Choices

(The Devil Wears Horned Rim Glasses)

Saw the Devil yesterday.

On train to tower.

Talking in tongues.

Moved his glasses down to curled nose.

Smiled

Pufffffed his joynt.

"Where ya heading - boy?"

He took a drag.

Ex-haled.

"Me sir?"

"Anyone else on this train - boy?"

Look to around to be alone.

"I don't know"

The Devil laughed

"Ya better be sure you're on the right track - boy."

The beggar appeared.

Walking down the aisle with all his worldly possessions and a bottle of gin.

Asked me for some money.

I know all he will do is buy more booze.

I decline.

The Devil snickers and gives him a fiver.

The Devil's red eyes flair.

"You deny him happiness!"

I close my eyes.

The Devil laughs.

"For the grace of your God"

"There go you by."

The truth of it sends a shock down my spine.

Where I now stand in my life.

The choices I have made.

Led me here.

To this train.

Talk'n with the Devil.

White wolf

Comes from my soul.

Growls at the Devil.

He doesn't even flinch

"Struck a nerve, didn't I - boy!"

The Devil gets out of his seat.

Brings his face close.

"Look'n forward to seeing ya - boy"

Puffs sulfur smoke in my eyes.

I stand to face to the Devil.

"You won't be seeing me anymore."

The train stops at station.

"You think you can come in to my thoughts and bully me?"

"I've known bully's all my life and you, sir, are no better.” Take your smoke, your pokes, and your prods off this train!"

The Devil laughs.

"Gonna make me - boy."

And I make up my mind.

I see a railroad switch in my head.

And pull it.

The Devil drops his joynt.

Now It's his turn to growl

"Be see'n ya 'round - boy!"

Puffs a final puff in my face.

The Devil exits the train.

Doors hiss shut like the snake he is.

And someone is tapping on my shoulder.

Vision blurry to focus.

The conductor is standing in aisle.

"We are in the station, you were asleep."

I missed my stop.

Have to take a train back to it.

This time on the right track.

K.J.K. 4-18-04

Cliff Walking

He stood in the corner of This and That.

Shivering from what?

The wind, the rain?

Something else?

Hurricane force winds.

Inside and out.

This is the last of the given moments.

The Creator dangles in front on your face.

He thinks aloud:

"Like a carrot on a stick."

Is this a big step?

Or the last step?

Either way one will not know until that step is taken.

And then it's too late.

K.J.K.  02/05/11

Prelude to the End

One of his "gifts" is to see trends not evident to most.

The cosmic aligning of what may come.

If trends stay true.

A Mass conspiracy of events.

Seemingly unrelated.

Foretell the start of Ragnarök.

Where the great tree will split.

Freeing those trapped in its trunk.

Allowing their souls to move on.

And he, that pillar of a man.

Will stand on the red stained beach.

Alone.

K.J.K.  02/05/2011

Frights

"Ding-a-dong, rang the bell, the old man smiled 'cause he knew at his door was some kid dressed up like a creature from hell!

He was a crusty old soul; he lowered the Halloween treat from the second floor using an old fishing poll.

He used sheets to make up some spooks, to give a fright to those trick or treating kooks.

Then he dropped the treat, beside their startled feet.

Watched them jump and smile, pick up the treat and run for a mile!

He has seen all manner of ghoul.  From the simple ghost to hockey masked Jason's holding some bloody tool.

Yeah, he had seen it all, but it was that last caller that, finally, made him fall.

Out the window down to the ground landing with a thud and then no more sound.

An eerie silence filled the land - the creature moved its hand.

Grabbed a now bloody paper, its name em-blazed in fonts that taper.

Red, white, blue and blood, its political career ended in one final thud.

As for the man who did fall at the sight of the thing that scared him most of all.

He survived with new knowledge, something that they would never teach in collage:

Halloween isn't over, they say. Until the horrors of Election Day.

K. J. K -    10-24-96 10/23/00 10/30/10 (Revision 3!)

Mobius

This is the circle.

It shall not be broken

Hither to

Hither way.

The circle is forever.

