Let's test this stone, this dark, dreary testimony to
what has been, the people walking by for a time
to drop flowers, or place carefully they watch the time
pass, for now we see but closely, memories, they stir
stone, or concrete when we walked down the lane.

Or cobblestone, it was, to make it as such, red brick,
then past the time that we came here with family, and
yet the family tree is still there, inscribed as an epitaph to
what we were, the heritage of 23 and me, or you and I we
have drones to look at all of this, and try another way to
get around death.

But let's look at these stones, this will, where we can't know,
we can, but then again, we are destined to lye to gravely say
we can no more be alive than the road, the road, the path
gone by, the road not taken, the gravely in black, dark and
somber they watch me, once as a group, then pay tribute
to who I was, and who was that?

​

Surely you know that we have been arrested,
jailed, for stuff and non sense and even less,
when we tried and tried, in our condition, which
was not having the right to try, or endure, on our
own in solitary confinement, but for our souls
giving chase.

Let's see how we fare, too true to reminisce about
something so far, or near, and yet our fear is real,
we lack the ability to see clearly our mistakes, our
addictive selves, our wine, our, well, anything else
that we drink to dark, to no more say we are kings
or queens.

And yet, we live, we yearn or the day, the year,
any other time than our present suffering, as compared
to the next rendition, the next play, an hour or so,
to see our suffering, not likely that we would like
it broadcast, but let's see the money, the funds in
altogether that would be nice, not suffering much.

​

Let's talk of stuff and powder, dry but
explosive when all comes to a heard,
when you least expect an outburst or noise -
settling on the skin, darkened by the battle,
soon to be over, or not for the tackle box.

Let's see how you aim, and then we'll see
about revolutions, and skirmishes, tested
as though you could swim underwater for 
hours and hours, to extenuate the scuba
gear made for another round.

It's the marksman in me that says you can
do battle, or take another swing, but quicky
for sure are the paces, the paces, that take
us far enough, a broad jump, then take aim,
and look, and wait, or no, and soon be dead,
and fire.

Coffee is here, we'll make it, with cups,
recycling thinking alone, with neighbors new
who we'll never drink with until leaving -
see how they enjoyed it, dark, mellow,
caramel, with steam, steam screams across
the plane, bouncing clever customer you
are not?

Will you choose among millions of flowers,
petals, caffeinated here, to smell chocolate
morsels, yet fragrant to meditating hordes,
they come only to sit, paying their ticket,
entrance fee, liquid currency, slightly refined
are they to notice how we design life?

Never wasting grounds, we'll tray to save
pastries only for the deserving of city lights,
the sun leaves, shades, reverses course, returns
to lower shades, actual shades to wear so to
see swirls of milk and paper and art formed
for us to sit and watch the deer pass by.

© 2019 Larry Ingram

King James was here when I last thought it
to be a verse, centuries old, yet living among
the closely devoted, to England of old, yet
preaching anew, she studies him, his art of
language, of giant reference, it makes solid
prose of terse discussion.

Now we see a transliterated few with subscribe
to this breach, this shaft of light among ancient
buildings, of London, of Picadilly, of squares
when preachers took, lit upon hearts, paid with
blood to hold, to print this volume, and we will
sit, reeling of of the crime.

Freely we read, now lately, but spoiled with 
digitized minds, of God who knew a new Spirit,
but old to the Kind, who gave ascent to scribes,
write, write, of Hebrew, Greek to us who know
this version, never to travel in dungeons where
tried they to breathe Spirit to printed page.

© 2019 Larry Ingram

Starry snow you light a silver globe
to see the way clear to crepes of flight,
laughing across the night, we see you
now across another table, to breath into
this crevice of the last curb.

Painting the night with flakes, you steer
across never landing on us, to breath air
with nigh a crystal, candles glow to us
in our mind, with yellow guards in place,
melting thus in this light, of blood, of moon.

See the false, shrinking bank, see the snow
now gone, see the rain at night, bowed heads
reading for wind, for dirt mired in banks,
wrapped about with umbrellas, dark, stately,
circumscribing a good landing for our eyes.

© 20189 Larry Ingram

Sure. No problem. When the time comes
and time ticks away, we'll do it when the
time languishes, and divorces mean that our
lives are lost to courts and lawyers and money -
spent on candy that is here one day, and gone.

Then the sun comes up, I see the dawn, another
trickle of time that says we can do this now,
with coffee and a drop of cream, sweetener that,
spelled correctly, will liven your day, until it is
nearly noon.

Another cloud, another time for dark clouds,
for foggy, fog that will make us all draw and 
stand and stare at the train to take us away from
here, to who knows where. We'll tell you,
but don't fall asleep or we'll leave behind,
and there might not be a next time.
​
​ © 2018 Larry Ingram

Lightening becomes me when I decide to
​ decipher the next clue, and nondescript phrase
from my best friend who stages an event that
is tragically a no go from the get go.

And to tragedy, another coming event will take
me closer to inside his mind, another gateway
to see him driving away, a chance that was then-
now it's gone, resilient, but not until, or at last,
when I was at an age when I cared.

Not now I see that there are decisions to make,
or break the next scene that become me, when I see
that lives are at stake, and i see again, that he does
not really care, but to boast of a trivial game won -
to see that this decision was not won or lost this time.

​​​ © 2018 Larry Ingram

If we could make it clear to the walk,
make it corner and curb on it's own,
make it a nicely formed combat to 
miss nothing, weeds and all to eliminate
greed, greedy edges spoken well of,
spoken like a true walk, green though
it wants to be, to meander through.

Posts, borders at will softly make all
the other ways look, look impenetrably,
impassably, without all guards down,
without a handshake to seal anything,
but it actually, really was all the right
protocol, protecting us all from virus,
wicked in our eyes, right by all others.

Then we'll never go that way, the drive,
the car stays, drives, all by itself it tells,
it wants to make do, expressly, impressions,
tired though they mock, as though reconciled
to all, to the very next day, how we embrace,
seen clearly, seen last of all, we are known
as if ever we will see an unforgiven soul.

​ © 2016 Larry Ingram

What do we do with this darkness,
wanting to forgive but angry at the
unspoken, the tourniquet of unspent
favors, unfavored by God in this moment -
striking stones, snakes coil at that
thought of the meanness of the moment
when we will strike.

But I didn't do it then.
I missed out on the opportunity of a life
of gall, spreading out among all of the
rest of the star-gazers who will likely
look past us all; it will take another trial
before we can see clear, wipe the glass,
the wind that shields us from our feelings.

It's all I can do to start here and now.
A classic approach to others that will now
be molded into the past, into future
dates, schedules locked onto whatever we
can be last at baking in sun scalded items
of our minds, we mind this talk here.
It's only so we can reconcile accounts.

 © 2016 Larry Ingram