Titilating Entitlement

       All we have are letters.
We have made many names with these,

not to confuse utility with title.

When I say

This chosen wisely,

You have started to build-

What is in a Name?

Impressionism in colors.

Blend and bleed by disagreement.

I do not regret leading you on

down the stream, naming and pointing

at amphibious synonyms, 

like crayfish holding their feathered gills.

As only bends and boulders can dictate 

in a white water fury, insurgency in translation,

an explanation of how all minerals find their way

to greater meaning than assembly 

or Magic. Deception has its angle.

Words like water most transparent

when calmly collected. 

Dropping names sink

Ideas float
Titles tell This. 

Image By Romaine (Own work) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons.

I Pink up the phone and say Yellow

God called me on a rotary dial phone with the piggy tail cord.

That is how we met, unofficially, when I was just five

my grandparents took me to a church

and the man in the middle, his name was Revren was happy

to be the center of our attention, he beamed and bowed

although I remember details like pulling out the tiny threads 

from a cotton lemon dress. 

The bald man, Revren, wearing the dark dress, 

a stage costume, I guessed having been to the theater 

much more, before-

he handed me the receiver of the phone, and shouted 

{He 

wants to talk to YOU!}

Grabbing the phone, 

I held it up to my ear like a shell,

no ocean, hell, just a loud sound called a dial tone.

When I handed it back after Revren asked me what He said,

I simply shrugged and muttered, { I don't think he was there-

anymore.}

Revren bald man shouted to the audience-That

i {did NOT BELIEVE}

{Pray} for little me, but I did see

i saw the light 

through the stained glass panes throwing yellow strokes 

liberally down the aisle

and understood others don't see this

from over there, it may be blue. 

My grandmother who had been a teacher,
slapped my hand
for unraveling her homespun delicate
pinafore
No reason. 

Image credit By Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums, titled 'The camera was great but her new phone wasn't working (1964), [No restrictions], via Wikimedia Commons.

deScribe

   

       

   You write mystery

I heard-     Poetry-     that is

          the same difference.

Painting by Philippe de Champaigne (1602-1674) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Where art thou?

People ask me where I've been and I am mystified.

I mean, I don't know if they mean recently-

or ever-

neither of which is that fascinating-

          which is completely untrue.

Nobody ever asks me this.

I have recently considered how Primo Levi said the glaciers melting 

in green varicose veins 

          could not be described.

He reminds me of Pluto in nebulous ways,

after all, he said it actually tasted like sky.

I guess we have all tried to touch rainbows, 

     and I think most of us prefer shiny things,

not semi-transparent or deflecting items such as prisms

     or  iridescence. 

Honestly, I am still trapped, 

so tell is all I can do. 

It takes determination, geometry 

to hold on to other crystals like granite,

becoming solidified, and structurally sound for a time

bond even, but really just passing through. 

This is how too, 

          rivers are reminiscent of veins 

                         and the passing of blood,

like what is liquid or solid 

               and divides me by you. 

Painting By J.E.H. MacDonald (1873/1932) [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

 

The distance attention spans

Who reads anything

anymore Long-ish, I wish

for the short answer.

Painting By Félix Armand Heullant (1834–1905) (Düsseldorfer Auktionshaus) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Our Lady Alexandria

What feels like Now is never heavy enough

to last longer than a Sunday.

Idle times like June, we tend to wander too far,

it takes august

to bring us back to routine.

Presently, reading.

Presently writing

Then and Now lying in front of me,

blurred by biography autonomously-

     whose voice is lost in the amplified volume

of imposition

     whose own prosaic tome is never true or tight enough

to carry the note all the way,

to cut the final folio, to fill the flyleaves.

More memory appalls dead weight

          one will carry to the cemetery, nary a soul should know  

Those things, flammable flashbacks attack hard back, unhinged

in carnation

in damnation

in citation,

My cover slowly singing, smoldering as I am oldering,

lighter 

Now (transparent)

on paper backs.

Painting By Juan de Echevarría (Bilbao, Spain, 1875 - Madrid, 1931) Born in Bilbao, Spain. Dead in Madrid. Details of artist on Google Art Project [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Squiggly lines

Draw the wind for me

                                             That is a line

This is a wave

                                             It is a cloud

it is not raining

                                             It is floating

It doesn't resemble energy to me

Because it can fall or disappear

If I cannot see it, it is not there

                                             What do shadows show

Movement

                                   You must move-first to see 

I see stillness, yes

                                   this second, do I breathe

Alive, you must Be.

Not imagine

                                   show me the difference

where water and air masses separate 

conglomerate as clouds 

                                   demonstrating the movement

of nothing.

