Hydra-tion

Let that soak in...
it was, of course, he who challenged
Could we rise above
as them who stood on shoulders
of they indiscriminately
stomping on knuckles over the climb
we absorb
traction and take it all in
strides, that makes us full of it.

But somehow it had been forgotten
what was there before we
grew
so we could squeeze every last drop out
and call it New and This
capacity for repetition defined by the
circumference of our pores
and gross weight.

We all were already saturated-
but only she has the greater liquid measure,
and capacity for regeneration.



Painting by Gustave Moreau [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons (1870). 

Emanation of red (Hi-Q)

Could you try to tell
the scent of a redwood tree?
All together- Earth.

Photo credit By National Park Service Digital Image Archives [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Homelessness

It is an ordinary thing:
a baby looking over the shoulder,
a child transfixed,
because they sense mother-ness or homeliness
I guess.

Then the cats,
the felines that follow
nearly silently,
like the prowling puma in the wilderness
they all watch back from the bush-
paw prints have proven this-
And then the ways skittish strays
locate
remembering how to purr...

Nary a soul sees the magic in these,
except
the extraordinary poet
who thinks one blink, and it could all
change.



Photo Credit © CEphoto, Uwe Aranas / ,via Wikimedia Commons at (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bangkok_Thailand_Stray-cat-in-Wat-Hua-Lamphong-01.jpg)

Obfuscation

You never asked-
but I like the cool honesty
that the steel blue fractured light
throws against the walls of an empty room.

Your preference of warmth
makes me flush,
a bit hot
and rash.

As you know,
astrophysicists and amateur astronomers
use both spectrums
to learn about light
and discover new worlds
neither real blue nor red.

Me-I liked to walk in the woods in the dark
just to see or feel
my way.

I also rested in my closed
toy chest, inside the closet
with the bones and Barbie heads,
with my eyes closed tight-
yet could still see red.

You see,
I find
the absence of light briskly
more welcoming to me,
but it is just tepid white to you
I thought.

Painting By Abbott Handerson Thayer (Princeton University Art Museum) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Weightlifting words

There is not enough silence
or white in the world.

There seems to be enough water,
when you look around
the circumference of the globe-
                 have you noticed
how long
we have been wrong
about power and drainage-

As magnets naturally defy resistance
or make magic with retrograde,
nothing else matters
but shine...

                   And distraction, interruption, and
compulsion
become utilized and oxidized
to fill in the surrounding blanks
with loud, explosive air
we refer to this as
                  white noise
and we are sinking in.




Sketch by Lorenz Frølich [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. Scanned by Haukur from a reprint in the illustrated 2002 Prose Edda edition by Gudrun. Originally published in Gjøgleriet i Utgard (1872).

Dendrite doors

We learned they would come after midnight.
At least, I learned this on my own.
The neighbors all knew where those footsteps led. 
The lights had been killed before...and it was a signal still.
The horror was trapped in the suspense.
They never knocked. That was the true terror.

I never lived this way. I learned how.
Why have doors, they would all conclude,
since all else had been stripped away?
When we strip wood, it's raw hide-
stripped skin shows through.
We all know the smell.
And screens are illusions like musty hospital curtains.
Did you know that there is no word for Privacy in Russia-
just keep this to yourself.

I knew an American woman 
that imported 14-foot tall exotic hardwood doors from Indonesia.
She had them installed or erected
in a financed rehab mansion in Southern California;
they divided the living from the sitting room 
and the doors were always open.
It took two to move them.
When she was evicted from the retreat she tried to steal them. 
She went to prison. Not just for the doors.
She'd tried to escape to Mexico.

And although before my time,
I liked Jim Morrison's poetry 
back when I was just little and more morose.
Now his poetry seems hollow, soft in spots.

I was petrified to eventually find 
purple heart in deep prose,
and blocks of solid Bolivian Rose by Burmese blackwood 
so fresh it bleeds,
still...life with leaves and family trees fall
and knots make it all stronger.

We learned about the grind and carpentry,
sand smoothes stone and wood. 
Don't cut against the grains. Leave room to breathe.
I tend leave my doors ajar, 
and query why we each have so many 
inside.
I like my peephole. 
That was a solid design.
Unlike suspension bridges which transfer tension
and tend to be fire retardant. 

