By Ishmael von Heidrick-Barnes

Cigar smoke
blows my Uncle’s Cessna
over the Andes
home
where he strikes a match
lights another Habana

Hand rolled tobacco leaves
crackling
into an amiable glow:   [Read more…]

By Ishmael von Heidrick-Barnes

While the island sleeps

I dream
cargo ships anchored off harbor
trees
dropping ripened fruit on sidewalks
salty breeze turning
rooftop fans   [Read more…]

By Ishmael von Heidrick-Barnes

Show me a tree
that does not
bear signs of loss

Branches broken
by splintering rainstorms
still carried in trunks

Wounds healed
but not
forgotten   [Read more…]

By Ishmael von Heidrick-Barnes

We board planes
flying against dawn
climbing to cruising altitudes
looking down
into the macrocosmic mirror
of ourselves:

The Buddha’s hand meditating desert
arteries exposed
the spinal columns of continents
bending into capillaries
feeding the fascia of farmland
  [Read more…]

For men and women who work for love and not financial gain

By Ishmael von Heidrick-Barnes

It takes a man
to do what my parent’s generation
deferred as “woman’s work.”

No minimum wage
cause and effect rewards
just salivating dogs
and pooper scoopers
the prolific
propagation of dirty laundry
the monotonous
mopping up of sweat   [Read more…]

By Ishmael von Heidrick-Barnes

Hope is half-timbered
across the Neckar River

Minds float into eyes
before the miracle
named Esslingen

A 500 year old story
preserved as a city
talking out on
a limb   [Read more…]

By Ishmael von Heidrick-Barnes

Sun beak of fire
pecking black murmurations
clawing night’s feathers   [Read more…]

By Ishmael von Heidrick-Barnes

A refugee from Franco’s Spain
planted a garden
in the square
where Einstein lived
before the chaos theory of war atomized his house

Theoretical physics and poetry
collide in trees here
particles of matter
fly into birds
light bending wings into song …   [Read more…]

By Ishmael von Heidrick-Barnes

Have you heard
echoes of waves
breaking in rocks?

Have you dipped your feet
into the shallow water
before it surged back to sea?

Touched foam
flying from stone?   [Read more…]