Golden Fleece

It becomes hard to breathe,

As if my chest walls

Resisted

The intrusion of more volume.

It is known,

My metronome sways slower than

The standard,

Which causes pause

To those listening for life by standards.

It becomes questionable if I am alive

For a full moment

It becomes obvious, this is my restful state

That alarms professionals of standards 
and not enough.

It was by the elimination of blur,

 the rolling together of static

and the burying down of heart that dams

persistence through rivers and veins.

The flow of water and words,

wind and blood run around without reason.

I should be dead,

They all said without saying anything solid,

Like stones and bodies

To remind us of sinking feelings and roots,

Settling and silt.

It was the iron 
will and heavy hand of world

carried just under the skin and cages. 


Jean François de Troy [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Point A

Home is where we start from,
Eliot said,
while one is busy making plans,
planted Lennon trees,
as though making a home and getting somewhere,
were lasting-
things are all ending around you.

It is not as if Paradise was the same as Innocence
and yes,
both disappeared,
were sheared from necessity
like baby teeth and training wheels,
and how it hurts worse
when home
and are overfed.

Home is a net,
or a web.

He picks up the guitar again and gives it
another chance
this time, she says, until
his fingers bleed.

The other one drives herself away
and is made stronger
so far
from home,
her hopes await.

They both grow from the 'here'
they call Home,
while I make myself busy
tuning the strings
to help them hear, or find
harmony in their spheres
and recognize the crystalized tone
of their own spin,
at least phonetically
one Here's
it to be, pronounced
Home or Ohm.

Raised from nothing but ashes.


Photo By Paik, Kenneth, 1940-2006, Photographer (NARA record: 8464462) (U.S. National Archives and Records Administration) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Norwegian Matte

The eldest sister of my Grandmothers' siblings
told me,
They would take rocks
from atop the wood burning stove in the kitchen
and carry them to school,
clutching these in their pockets as they walked.

Sometimes they would stay warm all day,
if you knew where to hide them
for later.

They did this every winter.
The walk in the snow to school
was not an ascent.
It was a privilege to go to school,
she often said.

She also said she pined for a pony,
and being first born-
she believed anything was possible.
She got a goat. She named it Eddie.
Eddie followed her to school.

She taught him math,
addition and subtraction,
and some simpler sentences.
Four was his favorite number.

Being the first (and last) born
from the middle sisters' daughter,
I understood her silly stories
greater than
the rest.
I remember
I saw no difference
between the rocks and the goat.

A smooth rock sitting in the sun
is not safe from my fingers or pocket,
by relation
I am compelled to carry the heavy load,
alone.
The slag added up
to more than four pockets could carry.





Painting by János Tornyai [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Passes thru

The train rolling through town

sends in its signal 

                   with the intermittent whistle which warns

of something more than arrival, delivery or destination,
crimson, or even hot steal.

It smelt of cinnamon and sueded leather,

Bark and skin, the warm coat.

Two young men, 
                         friends since childhood, 
Skype and catch-up on nothing new.

They live close to each other, 
                         only one hears the train first.

The little girl that left the boy 
                         in the woods to get lost herself
was kind enough

to think of bread for later so she could come back

to him, but he was hungry and took care
                         of himself.

She cries about choices to another boy.

She was the wolf that howls at the passing train, sirens song,

a puppy in a dogs coat.

Tracks made for trains are best for drawing lines, 
                        demonstrating the forging of space

between then and now,

                                    here and there

one nose

smells first

and hides in his skin.

The other clearly hears
the passing scream left behind
on warm steal lines
                        without a second glance

he knew there will be another
                         soon enough to catch up.
He takes off his coat.  
No longer in a hurry 
he thinks in all directions,
and decides to walk
without destination.




Photo credit by Carol M. Highsmith [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Lull-a-by

Stop at the low point, and in this recess

you will need these low slopes

to assess your remaining strength
in gradient.

Then,

          gather all the carnage you can,

but take none further than the valley.

To think is an acting verb.

Robots had been employed long ago.
Slave drives and across partitioned Seas
forbidden steps were recorded.

It was that legend that made it obvious 

                  we had since been spendthrift with time.

Our hands dirty from digging 

for shiny money and grit.

                   Seeing the stars so far from reach

we felt unrelated.
It became problematic, morally. 

As we take note of the hour
by the shadows cast backward,

thoughtfully-one attempts to

Rescale themselves
                                against the evening sky.

The airs thins during ascent

Aiming 
to take our breath away,

Try.

You will know when you need more than 

rocks and steps to move on.

And the ache

will accompany you (in lieu of Virgil),

And you will see the great Mountain 
                                  as more than one needs

in steps to reach

the peak

without why, 
                                  but because it is There. 