Now how can we move on,
without looking back. Locks break.
We cannot ignore these partitions anymore.
Divide and Conquer, knock on wood, 
for your own good and I should warn you-
I am not decent but have found a match. 

Photograph (by 'not given') of the massive old wooden doors of Mission San Gabriel which withstood the attacks of the Indians, ca.1908. [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. 

Arts and crafts

Poets are stars
as many as the naked eye can make out
or point to
and mean precisely
nowhere specific.
Dr. Suess and crafts,
black construction paper and a poker,
make poetry for kids.
Now hold the holy black sheet
up to the light,
and see-
starry night
Today, and
as many poets as the paper will hold holes.
We cannot focus on the ones that fell,
but they do catch your eye
in real time.
It is no wonder no new ones
have ever been found.


Painting (oil on canvas) by Edwin Blashfield, 1927 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Oh-Neg

Leeching was done to draw out the bad blood.
And miraculously, we could be
drained nearly completely
while still
denying death
with the proper tools.

In precise implements like these;
pens and needles,
probe and penetrate
the surface, thus
it is most succinctly the human touch
that feels
a pulsing flow of ink
throbbing at the tips, and a
rush and steady flow
that gushes, drips and runs on
to remind
the patient
how to heal a hemorrhaging
or from a tainted transfusion of bad blood.




Image by Abraham Janssens [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Pond(ering) growth

If I am doing it wrong
how does anything change?
If I don't have what it takes-
what do I have?
If I fail
how will I know?
If it was supposed to go this way-
who made the agenda?
If it was all for
bowel movements and humor,
should I have laughed more?
If letting go takes practice,
why fall in love?
If I could never be good enough,
should I be becoming
increasingly imperfect?
If I need more
I should be content with less.
If I am to be trusted-
it must be said this way.
If I am wrong
which is the write way...



Painting by Monet (1877) Pond at Montgeron, [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

She's so shy

(Come) Back, back, back
             She beckons-
softly at first,
             Something is missing-
volume.

(With) A tint of  spilt light,
           with a whisper of consonance
striking a surface-
She has moved out
                                      from behind
the clouded periwinkle glass.

A lady is demure,
all chiffon and lace,
privacy knits her crochet brow
                               in her taciturn phase,
observing us too late and long...

(Where) She moved windows-
(knowing we would never peek there)
              She'd had enough-
                              leaving us
in the dark
(Again) To feel our way
Back, back, back
               where night shadows lie
(cheating the sun,
and stealing the superfluous
beams and streams in arrays).

She will give it all back-
Remember (when)
She's had her way
(With) keeping you
in midnight wake.




Painting By Helen Allingham (1848 - 1926) (The Bridgeman Art Library, Object 283763) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Familia(r)

He wrote the same book
no ones' words he took.
She sang the same song,
with the lyrics all wrong.
They were called the same thing-
in a new context.
The same color was never used
twice, naturally-
charmed by the third time,
we finally got it
-together-
before we forget
how it all fit...
Some-thing gives...
Some-one takes a chance
risking no-thing
new a-gain.



Painting by Albert Edelfelt, At the Door (1901) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Tangled

Second attempts do not require as much effort as first tries.

Thirds are not charms or wheels.

We have all tried to glue back together a broken

relationship, shattered heart

and found the seal wont hold water,

err go-blood must be thicker.

And if string theory pulls through,

we will never undo

these tangled webs we are weaving,

and worse-believing.

Staying connected and on top of,

is anything but breaking free or standing

on your own ground.

We all know that replaying past episodes

does not require a live audience.

Who rote these lines

that we know by heart?

And which is my part?

We can always re-adapt the story line, besides

history is always true in monologues.

Improvisation is life or death. Kill it with kindness lest

the ripple effect, or butterfly analogy

works with wind and waves impartially.

It is really more of the same, unwinding our twisted terrain,

re-threading disconnecting together.

Picking up pieces or carcasses

Unraveling all

that we are knot.

