More Lore

Her fingers finally feel longer to her.
The ears and nose never stop growing.
Her feet are done.
Her brother, here first, walked and drove
at his own pace and patience grew taller.
Sprouting new grey hairs that draw silver lines
over peach fuzz, made coarseness more reflective
and full and great amens.

There are no coincidences in story.
The ending we will never read.
Ends meet and repeat.
One of a kind assumes kind came first.
Always out of touch with clouds that contain
snowflakes, we thought we could melt together.
Instead we end up in grey
lines of silver and touching someone with story.


Artwork by Pietro da Cortona, c. 1632-1639, in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Orange-inality

It could have been
the orange sky
I was admiring
-he asked me why
I noticed
if I felt good?

It may only be its likeness
to oval and objection to purple
-he thinks I am an artist
like that
the palette and what is not
tasted by others

It is likely the ellipse
I offered him
We could have been randomly
cast in the color before
-he agrees dutifully
and we could be genetically
unique only as far as we can see-
which threw him for a loop.

I only meant this hypothetically
potentially when the genome metes
its random end
it would depend on the (re)combination
and assembly by chromosomal connection
of organelle by origami, by atom.

Adam, says he.
It is a lovely Eve-
ning, said I as I happened to be
passing by.


Image By Sondrekv (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Seeled Nightjars

The more I grow
the smaller I feel

alluding to the numbers,
volume made us feel safer
en masses
more than a speck or sparrow

excommunication
was what was said
by those who asked
the owl

in stead of the tree
Who
watched us scatter
the wait in seeds
while he preyed.


Photo credit By Benjamint444 (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], via Wikimedia Commons.

Muse-ack

The music spoke its secret ways
that day
the note
in the glass bottle was found
and magnified you-

Up high,
a troupe of black birds stream
through the pink zephyr in blushes
-it becomes clear
they know the song by
wingbeat
the chorus
in choreography-

Silvers of this
lay strewn
all about you-
once seen, became
blinded faith
setting eyes
on bald faces
the cloud mist-

Soul survival,
the score was more
than we can consume
in a low life
mock swallows
in moments made
intoned by bliss.


Painting by Pedro Américo (1884) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Summersway

So the sun insists its way in
and over,
taking priority back
of kissing the skin
and drawing the ocean
on dreamy maps
that glisten.

The ripe sea air consumes
a whole head,
and it is contagious
with this trivial sense
of summer breezes, appetites of air
and lusty whims
that swing wildly between
again and memory, either or
reminiscent.

Time stretches it's long legs out,
roads unfurl possibilities in arcs, by bends
keeping mysteries, mountains echo
words overlapping in the distance,
and it can be heard playing for fun,
like us we were just
on the mend
and blending in,
taking our Time
back.

Maybe migration meant more to us
since we got locked in-side
our own ornate cages, (in) security,
as if this accessorizing, plating, and heat
signaled we chose this, as if these
swift summers were worth this
All (in),
for one great trip
away.
Sunsets only
a whisper a sway.



Painting by Robert Lewis Reid (c. 1910-1920) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. 

Smoking Rope Burns

Rope rather than guns

I said to the man

-in America anyway-

As if he asked for some alibi,

as if anyone Wanted me: Dead or Alive.

Not that

I suggested murder or hinted at a

lynch mob-no soldier trained for Tug of wars.

I have no skin in that game.

Here is the Reader

with their eyes on the trigger

pulling out meaning,

hanging there, in town squares,

the tangled mass pulls at twisted truths

by yarns and feet, knots and nots.

Suicide is never the last act.

Remember?

A rope also saves lives, he said

depending upon the need,

in his all-

American way.

Painting By Albert Baerston, Belgian painter, Ghent 1866 - Gent, 1922 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Gaseous bubbles

It has become customary

to throw up ones' arms

and say ‘CRAZY’ as though

that could be

the end of

the ‘DILEMMA’, not much more than

ennui & effortless cooling

occurring naturally,

after the initial explosion.

The human being,

irregardless of the (in)humanity,

hovers with the curiosity of before’s and after’s,

and our re-action was our only second chance.

Predictions are prepositional

‘PLANS’.

Any body could conclude

All bubbles burst.

