IGNITED MINDS

I read them but my prayers
couldn't be news of tomorrow

nor could the images mean
surfing channels with coffee

at the day's end can't reflect
something positive to take

pride in myself, justifying
the age or hours; just probing

the naimal existence
prove worse than animals with

smallness of mind and concerns
forgotten like news flashed in

media without vision
glorify shackles of

darkness, bluff god and humans
yet ignite minds with flickers

I DON'T KNOW...

I don't know how to negotiate the long steep trail
with hidden scorpions under loose rocks
at home with human muck in a valley existence
strolling upward through a thicket of TV images
politics of glory, garbage and gods
the odd arts of money, hierarchy and control
nobody knows who unmakes whom

I don't know how to follow the ridges
back to the trail and the dead river
but stand for a moment to rub the sand from my feet
before worrying about the lost vitality and fear
of the approaching night and rising smoke
dissolving in the sky or conspiring with elements
hardly in balance but contorting the spyche

I don't know what is there for me to hope
when the rains rejuvenate and flood both
the repulsive stench and the loss of pathways
linger longer than the flavour of the first drops
under the tree the puddle feeds no sparrows
but algae that couldn't dry now trap tiny souls
that fail to swell with heaven's breath