Image credit By NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
Image detail info:
English: This view of Jupiter’s moon Europa features several regional-resolution mosaics overlaid on a lower resolution global view for context. The regional views were obtained during several different flybys of the moon by NASA's Galileo mission, and they stretch from high northern to high southern latitudes. Prominent here are the long, arcuate (or arc-shaped) and linear markings called lineae (Latin for strings or threads), which are a signature feature of Europa’s surface. Color saturation has been enhanced to bring out the subtle red coloration present along many of the lineae. The color data extends into the infrared, showing bluish ice (indicating larger ice grains) in the polar regions. The terrain in this view stretches from the side of Europa that always trails in its orbit at left (west), to the side that faces away from Jupiter at right (east). In addition to the lineae, the regional-scale images contain many interesting features, including lenticulae (small spots), chaos terrain, maculae (large spots), and the unusual bright band known as Agenor Linea in the south. This view is an orthographic projection centered on 5.53 degrees south latitude, 214.5 degrees west longitude and has a resolution of 1,600 feet (500 meters) per pixel. An orthographic view is like the view seen by a distant observer looking through a telescope. The mosaic was constructed from individual images obtained by the Solid State Imaging (SSI) system on NASA's Galileo spacecraft during six flybys of Europa between 1996 and 1999 (flybys designated G1, E11, E14, E15, E17, and E19). Date 25 February 2013, 17:55:34

NoFilter

One of the very first words I remember
that made my tongue tingle so I had to taste them for myself
were-semipermeable membrane-
of course, it is more than one word or two words-a mouthful for sure.
To explain, particularly if one cannot extract the base roots of Latin,
it is also the magical implication of choice inherent with function,
the unique arrangement or conjunction
soaks deeply upon contact into my thin skin.

It was the vibration of M
and because filters
act this way,
save lives
accept and reject
all too
porous, too generous
to assimilate or osmose it all,
any more than a mouthfeel
in multiplicity of meaning.




Image By Aerogelflower.jpg derivative work: JovanCormac (Aerogelflower.jpg) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Reception

The ocean rose
the sky fell
the rain beat the drums,
the fire spread,
the earth shook,
the sun set,
the moon was full,
the water ran,
the sound grew,
the people pled,
the stars said,
the cycle ends,
the wind screams,
the thunder claps
eager for more
Encore, Encore
the world wondered
if the message sent
or had been red...



Painting by Joaquín Clausell [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

N.E.W.

Because nobody else was thinking of this now-
               Nobody Else Was reading those-
               Nobody Else Was paying attention-
               Nobody Else Was saving anybody else-
               Nobody Else Was trying to be more-
               Nobody Else Was looking up anyway-
               Nobody Else Was wondering anymore-
Because nobody ever was saying
This.



Image By Everglades NPS from Homestead, Florida, United States [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

This Tragic Lovelife

Because I love my life,
all my secret dreams are shadowed in my reality Now
and I see This-a secret I keep,
I feel its loss and know This solidifies This sentiment.
I cherish the fragility
manifest in created destinies, like these
small acts greater than one's capacity,
to acknowledge
-This is Happy-
and Then
there is little me in big denial
smiling from year to year
at the missed opportunity
of being present-ly and ceremoniously
single.

Because I hate myself,
all my good intentions rot and fester in Dis-regard,
and I see that I am not alone in this,
that makes me yearn for more silence
and To Be Better
than I am
to me
We should agree to disagree
like both sides of me
in equality.


Image By Currier & Ives [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Sharp Nows

They lived and died this way
worried all the while
about living right
and terrified of dying
and yet full motions
are always only temporary.

Just like thoughts
are born and die too soon...
So they too dreamt the night away
where nobody could say
it was impossible.

Living for today, they say,
be in the moment,
where you are contained
and less than aware
of faces, that look-
like yours.



Image by Howard Pyle (1888), [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

All in a day

Will it ever cease?
The stars don't give up to-day.
Lumens were simply a clue
of brighter futures
not a past promise
for ever.



Image By Internet Archive Book Images, Cornell Poetry Anthology, 1920 [No restrictions], via Wikimedia Commons.

Blending in

Greyscale is more than
black and white values, showing
a com-par-i-son.



Image By Internet Archive Book Images [No restrictions], via Wikimedia Commons. 