Image credit By NASA, Voyager, a child in bubble 2011 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

liminal

Fine. Pretend, thinly.
Smile. Pull the cord. Middle C.
Pluck the inside strings. Up.
Ply your arms, for others.
Cut. Hung. Behave. Trim and Prop her.
Hear yourself first, thought, same.
Note turned to tone?
Silence is preferred by the self
Above all else.

Despite, to spite the intolerably cruel,
Endure. Niceties, stand still. 
Erect, not flinch. Faces. Places.
As though-
As though,
You remember You
From somewhere,  around here….

Painting by Vincent van Gogh, The peasant churchyard (1885) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Abracadabra and ABC's

The plan itself-long forgotten-
was working, as every prediction
foretold
by the last of the learned.

It had been lifetimes-
long gone,
when it was learned by the rest(ing),
the dangers of knowing
too much
for thin soles to carry
comfortably.

Human touch was not the trick,
the magician preferred to work with
shiny wheels, hats, cards, cups and wands
Invoking smiles as he deftly slices
attention, willing volunteers and words.

The spell lost in translation, a dead
language
slang-shot not toward penetration, but
babbled by barbarians-again.
This entertains, now this-now and
never remembered-

None heard the chorus
of the sheeple's song before
nor sang along anymore-

Now it sounded silly
and coincidental,
entertaining and easy
to follow along.

Now, all hands-free.
What has been taken away
by sleight of hand, was never missed
soon enough-
none will understand
a word, meaning-wise.


Painting by Thomas Gainsborough (c. 1773-1777) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Those are not windows

We know the difference between screens

And windows

We have seen panes and cracks distort the image.

The daughter of a poet was tasked to pen a poem,

perceived as silly, she wrote it off.

The line led one to believe Heller Keller

dreamt in color-
and Kandinsky painted music

And they laughed-

The black and white words were lost

on the newest Tech-no-extinguish-allingo for rhythmic rules

Class, (the new Beats 

by algorithms).

Photos sans filters, simply

unaltered-in the past-by contrast

To green and blue screens that project a

Headline(r) to the stars.

A theater student herself,

She laughs at those old over-acting 

talkies before Technicolor, whose

lame movements, I justify-

are compensations for lack of color.

Well, faking it was fun. 

Forts and refrigerator boxes

worked for pretending elsewheres and make

believing in speech-

Until we started to believe 

the sounds were real.

As though everyone knows 

colors come naturally

to all things reflective

Only-

Is it touching that tells the truth?

The poet has no sense.

Painting by By Juan Gris (José Victoriano González Pérez), Spanish, 1887 - 1927 (1887 - 1927) – Artist/Maker (Spanish) Born in Madrid, Spain. Dead in Boulogne-Billancourt, France. Details of artist on Google Art Project [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Self-driven

Bipeds-we have walked
with our soles touching the earth
until grew tired and found
limits to how far we can make it
in a day-
and just how much, or little
one man may carry this way

until we tamed
double duty quadrupeds
who lightened the load
a little

when we saw the wild steed gallop
our fancies flew and we felt
there is a better way-
so we broke them and started over,
land-locked and loaded on beasts
this feast lasted longer than a day.

It was not long, remember when
Four legs was not enough,
we wanted wings
but got stuck spinning our wheels.

We hatched plans to get there faster
than the crow flies-
ill-suited for the skies
we want back to fire.

Today we fly anywhere,
drive up to the edge of lands end
teeter in between atmospheres
propelling people mindlessly about
still holding the mules lead

our soles ungrounded.

We needed directions more than license.

Now, how to get around
the fear
of not being in control
of cruising and steering and nearing no
better ways
of moving forward
without needing to know
how we arrived or when we will be
delivered.

Painting By Mary Stevenson Cassatt, American, 1844 - 1926 (1844 - 1926) – Artist/Maker (American) Born in Alleghney City, Pennsylvania, United States. Dead in Le Mesnil-Théribus, France. Details of artist on Google Art Project [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Monk-ee-See

The Dalai Lama traveled to talk
at the University, and it was good
to hear it was no celebrity.
He spoke of "dialogue"
let me repeat-
He spoke of "dialogue"

Not many of us wonder
or need to know
our full thoughts

The way we treat
Others
could be better-granted
territories are gone-
None go out of their way or think
of crossing invisible lines

Surprised to see none like me-
not unique-just unanimously rejected
for some thoughts of me
I didn't see
coming or going

Not knowing our position
we listen to Others
who guide us to Do Unto Others
as if we knew the same treatment
worked wonders on Others.