Constant

Continuous -

Binding.

This is the circle;

Its motions weave the web of life.

It takes hold.

Grows roots.

Firm, deep - long.

For this is the circle.

It shall not be broken.

K.J.K.  10-05-10

I Will Fight

Snapping at my heals;

Like some ill tamed dog.

Wanting to grab hold;

Teeth - the shackles buried in skin.

Cutting down until bone;

Bleeding out all that is left.

Then pull me down;

In to the ranks of the depressed.

The dejected, hopeless;

Suicidal.

I will fight this.

Tooth, claw and nail.

There is no Cold Man at the door.

The sun is shining.

The music plays.

The words are written,

So Mote it be.

K.J.K. 08-28-10

Walk A Bout

Tethers and tatters

Hold me down.

To the remains of home.

Water would rise.

In great thrusts of passion.

Sits alone, stagnate.

The cold man is at the door.

Papers in hand.

Eviction.

Time to move on.

Take the best from before.

Build something.... "New".

Time invested in...

Something I, really, can't describe.

In words.

Rather in the pictures.

Conjured up in my soul.

As it push's me onward.

To find the future.

Waiting where it always has, ya know.

Around tomorrow's corner.

Time to walk a bout.

Gather up lessons

Still to be learned.

Explore the wastlands.

The furtle domains.

All the un-seen tomorrows.

Waiting to be born.

Reborn.

Before eyes such as ours.

Love is with me.

As I, staff in hand leave.

This time far from alone.....

K.J.K.                   8-17-99

Boondoggle Man

The Boondoggle man walks.

Black, tar, sticky streets.

Like flypaper to the shoe.

Attracting worms, maggots, roaches.

Kin to its heart;

Blood relatives.

The Boondoggle man;

Pale face, blue eyelids

Grey – Mohawk – hair.

A smile made out of ashen twigs,

A heart fished from the river Styx.

A laugh, short, bitter and long.

The Boondoggle man waits.

Until the still, moonless night.

Where all is quiet;

Except your racing heart.

Something follows –

And you know it.

Around every corner.

Pausing just long enough -

For you to know it’s still there.

The terror builds.

Like a screaming in your mind.

Run, fall, curl up in a ball.

The Boondoggle Man – drinks.

K.J.K.  – 06-21-10

The End of Things

An omen to the future appears in the form of a butterfly with large, outstretched wings.

She looks at me - sings:

"Cycles and circles are much and the same.  No matter what happens no one creature is to blame! 

What was shall be once more when reinvented by some far off successor.

You are at a crossroad; which shall you take?  The easy, the hard, the one that scare's you so much you shake?

What has now just begun shall for many years divide the whole out of the one. 

Courage is easy when reading story or verse. It's harder, of course, when it's your life that may turn out worse.

You already know what decision is right, 'cause you think it your heart feels oh so light.

Life is short, yet all so long. Listen, child, as I finish this song;

I sing the song of life I play that music with this inner-soul-fife. 

Morning's sun will find me asleep. Remember this song, child – don't weep.

Echoes to the start, echoes to the end. No one ever really dies, my friend!"

This must be the end of things.  For I just saw my past life fly away, on butterfly's wings!

K.J.K.

05/03/10 Revised

01/23/89 Original

The River Retold

Stand by the banks of the river young one.

For in the eyes of God we are all children.

I see in your mind questions, statements, answers.

I see your past, I imagine your future.

See the river and know it, as do I.

Know that the river is change, without change.

The river grows, swells in the spring's rebirth.

Water; like your tears flooding its banks.

For you too must grow.

Release your childhood fears.

Easter is not a time of personal pain and sadness.

Instead, it is metamorphosis.

It is the return of life to the natural world.

The world you have locked yourself away from.

Safe and secure.

In rooms of glowing silicon.

Listen to the wind.

Then message it carries.

The river beckons you.

Return to it's bank's once again.

The river is life.

The river is death.

Take but a sip of its water, a blue,

Thou shall understand!

K. J. K.  04-02-2010

Based on "The River" written 05/27/85.

Dedication: K. K.