Poetry of Ken Luber

SO WE WALK
And so we walk softly
Across the bass chords of the
Universe holding each other's
Hand not because we are
Afraid to fall, but because
We can only hear the music
When we are together.

THOSE TREES
Those trees followed me
           My entire life
Friendships were made
           Between the ash, the oak
And my heart.

And when I saw them
          Against the shadows
Of the night or in the slim
          Shuffling dawn
Of an early morning wind
          Bowing and twisting,
They spoke to me

And I, in turn, embraced
          The years they had spent
In watching me, in sheltering
          My soul, keeping it forever
Safe and close to the sweeping
          Mysteries of Earth

Where they made their home
          From where they watched the world
And sang through branches
          With teeth of emerald leaves.

EVERYBODY'S SHADOW
Everybody's shadow
Is in another city
On a busy sidewalk
Or hidden under trees

Everybody's rhythm
Is in a child's fingers
Or wrapped inside the motion
Of someone else's shoes

And everybody's soul
Wanders through a sky
Of rising moons and stars
In someone else's dream.

THIS RAY of SUN
In a window on the second floor
I saw a naked woman pose
An artist drew her body on a tablet
Set against a folding music stand

I wondered why it took so long
To reach this corner of eternity
Why I was distracted by the lines
Dividing days and years
The windmill of unkindness and regret
My failure to respond to grief
In someone else's eyes.

Distracted by a rapper's death
The fluff of movie stars
The howling of disease and hate
Soundbites from a nervous
Post-atomic world
When in my heart I knew this ray of sun

Bent softly on a woman's breast
Spoke to me of how the world began
How memory keeps alive our willingness
To love, how time is life in crumpled leaves
Along a mountain path, in ocean waves
That skim the light of morning clouds
In songs that sleep forever in our limbs
And on our lips.

I HEAR MY FATHER'S VOICE
I hear my father's voice
nothing is as bright
or shining not shelves
of Roman glass or seas
lifting their blue silk
skirts to an August wind.

No one will ever come after
it is here my father sings
on different banks of memory
and a dry scrap of the moon
floating safely and alone
on the rivers of my heart.

DEATH NESTS ITSELF
Can you tell me
now that you have written
my obit where death kicked in
and found its way through
organs, veins, and ligaments
to plant its seed and residence
within the thoughts and nerves
I often called my life.

Was it on a summer day
or in the cold, white columns
of winter bearded with the rust of
autumn leaves, or in the shallow
blue pearls of spring, or perhaps
a moody November night, with its
fires ready to scar the forest
in a mob of angry winds.

You know, as well as I, death
nests itself in my soul
and calls on matter from my
eyes and throat to still the beauty
once I saw and heard in whispers
from the rolling sea, and in
the golden hall of melody
that passes for a woman's heart

So thrust me out
take me further than the noise
of gods, further than the tides
of empathy or planet's light
further than the dreams I failed
to recognize as touchstones
of my greater self

Let me be guided by what
I cannot see or touch or
find within the memory of
love. Guided by the whisper
once I heard when I was just
a boy and the street rushing 
towards me was my world.

AND WHEN SHE WALKS
Red leaves fall
Across my lover's heart
Her black hat shades
A world of innocence.

She sleeps on boulevards
And dreams the music
Of convertibles
Her breath is cigarettes

Her mood caffeine
Her time of life is now
And when she walks
A dance beneath her baggy

Skirt begins to sway
And when she speaks
Her words like candles
Light laughter in her eyes.

And so she wanders through
My mind on roads I've yet
To cross where red leaves
Fall in wintertime.

(Art Alliance of Idylllwild Blue Ribbon)

AND AS SHE SLEPT
My mother died in moments
like foam falling away
in golden flecks running
backwards from the sea to form
a distant wall she would not
let me in.

Our hands clapped to register
the blinking of her eyes
her swollen feet had left
the search for earth her lips
resembled clouds she spoke
the sound of shovels tapping death

She is the hope I clung to
in her womb, breathing in a starless
night she was my eyes before I saw
the jeweled arc of dawn
she was my ocean wind of dreams

And as she slept I climbed
the mounting sadness in her heart
and swam the rivers of her
stubborn blood and heard the shallow
cries of suffering that kept her silent 
when she should have screamed

And once I crawled into the world
I left her leaning on the measured 
fence of time and in a rage
that shattered memory and mind
I stumbled through the dark ascent
of grace into the fierceness of a man.