Ending Haiku

Ending this poem
a day challenge with haiku;
Calling it a day.

-A. Ault-

Tarot Reader

A Celtic Cross upon the table
a card for every grace
Her hands turn them, one by one
Answers I am to face

The Fool begins, a youthful card
a sharp look in her eye towards me
A boat with swords and a riverman
I wonder what she sees

Her wheezing breath brushes my face
Not foul, but sage and thyme
As the Queen of Cups faces me
I wonder if she hears my mind

At long last, the final card
The Lovers, and Do I see?
she asks, voiceless, but I can hear
Blue eyes, and then I leave.

-A. Ault-

Settled

Fresh white paint, new sign, four blue letters
  New shutters, new dog, new baby
    Years stacking, seamlessly, one inside the other
      Fingers worn ’round, silver and gold, sometimes shine
        Dreams of lists, always another, don’t forget your lunch
          No time but memories, movies, anniversaries
            Adventures are small, on discs, online
               Settled, the goal, settled the life
          —  
But this pen cannot settle
   it rattles on this page
      this heart is still beating
         for dreams you don’t shape
           this mind cannot forget
              its promise to itself
                 these feet wander farther
                    than the path of someone else.

-A. Ault-

Dragons

Shiny scales as hard as stone
A tail like a leathered whip
Wings to scale the mountains high
Eyes of fire, quick as wit

A dragon’s claws to pierce the heart
through armor, golden or steel
Flames to melt bone and flesh
A mind that knows to kill

What sulfur scent will descend
a terror spreading wide
Or a graceful dance of mind and wing
When it finds another of its kind

-A. Ault-

What Are We?

What are we, but water
     intersecting with air
          a vessel for the falling rain
               fluid through the storm.

We are the mediation
     of two tyrants of this Earth
          where else such forces coexist
               but in the human form.

-A. Ault-

Recycle your heart
each day, and never will there
be a final straw

-A. Ault-

Tell it to the Wind

Tell it to the wind
your messenger it will be
flying towards my address
delivering, gently

Tell it to the breeze
be not offended if it laughs
it is a youthful, joyous thing
but your words it will pass

Tell it to the gale
with the force of unending storm
your heart will send o’er earth
and stop at nothing ’til it’s home

Tell it to the silence
it will listen, I will speak
in the waves of quiet stillness
our minds will fully meet.

-A. Ault-

Location Services

[Dreamworld Heights, Indiana]
“What, do they make dreams there?”
          “No, but they’ll sell ’em,
           in six-packs.”

-A. Ault-

The Cynical Optimist

People will be people
I say it all the time
The motto that I’m living by,
walking a narrow line

Call it being cynical
it is a point of view
but don’t forget the optimism
I’ll believe as long as you

-A. Ault-

Moon, my Sun.

There was a whisper
and a sky
and it spoke, wholly
When it was night
but awake
the sun no one’s
memory

There was a voice
and my heart
and nothing but blood
When my lungs
were listening
and the voice was
speaking

There was a time
all was one
and our beats
breathed at once
When the thought
was a whisper
and a voice
my sun.

-A. Ault-