Glass

photo: ralph murre

Glass

by David Scheler

He watches her fade

on the other side

of the glass

between them,

kept so clean,

even the evidence

of fingerprints

is absent

and he beckons her

to slip back

from a place

he’s already gone

before she vanishes

completely.

~ previously published in Reed Magazine

Holiday Concert

digital art: ralph murre

Holiday Concert

by David Scheler

A

bell choir

silvers satin,

ripples scarlet.

Chocolate drones

deep brass.  Light

gingers zest-flash lemon

sharp, crystal tingles cinnamon

on a fresh white

ping

!

~ first published in the

Wisconsin Poets’ Calendar

One-Hundred-Year-Old Oak

photoart: ralph murre

One-Hundred-Year-Old Oak

by David Scheler

The sumi-e brush

of the moon

inks across the slope

to my stairs,

tattoos the snowdrifts

with crisp silhouettes

of boughs, limbs and twigs––

chiaroscuro veining

reminding us

of what was once

a landscape

owned by owl and oak––

now a line drawing

on a wash of white,

sketched across

this parchment scroll.

~ first published in Plainsongs

View From a Small Skyscraper

photoart: ralph murre

View From a Small Skyscraper

by David Scheler

An endless flow of headlights

snakes through city streets.

            Sub-atomic particles

            stream out from stars.

Riders stream to a London,

New York or Tokyo.

            Electron bonds with nucleus,

            electricity becomes composite.

The attraction atavistic;

a sense of grand potential.

            Stars spider galaxies.

            Sparks arc across neurons.

The snake of headlights

strings across spider galaxies.

            Genes snake across

            the spidered string of chromosomes.

In this equation, need is fleeting

while desire is a constant.

Chaos is its own precise pattern.

            In this equation,

            potential is the constant

            and the probable is fleeting.

~ previously published in Casting for Meteors

Suspended

photoart: ralph murre

Suspended

by David Scheler

From the wooden observation tower

the green solace of summer

drifts over the watershed ––

lush valleys and hills

roll through fields

then disappear in mist

of the horizon.

The hawk holds the sky

under his wing

on twilight breeze;

he neither descends

nor rises on wind,

tethered like a kite

on invisible string.

These silent moments drift away

as Venus descends.

But the hawk

lingers on the waft

as sunset folds into the night.

~ previously published in The Aurorean

KALEIDOSCOPE

artwork: ralph murre

Kaleidoscope
by David Scheler

He looks through a hole
in the woven straw hat
that covers his face in the sun.

The glint that he sees there
creates prisms of spun glass
on a palette of sunset pastels

that lie behind black lines
which pattern themselves
as the organic rhythms

of tree rings, as malachite
and crystals
spilling the spectrum,

as striations swirling
like phantom fractals
embedded in a jewel.

In the hole of his hat:
the universe.


~ previously published in Avocet and in Casting for Meteors

ON THE FLOWAGE

photo: ralph murre

On the flowage
by David Scheler

the silhouette
of a man in a boat
who watches the waves
lap the rocks and the reeds

as he strokes
his thinning hair,
contemplates the reflections
among the ripples,
the waning yet to come.

The light on the water,
the full moon,
all are silver
through the mist

where the sun
had shone
only a few hours
or decades earlier.

~ previously published in Casting for Meteors (Finishing Line Press)