Conversely,
speaking drowns out listening,
when we worry about what we will say
when it is our turn

The Dalai Lama was dripping like a wet sponge
in the high humidity here.
He was not yet acclimated to hear
his humid reception,
and the excessive
precipitation of June gloom.



Painting by Peder Balke (1864) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Act your aim

When we stay in line
like good little pixels
stacking up our boxes
edge to edge
we may notice
the oval, all circularity
is pointed, adjacently
and saved, if needed.

Connections and karma
are just
arrows attempting to be
boomerangs.

Hunters and gatherers,
acting in accord
with the right angles,
took shape, called it chalice,
and carried it with us
empty-everywhere

beginning and ending with "Fire"
-there was nothing-
to hold us together but the sphere.

1st(Top) Painting by Douglas Volk, 'The boy with the arrow' (1903) in [Public domain or CC BY-SA 2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons.

2nd Image Info: John Gower in a portrait from a book with his Vox Clamantis and Chronica Tripertita in Glasgow Univ. Lib., MS Hunter 59 (T.2.17) folio 6v. This is from a revised edition of the book published c. 1400 (before Gower's death). Gower is depicted as an archer with a bow and arrow. Gower prepares to shoot the world, a sphere with compartments representing earth, air, and water.
Text on the above image in one version of the Vox Clamantis reads "I throw my darts and shoot my arrows at the world. But where there is a righteous man, no arrow strikes. But I wound those who live wickedly. Therefore let him who recognizes himself there look to himself." 

I was framed

Words wouldn't come
so I went with paint,
but the body was too thick
and the primaries screamed
even when kept apart

Those threads I cannot read
through
the prepositions and problems
drama and canvas scenes

in media res, centripetal
room at the edges
so bubbles don't pop
as tempting as black is

Purple pretends perception
like lines of sight
the same lines that bind
up brains and I's
omnisciently we see,
underneath it was red,

with light
become plane as day,
in a literal sense.



Arttwork By Michael Sevier (illustrator) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

The breaking of day

Start here,

Where it is new and all fear, trepidation and caution

We called it

A scream it is untranslatable.

Symbols show

More than scars softened over imperfections

Below we know

It feels more than numb, sealed memories to tote.

Foretold in light

In eight minute increment’s, sentiments sent somewhere

Between now and then to pretend de ja vu wanted to remind you

Nothing new better than you to rise

Lightly.

Painting by Nicolas Poussin [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

The sylvan man grows in light

After watching what you say

In the way

of change

concentration

cures

our severed taste buds and

need for salvation is mis-

taken for thirst of knowledge.

Flavorless is so often

Distasteful.

With the impressions all-ready made,

castes cracks to make like-ness, best selves,

come rise to the occasion or surface,

holding up the sky for the stragglers,

last ones out-

So beauty is the last thing any-body sees.

Rather-build an experience stacking up

of extrapolated theories, compacted clumps,

we build like dutiful doozers

busy before the Fraggle ruins it all

over again.

A variation of pattern provides for knots,

gathering spaces and pulls punches with curves

unfit for naked kings.

There can be all or nothing

theoretically and answer is not the source,

it is a question of directed desire, of

questions and may-bes.

Fear and famine are inadequate seeds

of inspiration for a fish to continue to grow on

and on immersed in its own currents.

The air is different amidst change and chaos,

at the same time, it was always happening,

never staying the same-

except the way you speak

of change.  

I accept the way change 

speaks of you.

Artwork by Jusepe de Ribera [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Bide and bide

Patience was a problem
he was working on
And so: Nothing Doing about it
All's well that ends in a day.

Around the bend danger awaits,
there was no other way out.

Asking about contents and swatches
make a myriad of answers juxtapose and
work without reason.

I still stand-awaiting your reply.

His hyper heart, the others tainted blood, the ill-tuned organs, the laced food, the zombie pills, the (mixed) media/ (missed) messages, the dumb distractions, the deafening volume, the vast emptiness, the toxic air, the yellow water, the rush, the summit, the plummet-----
Do it NOW!
That is-jump-the wait is too great to hold onto for longer than patience holds peace.
Later-it will be too late to learn of love
and its heroic acts that fail to think
before giving up
the weight
was over.


