiety beats drums of apprehension

Like Elvin Jones rolling drums down a stairwell

The John Coltrane Quartet

Chanted to my inner-ear 

A Love Supreme

             A Love Supreme

          A Love Supreme

        A Love Supreme

Until my heart returned to my chest