Life and letters of John Constable, R. A (1896)

Quicksand

Since poetry is up to interpretation, meaning-wise-
how does the poetry reader understand the Poet's intent
with certain-T's like Truth and Tale
divided unevenly...
Mostly, we knew the poet forgets these two
So how does a semblance come together as a sense
of justice, (common sense) or was it just us
who smiled at the cool plums...

Electromagnetism asserts its charge,
Gravity resists a zero,
the Poet's ears are taut
the words that wobble and worry
about none
poetic and pathetically undone
in ink.
Welcome All.
Let that sink in, a lifeline.
Try this barefoot
with a poem,
touch the earth with your toes-
read it again, it will tell you
its potent-ialities
softly, poetry
tart and juicy.



Painting by Ilya Repin, Tolstoy Barefoot, 1901 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Orbit-uary

This again,
In
and spin-ning helix twirlex wound around
centripetal journeys sheered off at the base.
A tetrahedron and gone on and on
as origami is.
Ripples widen the longer we wait,
the in-between
to each his own vibrational state,
one is a wave of itself of
meeting ledges and
recombining in rings
that sing all the chimes notes
and signals the fade away
into the end of the echo,
just so
we should know
it was all said before
ideas take in shapes and sides
based on the circumsphere
we hear-
here ehoes.



Image created By Perditax (Own work) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons. (Gorceixite crystal).

Cryptic

The higher you rise
up where
the air thins out-
this is where the words find shape,
and demonstrate a sense of self
in clouds, collectively
condensed.
As stars do-to become
the letters eloped without utensils-
or implements, lightly
from thin air, trace
this thinking feeling is rain...
Astrologically out of touch
with dark matters, in suspense
hanging on the line-
elliptic.
I will wait and watch warrily,
until next time.
See you
around.



Painting By Henry John Stock (1853 – 1930) (Blouin Art Sales Index) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Pro-Me-The-Us

Smoldering is the only thing I can do for me.
The pungent sulphur of hurt flesh
waits to be sucked in.
The mind wanders as the only means of escape.
Don't bother counting loses like sheep.
All that matters
rebuilds itself in scar and calcium.
Atomically interested in erector sets,
likeness, hinged on proteins
means this attraction
is greater than one.
The smoke signal I sent
lays low, lingers spinning rings faintly
into heat haze.
I have become consumed in the carbon blaze.
Energy spent as a violent commodity, Life.
Yet by now the fire is finally dying
and yet sparks may remain if latent,
nameless and noxious,
potentially smothered by this body.
None will re-ember
the dank smell
of arson
on your soul.
Although
just about
anyone will warm their hands
over hot coals.


Painting by Hubert Maurer, c. 18th century [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Queen of Sheeba (legend)

Nee of the redwood(ed) hollow
birds of paradise weep,
by the little red nikita
swings on the leeway
across the lagoon,
so soon for a Februist
insisting
all water is life
look, brackish was where
the recombination of atomic diffraction
chromeatopea and spore
makes love in plumes
and lays (be)low, muffled (be)lies
that whole time
she never saw the aviators soar
up,
    up,
         up,
               and waste our days.


Painting By Arkhip Kuindzhi (1842-1910), Forest Swamp (http://kuinje.ru/peizag.php) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. 

A lightyear travels this way

A mere
two and a half hours before
I made it through a full twenty-four,
and it feels as though my head were spun a full three sixty
around again.
Why I felt like a wild witch of the weepy west,
crazed and amazed at my wicked self
under the full moon light, combusted on fumes,
blazing smoke laden trails on quiet sleepy streets,
by forests alone, I inhale and blindly wind the way
by feel, it is left,
I have the moon.
Bright tomorrows where days are too long
and night crept by all too discreetly
to remember
how fast-when did we get here...
In the dark speed seems greater.


Image By Ministry of Information Photo Division Photographer [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.Looking across Tower Bridge, c. 1940.

all that cannot blend

trying to show green flash-
hear a heart flame burst
along with the after effect of shock
and awe
with rolling whispers when arisen
out from shadowed souls-
As it would be seen-from where you are,
already white demonstrates for us,
space occupied for air and water,
yes oil and blood are better
for what has been said.



