Lifeboat

By Mark Bishop

The salted breeze swept stranded cries from yonder ships just out of sight

into ears and over neck they disappeared behind the night

Then 5, 10 a hundred more they shook the hulls and mast

from those unknowingly into this maelstrom cast

Theirs was the ocean of chaos and ardur

Which calously devoured  both palm and harbor

These plights of the sojourners harried and cold

Clawed at the sails and fought my rudder to a fold

Oh to be done with this jagged horizon let me see it straight and sweet

Let the crashes and the roars find in the depths their sleep

if not for me than for those tears that deepen each briny cascade

For what sailor has by happenstance this fearsome voyage made?

On nights like tonight

as the compass needle spins

when the blue pitches and yawns mocking my desperation

I dream the world were not so fickle a place as this

But this is where I live

This water is my home

I will spend my days amidst the breakers and the foam

I like those who cry am wed with the waves and the currents

I must endure these hurricanes and fight the crashing serpents

I would leave, yes I would go if it were up to me

But my story is on this ocean

and my world is the raging sea

Instead of Crying

By Mark Bishop

There's a sadness that doesn't come out to shed its tears anymore
Something so sad it's lost
There's a pain that doesn't write letters from war
Something so hurt from paying the cost
Of being human
Of being dust
Oh to hell with us
    or not

The waiting is the worst
bearable at first
but now I wonder if there will be anything at all left for you to resurrect on the last day
You've promised me sorrows in the stay
but every heartache borrows what little I have left to give
left to live
just left

Tomorrow's joys don't seem to mend a broken heart
grant at least that I may grieve
at least that is a start

Uncommon Worth

By Mark Bishop

Coincidental meetings and happy greetings

spur horses of friendship and long manes of correspondence

brushed and splotched as stars on night's canvas

to find in the bramble such flowers as these

it is a rare thing

Syrupy black words worth their weight in gold

pumped in full authenticity from the broken red craigs

treasured, refined, distilled and drank down

to find in such a flower nectar so sweet

it is rarer still

Diamonds, lacking purses big enough to swallow them

languor near a caverns silent stream chamered by the stone 

longing to be seen

daring soft hands and fickle feet to delve and there uncover from blackest coal that which is precious

these are everywhere

As The Rain

This is some Photoshop work inspired by the final line of a poem by E.E. Cummings called "somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond"

Paper Trail

Factions distractions precipitate dissolving days
days without anchor without skeletons zombie forward unheeded until the bite
Why can't I just sleep at night?
But even the day's like a dream
like water in a stream slipping, stumbling toward the ocean found no more

they feel like nothing.

A quiet burning of a book I always wanted to read
whose pages black no longer support their inky inhabitants
I was told I had a chance to make this almanac a story
filled with adventures boring into the hearts of it's hearers
oh but I fear there's been a mistake
because all my pages are blank
yet the epilogue is coming

Then
like laughter from a joke no one told
like giving hope to a man who is old
who long fret a watershed of shame and ocean's blame
I caught a glimpse beyond this vapor stage
There I stood upon the waves but for a moment

There just long enough to see

I have not days, but they have me

Houses

by Mark Bishop

Veiled in white power
icy peaks and piping chimneys line the streets
drawn in tightly 'gainst the hollow winter wind
fluffy coats fall along tin scarves draining mushy gifts
to gray shawls paved in winters mold
all shrink in the growing cold

Some are flecked with shimmering lights
others stark against the night
doors guard hearts with laws and rights
what are they like inside?

Only the best is on display
windows cast a subtle play for stop signs and parked cars
countless bars of repeating white shells along stained decks
craned necks perched on fences posting bail for privacy

If not for the biting chill would playgrounds swing and porches fill?
would talking, laughter silence kill?
This spring of sunlight waits until
another day I'm left here still
asking "what are they like inside?"

Memories

by Mark Bishop

I used to have a jar

which had every word that you had spoken to me

I kept it on the mantle

Where the fires I kindled each night would keep me warm

and when the fires were not enough

I unfolded each little paper 

and I saw you

like looking through slits in a fence

to a field of wild flowers stretching out into the sun

How I longed to hop that fence

How I longed to run along the rivers edge

to be laughing, drenched in the pollen,

the sweet nectar of your heart.

To catch the dazzling sun lest it be claimed by the horizon

and fix it in the sky to light the beauty of that field

But this land could not be purchased

It could not be claimed

as each night in sight of a thousand glowing embers

I placed that jar back on my mantle 

to weather the cold nights and howling winds

in this old drafty house

I vowed to add to it tomorrow

Now I have boxes

In an attic, in a creaky house, far away

with thousands of days etched on endless pages

I don't visit them very often

I don't make fires any more

There's so much you've said that I've forgotten

But when I'm standing by the river 

and catch sight of that old wooden fence

When I wake up covered in nectar 

I don't miss my little jar

because I am journeying

deep in my beautiful field