Painting By Gordon Coutts (1869 - 1937) – creator Born in Glasgow, Scotland. Dead in San Francisco, California, United States of America [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Gravitas

It was never about our dumb thumbs.
It was the way we stood up
to gravity
without needing to know what we have
pushed up against, the faceless force
of resistance that throws its weight in waves
that crash out of sight and none mind this weakness
the stacking of back bones.

The clock, the book, ape our names with a smirk and a stick
shows you his ant collections, meanwhile, the snake swallows its tail.

Pounds and heartbeats resist this ethereal oppression
that taunts us to compete with what we have,
as though a winner was ever chosen,
as if hope had more than clipped wings with whimsical wants
and rings only of brass cages,

only light easily escapes our local prisons,
with motion detectors triggered we creep
like suspicion
reflection and persistence and say we are seekers

what gathers as cumulous clouds all comes
back down to dirt before clay
this way something is from nothing

the spinal column rachets and secures its connections
between inside out, an idea, a step in the right foot first
direction of brave, giants leaps of grace
loss of place

higher than vertigo knows
makes me think
there was nowhere to grow
up is out.

I doubt our thumbs
gave us a free ride.
Gravity takes no sides.




Painting by Claude Monet, Heavy Seas at Pourville (1897) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

bed of coals

Enveiled, as usual
lifted my eyes by the chin
you invited me in

a place I know, have been
sitting by the fire-place.
And only on this hearth

have I seen illumination
made warmer
by generous raditation

over time and across space
between us-apart-of something else
that remains Otherness

between bonds like breath
we share aglow,
rekindled when struck together.



Painting by Santiago Rusiñol (1894) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Free Will-but save yourself

The whole truth and nothing but the truth,
You can't handle the truth-
Truth be told,
If you dare,
I swear on my life
It had all been said before as time and time again repeats itself, this time is different,
as assertion or assumption that the old is new again-this time
there is no way all the way around without seconds-
You've tried before, before the moments meant more than muddled memory of cake,
a building block, an hour glass or year more changes things, dims the lighting while we change
and seek something original before sunset-
Yet nothing new or true has been said yet...
except we still try (and propose)
we still lie (and suppose)
we still die, believing legacy lasts longer than I told you so,
as though the truth shall set you free
to choose
just
one.


Painting by Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson (1786) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

The currency of pretty

How could you be so Beautiful
and not show anyone?

Why do you squander this Gift
doing nothing powerful
with it-

You don’t have enough to spend
frivolously, you said.
Our investments differ dramatically.
Meanwhile, I have been saving up
All my paper money
for disgraced tears
the old fashioned way.

Only trying to help you get
A head of yourself.

Your advice is not the flotation
device
I need to keep a heads up.
I think I am too heavy, too deep
to let it Be. Do not worry about me.
I would happily dissolve back into the sea
as in, dis-
appear
coming back again and again in tide,
leaving crumby trails of gold.

This was you being ugly,
or just one of many duplicates.
Monotony blinds anyone who sees just
silhouettes and small talk, grains as significant-

Personal preferences aside, you should see
Yourself in this light.

Instead we blow off the complimentary
and make glass castles or ballerinas,
all so fragile where thinnest.
If only we could trade
places
matter and Purpose
melt in twisted hands,

beauty was nothing new.

Photo credit by Graham Crumb/Imagicity.com [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

Esse est percipi (to be is to be perceived)

The weakest link in the chain of being
Makes no lasting connections-

Through some set of instructions, like a recipe
My grandmother warned me
As most Norwegians do
Pick your battles,
She was no warrior but always got her way.

My daughter asked me why I gave her
Such unruly hair
I explained entanglement,
like genetics.

My son wondered if his absent father cared about him
I explained how black holes devour every event
Near their horizon-
Light cannot escape.

I listen to my mother every week
on the line-long distance,
and remind myself that gravity
cannot be forced to become
stronger or weaker-
here
-without proximity.

All the unfinished pieces I call quanta
Have been spinning, gathering, and weaving
Adams this evening,
I listen to strings beings played
somewhere in the distance
making music with wasted energy and vice versa
to feel harmonious.

My grandfather sings this one verse
Spin the tail of the Ouroboros-
Watch him chase his legacy,
Ask him where he is going
He does not say Entropy,
His mouth is full of chaos.
Spin, spin, spin the tales
O wee world weaver.

Now
It makes sense,
This is coherence

as a theory of relativity.