No thing                     that floats.

Now your turn to draw the water

                              well are not those tears 

Artwork By Вера Владимировна Хлебникова (1891—1941) ([1]) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Readproof

This it is how it is done

                                                  -delicately.

Most important, remember to breathe

steady

quiet hands, 

               as in decent golfers and honest horsemen

then confidence is key-

                                             the only one that fits, actually.

First, you must penetrate the first layer without severing any of the connecting 

threads,

                    or start over.

Next, to get deeper you must first see trust,

                                                            like fat.

You don't need a lot to proceed.

Moving along, use your tools wisely,

logic is too dull.

The point must be sharp enough to travel through the body.

Make no bones about it, be deliberate, don't deliberate.

The marrow may quiver ever so slightly,

this is good-you have come this far.

                                                            You don't need me 

for Directions nor

Corrections

                         the beat of your heart

                         the heat of your pulse

                         the meat of the matter

                         the flood of blood

on the ashen page

in the first draft stage. 

Painting by George Goodwin Kilburne (1839-1924), Penning a Letter, [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

About my love life

Romance is learning

how to give yourself flowers

when you most need them.

Painting by De Scott Evans (1847-1898), in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Symbolography in Sakura

People think it says my name.
I forget that it is there,
not seeing it the way others do-
it says Unity,
anyway.

Signs you say...
it was the pine that drew me here.
The smell, the sap was worth all the needles,
it gave me something to do
as a conifer.

The creek out back, back at home was the gate,
outside.
There were no bears there
despite the name given.

Summer rains are sad it is said,
but how a monsoon is cleansing
and out of character,
it is welcoming.

And I agree, the cherry blossoms do resemble sunset clouds,
or blushing cheeks,

“searching the wind

the hawks cry

in the shape of its beak” said John Knight

follow my calligraphy

do you know the inference

“The sparrow hops,

Along the veranda

With wet feet.” (in Spring)

A fisherman, a nun,
the snow, years past,

the pattern of the iris

and blood stain of cherries
are simply symbologies
and not to fear.

When I was a little person
my grandfather used to make me climb his rickety old ladder

to pick the bulging bunches of bing cherries
from the neighbors' tree

which hung liberally

over the fence.

Good fences make good neighbors, he would smile casually.

He also read Frost to me.

My grandmother would watch me from the kitchen window
clutching her hot black cup of coffee

staining a fake bone china cup

showing her dentures in propped open way, 

her name was Pearl.

Lately, the murders have caught my eye,

and I noticed how they prefer the pines.

Reeds and ginger,

even a shiny new Gold Medallion

are futile flora for them,
they mock my gestures in watering.

All the while, the falcon still
stalks the tiny ficus dwellers,

the cats watch back intently.

Tenacious,

I have not given up either-

even when my thoughts remain stained
with disease like Worry.

Thankfully, the summer rain washes all the blood off the driveway,
he succeeds

tiny under feathers fly low as

cherry juice runs by in a river
where I stand.

The crows cry out

my name, blaming the mockingbirds
fortune on the falcon, my fault.

It all sounds the same,
sole(less)ness, a cumulus,
one cymbal marks the end. 

Painting by Frank Nuderscher, Cherry Blossoms (1914) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Chestnuts roasting

Rolling ares are drumrolls for seduction.
Golden brown skin is warm and toasty to the touch
Purple raven onyx hair spills thick and rich as oil.
Blonde, plain as rolling straw fields under crushed velvet against the cornflower sky,
steel blue machine and John Deere make carbon copies of Barbies.
Talking with the hands demonstrates tactile prowess, in a squint of meaning words wont work,
and yes, I think Russians have the best lips,
I would hazard to guess this-unless I can be proven wrong.
Since making softer and warmer with hard and cold can be concisely done quite malleably, the other way wont work the same.
Along with heat sinking glares and hidden thoughts that need not originate from a family tree, they can be a new seed.
Indeed, to me, exuberant ells and excessive tees can be both
quite love-ly
and always welcome to a poor peasant, such as native to nowhere me
seeking some taste
in a word.


Painting by Sergey Vasilyevich Ivanov, Foreigners arrival to Moscow (1901) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Sacrificial She

Demands are shrill
lilt a tone that cuts the fleshy ear
and worse as a pseudo nurse
I fear-in trembling-today
I am wilted even further away.
Lillies in the valley lean toward the rain,
the pain-
my dear-
I dare to note how sap drains slow,
like the frozen pulse-amber loves her prize,
and time flies while doing for others
sweet things softly, conjuring energy,
time in disguise as your own
with never ceasing chores
that occupy us so slyly
while we are looking down
oblivious
to others
looking up to us.
It is the way we listen
when Justice is served
evenhandedly.