Humming and drumming help us close the distance.

Stars and mounds all added up to virtually nothing

separate or other,

meaning to, meaning too

much choice. 

Lulled into thinking the rest
helped gather strength
(in lieu of charge).




Painting By L. A. Roberts (Own work) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons.

Naked soles

Tick-tac with each step taken down

the tile floor hallway-

crept moving was the only way

to get here to meet there,

though the narrowing drywalls close in

facing the wall she wonders-

Whose purpose memory serves now-

As if climbing these textured cream walls

would help us all adapt to sharp

right angles, as accustomed,

and if given a sideways glance,

one may admire the frames for their brevity,

developed into more than the moment

of moving placeholders.

Time froze at her feet

the ceiling cast white over her. 

The slate she found was just cleaned.

Photo credit by Milko Matičetov [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

This image or media is available on the Slovenian Ethnographic Museum's website. 

Chlorophyll-ed

I am as incomprehensible as the granite

underfoot as I stand on the fence,

teetering on the post tops,

scrambling across the jagged riprap,

lava on my left,

ice on the right

wondering if I will ever touch down

and it will be enough.

Sometimes, I lean I little too much to one side

and become painfully aware of needles stabbing my cheeks,

and of the physical struggle I wage

against gravity and giving in to the wind.

My eyes hold a glare, grazing across seas of green,

hungry, nauseous.

I remain the thing that sticks out.

I pretend I can hold my composure.

I pretend I am mending, securing and building

back up

the differences between sight and seen, observed and obscure,

between then and now, overhead and right under the soles

heat rises.

The sky blended primaries and found 555 nanometres

restful to the eye. It was a gift in lieu of fight or flight.

A boulder in space time adds up,

this occupies me

for a time
as if I was getting somewhere.

Photo credit By Sonja1982 (Own work) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons.

All complementarities aside

We tapped into the human genome

And are now mapping the brain

But you know we won't find love there either.

They scared us with the hole in the atmosphere,

Cosmic rays, acid rain. They tried terror

By burning down the forest before the cure

For cancer was cultivated.

The ice melts and minerals reinfuse themselves

Ionically with purpose, freeing radicals to cleanse

Surfaces.

Then this standard A brain met a utilitarian snaggle-

What’s it for? What about changes?

Yeah, the gold was soft after all.

There was common wetware

And we always knew how copper conducted itself

Generous with friction and actions without touch.

Entangled in the overhead wires,

Thought is under webs, like lines that meant complex

Life that we thought

we could emulate all the folds and it would comfort us

knowing love was no there to be found

nestled in tight corners and, residing

rather closer to a paradox between intelligent design

and first thought or dream.

Image credit By Smithsonian Institution from United States [No restrictions], via Wikimedia Commons.

Info via Wikimedia- Chandra telescope x-ray (2005): 

"The Chandra image shows a bubble of hot gaseous supernova debris (green and red) inside a more rapidly moving shell of extremely high-energy electrons (blue). These features were created as the supersonic expansion of the debris into interstellar gas produced two shock waves - one that moves outward and accelerates particles to high energies, and another that moves backward and heats the stellar debris. The relative expansion speeds of the hot debris and the high-energy shell indicate that a large fraction of the energy of the outward-moving shock wave is going into the acceleration of atomic nuclei to extremely high energies. This finding strengthens the case that supernova shock waves are an important source of cosmic rays - high-energy nuclei which constantly bombard Earth"

Proof to feel

Exempt from Rule three
'Seeing is Believing',
poets have felt gravity waves for centuries
before proof,
evidenced in the condensed packet called
a 'moment', that hits him square in the numbers
chest-wise.

Arresting breath with bondage attention
the neck braces itself out there
nearly knocked into shadowed fear-
don't look here-
it seems safer to watch than feel.

Despite the blind faith and electric lights,
the poet reads the ultraviolet signs as liminal,
hairs will rise only to settle in an
oppressing scream. It thinks it is escaping in
reaching for its own echo, those
vibrations shake the sound loose
from source.

Entanglement matters most
to poets without deflecting further penetration,
those background noises were called white
for lack of definition.

The poet lights his metaphor,
inhaling all that remains too minute
to make time.


Painting By Charles Furneaux (Hawaii Volcanoes National Park archive) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

X traction

The pen becomes a scalpel,
gleaming with precise intent
on sterility and removal, via
extraction from entanglement,
in order to sever-ate the corrosion
before it seeps through to stain
repellent gesso with black tears.

And although the layers piled up
their rolling waves of light,
it was the implementation of movement
through space that fills in the blanks,
we went further
discontent with no white way
to think this through
with outlines.