Photo By Fred C. Palmer (died 1936-1939) (Photograph of original postcard) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Fight or flight

I propose

to usurp the power that death takes

hold, clamping its rusted iron jaw on degradable values

make diffused, diluted and convert to decrease aversion

Fight or flight for

Fear?

(clipped wings are for peacocks)

I have thawed my right angles

to meet the idea of my mortality

in mirrors and simulations and held white

for a time, essentially accepting

dirt nor ash is enough to subsist us

For the birds-just-ice

Leave me

Happily ever after

Life.

Lastly, carried away

Wishes molded into clay sink

while the will

always ends 

with wind.

Painting by Melchior d'Hondecoeter [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Hex-ameter in cent-imeters

The spoken curse at last 

resonance on red lips 

from dripping fingertips-

May you live in interesting 

Times (chorus again).

Thy will be done -Here-

at all costs

Thy-

Will be done.


Painting by Charles Bird King [CC0 or CC0], via Wikimedia Commons.

Where purple fades to black

Draw, if you can, a picture
Please-with your eyes closed in bliss-
May I imagine seeing it too,
and what if-could I be with you
this night where we never miss the truth
if it should fall before us

Find, if you can, a wish
hitched along aligning stars
winking the words in a code
they read, like they need
to fill up all our empty cups with
drops between here and there

So why are we still so thirsty
amid our aqueous aura
see opulent streaks, purple pains majestic-
The salt is the bitterness, now all dried up-
maybe the ache will shoot me-
the shape of lines we need to meet
May be in ink, in visible
made purple and moon

Feel, if you could, a feather-
this is the same as my kiss
Want is the honeyed passion oil
glimmering for attention under heat-
watch the butter-flies battle this
This, this, is the same as wonder

Why are we left wanting
this is more than we can grasp in a life
this is more than we can make in a word
shown ourselves wrapped up in a code
enigmatic strike momentary flashes
passed missed messages
millions of miles apart, we started

Be cause, once I've heard-past-
where the purple fades to black
and the doves skip the lyrics
due to heavy rain
this is where we dance outside of time
feeling the echoes of each
others heart beat
living in the notes.

"After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music." -Aldous Huxley

This poem is in tribute to and inspired by the artist Prince and his lyrics to the song "When Doves Cry"recently passing away at the age of 57 on April 21, 2016. 

Published in A Prince Tribute Poetry Anthology, published by Yellow Chair Review.

Image of painting by Charles Joshua Chaplin [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

2nd Image of Purple rose By Portraitlady4306 (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Give & Take

The most random growth

strikes me as superfluous

Beauty.

Look around;

Light, colors, temperature, 

                        and patterns too ornate

to recreate by free hand. Living proof.

I take it in too deep, bury stars under dust

And as ugly as I try

a mote may hope

to grow out of it.


Illustration from Patrick Moore's Watcher of the Stars in 16th century[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

A loud thought

We

are the only creatures

that are meta

Supposedly

as in Assumption

Anthropologically

or making

Anthropocenes

and calling it

as though It is

Fragmented-

they said

I was

Funny,

that is my poetry showing

if you have a sense of humor

or comical elbow

you know

jabs are blunt

This specific species

doesn’t understand

All 

parts as a whole

some were mystified

and thought the Art clever-

Others never

see the holes

by volume of alibis

Let’s confess,

if it bleeds it needs

Compression

another way to say

another need-

                      to say.


Painting by John Michael Wright [Public domain], Portrait of a Lady (17th century) via Wikimedia Commons.

Caught in a (w)rec(k)tangle

When the house becomes too small to move-

Say-the mind a sliver, the air stagnates,

Move, make ninety degrees and push

yourself in the corner as close as you can

                                                    and wait,

settle eventually

                                      into splitting sides.

The edges are solid suggestions.

Only like (a)new angle,                thirty-three

vertebrae stacked spines of letters in cantos

                        Will line up to form new rays,

circular thoughts that roll off to escape

                                                       -common

nodes or intersects by a(n)arrow marginality.

Letterally, let us build this thing out

with meaning and not caulk it up impermeable

Around the double pane windows

Only to trap commas in between

Breath and rain

Between escape and containment

We will just

stay in place and listen

Accepting the sentence

as the last line

Insight. May be make more

empty dwelling spaces

To call a place

None like Home. 


Painting by Michiel Sweerts [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.