Painting by By Hatherell, William, The Last Message (1918) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Isn't that touching

Felt again-
it will never go away.

Now we know. And must go on
even more
This is just as important

we hope

everytime more
can be enough
for now
-waiting-

We live
all the while we say we feel
Alive

sometimes, like memory
of morning sun in autumn light
cast down on dry dirt
heating up
the surface
even more than before
the first
time

And Time
again

open to the sense of it.



Painting by Alexei Harlamov (1840-1925), Portrait of a young girl, in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

@Odds, Evenso

What is it called when you know someone
upon eyes connecting directly with another
and you know they are seeing your naked soul
by the expression reflected back and both are admiring
the other
more than the self that is or could be
in side

by serendipity we seek
more than my or by our self
that makes one more than
alone-
that makes
connections by proximity
and grounds the charge between that face
and this spirit, these hands and that touch
and those that keep us enigmatic and static-
charged indivisibly

For see
exactly whom we ought to be-
come
& let go
of percipience
and wonder-
ment, for a time.

What is it considered when you have not traveled far and w i d e
but have sped through paper pages and flew limitless miles,
by red-eye, crossed enemy lines,
considered long and hard about first hand
experiences such as touching the spine that tingles,
or the same finger prints
as others
stained invisibly
soiled likewise, trespassed and told with ownership by good deed

If we need to know
to spread the word, a story, a life like ours is still
being-born-
threaded and indebted, (as I was)
just passing through when you weren't here
-yet
a note is always left for those who look
be-
low
the sure face.

Like metaphor
or mystery-

What happens when everything turns brown and holds onto its water weight
as proud as the iron anchor,
to linger a little before
breaking down
spread thin enough to cover the whole
sky
adding rain for self-reflection on white noise days
when echoes are licked up and reds are too strong
for floating in greyscale
when shades are all we needed
for answers acidic enough

for shelter
for honor
for comfort
for speech-less ways we see, never meant
the same again
precisely as it were.




Painting By English: Christen Dalsgaard (1824-10-30/1907-02-11) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

This Kind (Haiku)

Being
        Nice is like
Hospitality for All
Devil(s)-
               bed is made.




Source unnamed, interior of brothel in Italy 1945 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

No More than Four

It may take some time for our water 

based eyes to adjust 

                                   in the dry air

and filter out what it needs not.

The first train blares its horn 

          as it pulls through the sleepy town

tucked inside the fluffy grey marine layer.

The Amtrack gains its momentum 

          and kicks up clay sand in dusty billows,

                         while we lie stoic in its wake. 

A little later today,

as usual.

When we come out of our nocturnal coma

we start straight away, stacking up tasks, 

                                   left and right foot,

breathe and blink,                     -stretch

and then 

the mind quickens to find more 

                                         just to say

                                   no more than four

things at one time...

No way.

If I had five children- 

why the pinkie and not the thumb?

If I could split my brain in two,

perhaps I could keep track of eight...

Why the biggest brain 

                                if we are so dumb?

This one time, the same as today

while walking to the market,

                                   left, right, left, 

bread, bananas, cheese, water...

I heard the train coming,this was the light Coaster 

and I knew it was only 10 to 3.

I have time-I remember-I thought-

I smile at the passers-by, a grandmother with child, 

                                                  umbrella for the sun, 

a leash leading to a tiny dog and multiple bags in tow.

With my hand plunged into my shallow pocket 

I think I have not enough money 

                                                 for the bread. 

                    Sweat beads built on my brow

and instead of going this way,

                         corruption of a lovely day-

a needed

interruption, a line break in my path.

Now

the copper church bells peal back from atop St. Patrick's tower

and I listen in silence...

four more

Still 

my heart beats,  

with a falling 

                       bead of warm water on my cheek,

                                        and I remember to breathe.

*The number Four is based on an article from brainfacts.org.

Photo credit By "self-made" in  [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Dreams casting shadows

One needn't try to demystify
precisely why the shadows lie
the way they do.
There is always an excuse.
Dare not to ask the old salt and pepper nurse
how she came to be the sole caretaker
of crows
and a single cockatoo
every morning, every single mourning,
she knows
they are there for her too.
The brown boy that is now
a milk chocolate man
still slices cold cuts and fresh white bread
at the local sandwich shop and a decade later
still says 'Hi'-
don't ask me why
the police roll by
and I am reminded, it is just a job.
Do you remember that riddle
about what is black and white-
I've read too much...
Speculation bleeds ink.
I think
I will never ask
why my dreams are now in vivid color.



Painting titled Cloud Shadows (1890) by Winslow Homer [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.