Image By ISS Expedition 23 crew (NASA Earth Observatory) Sunset from the Space station [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Awakening

When one is woken
by the filling up of Moon
it is not the light...














By Illustrator: M. L. Kirk [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. "FROM THE FULL MOON FELL NOKOMIS - from The Story of Hiawatha, Adapted from Longfellow by Winston Stokes and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - Illustrator M. L. Kirk - 1910"

Under pressure

That summer evening
the sky was pink and raw
and your eyes were streaked in red.

We could feel the cool air
rush between us,
in day and under night.

There were monsoons churning just miles away,
we could feel these winds too.

Sounds became amplified
in dusk and static cling.
You could hear quite clearly this ring,
some say halo
spreading above.

Colors holding onto some blended harmony,
a lilac or plum, some and none.

When we look up, you say away
our trajectory changes its synchronicity,
which was never the same as settling.

We knew the heat wave would break
as much as the cold spell would snap
the last straw, but we watched the change
wash over us.

We know, but forget constantly.

At times like these,
warm rain reminds us
endurance and presence
are more than enough.


Painting by Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732-1836) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Poseidon's wild night

Pyramid fog under culdesac lamped dawn
dripping the muted color palette excessively
in purples-
white barely sprinkles-mists this early risen air.
The pacific ocean levitates and exudes its salt
over shoulders of waves-
to be gently folded back in
making stardust today.
Amphibious, us, yes, fib-i-ous, I am,
it hydrates the eyes
and settles the nerves.
A saline stench of lust lingers as gunsmoke
while dew sparkles in sweat,
the horizon still gripping the sheets
ablush in disappearing privacy
from the sky sleeping under the sea
buoyed up to blue skies nascency.



Photo By Sowls Art, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Bering Sea in fog [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Always greener

I have been watering the grass,
I have brushed my teeth-wait-yes,
with the water on too long
I have washed my car-
worse I have had it washed.
I have cut the two best roses
for myself by the coffeepot
to smell in the morning.
I have said too much,
I have said nothing at all.
I have flooded the attic-
and the walls may cave
in on me-
but that would be selfishly
about me.
I have sunk to new levels,
as water will often dew.



Image By Leon Brooks [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

@ the Piers Edge

I shudder to think of jumping in-
which toe first...
or how to swim?

Perhaps it was warmer then...

Now my icy blue veins are showing through-
But brazenness grows like a dragon in my chest

         and i see naked me, vulnerably, visibly,
trembling at the waters edge-
red tears pool about
                               -then this trepidation
                                lulls me in
But I stand firm. Rooted. Waiting for the tide to rise,
high enough
to reach me
                   before I begin
                   to sink any further.

I remember in there
it is warmer than the air...



Painting by Edvard Munch [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Hide & Seek

Depending upon your (pre)position
you know something has been missing
never there before perhaps,
up to your pointed laser view.
Also, suspect,
a break was needed,
new as and empty as the day sky,
open to be filled again
with dark matter.
The wax melts still
and cools our jets yet
taking it all in
was never personal.
Decay, as they say, as decay
is only natural.
You see how the light dissipates thin and wide,
they called them rays,
and they were good
enough for day.
The dark side always creeps away,
conserving potential, greater than the sun
only to begin again
scratching and digging out of the grave
new world.




Photo By Yellowstone National Park from Yellowstone NP, USA [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Swing, swing

If given enough strong rope to swing safely on
we should all say less and do more.
None of us think there is time enough for all,
some never start running until the finish line
is in sight.
Mountains and hills are of course the same things,
inclinations of opposition.
See,
Sin is simply super-stition, I pray for them too-
on the other side.
I fear it is all downhill, smooth sailing and paragliding-
how much a free fall feels like flying
-while suspended-
-with limbs tied-
-stretches the silence-
into reasonable soundness
(with words in between).

Catch & Release

You may have caught my gaze,
strangling my breath
by the gauge of your twisted line.
A casualty,
in a swoop of wind
disturbing the flow-
now you will let me go
for sport.
Remind me of the rules
once more,
since participation is voluntary
and mine has been cut short.
Spar and span, pick your sport,
there will always be one better.





Painting by Winslow Homer [Public domain], Fishin (1879) via Wikimedia Commons.