Image credit via Wikimedia Commons, in Public domain (Gift of Felix M. Warburg, 1928), dated 1605.

Galileo's Hearts

The hours carrying over one heart beat
                                to the next
which only make echoes of now and forever.
                                This crude hammer-
ceaseless-does not heal but molds to fit
soundness through all narrow passages
                                pushing breath aside.

This welcome breeze washes over
hot cheeks
with smile,
injecting light
where darkness filled up silence with stories.

There was once a time
when it was easier said than done.

Flutters and leap seconds could be folded
and kept muffled
in between a steady place
and were bound by revolutions
mistaken for revelations.

Now, as predicted
none looked further than necessary
and overall, it was universally agreed,
                                          inevitably
the shifting weight
would crush us completely
while the drum rolls on.


Painting by Arthur Hughes [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
                                        

                                         

First love, then night

The son

searches blindly in the thick shadows,

timid and thin, his alabaster skin 

fingering rays for warmth

where matters with heat may penetrate,

he lingered along

to feel the shapes and qualities

worth illuminating.

The son

gives off too much

light of himself,

but cools his burning core when worn

down from spinning out ideas, worries like water

for clouds.

Grey lightens the pressure of beauty in shades

of dilution.

The son

sets his gaze on the fine line,

balanced between now and then

an emerald spark, sometimes called Epiphany

flashes forward before

the embers burn themselves out

and all that fixation

loosens the belt of Venus

able to breath aloof in dusk.

The son

becomes sure

of being risen and having been 

roused, only to be caught 

in a brief glare, he spots 

glimmers of where love

lies and may be

beyond her dissolution. 

The son

will to morrow, who is

peaking at noon,

falls warmer than 

any moon who wanes

when the world was said 

to be done. 

Painting by Cornelis Lieste [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

kindling

Dirac asked Oppenheimer,
how in the world he could practice physics-
theoretically and simultaneously pen poetry
when one is aimed at the succinct center,
the concisest way
to phrase the nature of things
in the most approachable,
graspable way....

It could have been rhetorical or figuratively
proposed in such and such a way as Dirac
may say 'applicable',
and Oppenheimer might reply by
giving him an apple, alleging
he is the fairest of all
that are ripe.

These translations into a broader spectrum
of greater visibility from the sides, specifically
and beneath, the poet speaks in waves of ultraviolet
and enunciates his infrared best
when he said
experimental imagery was everything that
could be hypothesis-like this...

And making up metaphors as a means
to sight ones sources makes
Science sing
the song of itself in harmony
when it silences the man interrupting
the synesthesia
with perceptive interference.


Photo credit By ENERGY.GOV (HD.4G.028), J. Robert Oppenheimer in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Transmission in Transition

Freeway roars more than ever,

not because it is a Monday.

With August time is pushed against A/C windows,

glaring about where blind spots signal danger.

Only congestion is quiet.

The speedway whines under the weight of grey.

The police siren screams in haste haphazardly,

with authority, a cymbal, on its path of pursuit

in order to keep mobilized migrations

inside the lines.

The fog rolls by, pushing through and cutting off

the idle sun.

A red-shifting light through diesel smoke

imposed speed limits as a dare,

to supersede a sense of departure,

with one eye

fastened to looking back,

The other I

travels light. 

Painting by Joseph Stella, 'Battle of Lights, Coney Island' (1913) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Thought Angler

...sounds a little like
reminding, word choice and voice
in head unleashed runs back over
itself, like long winds of Jack Kerouac.

When some words settle
like boulders, impressioned and set on
making a safe crossing of white waters
for rock dwellers and ware sellers
of Cages. When Neruda was no longer
a border,
Lowell and beholden-There
I was only a Rae,
scaled into a small Armantrout
aiming upstream it seems
by heart.

Planning my path further,
the banks beckon me with moving silt lines
that shape earth
with a wand of whim. All eyes swim across all
those cummings and goings
making sparkles
above.

I take Paz at the reflection,
amassing stones
and skip the flattest ones
across the Eliotic surface,
Poundless and unpuddled,

noting ripples like run on sentences
that could race round forever,
yet are bound by body, only to be
settled on the shores
in the act of abating the volume
of poetry
with only the words of Emily,
finally.

I have caught a current in a collective
intention, wielding a hand
with a hook that looks
like a pen.
I wait, feeling for the wiggle,
a sign, message spoken
through fingertips-

this was when silence
was most sought
by the spear.






Painting by Martin Ryckaert (1587-1631), 'Fisherman in a wooded landscape' in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

A poet in prose

"Always be a poet, even in prose." 

-Charles Baudelaire

Succinct                                   Finger words attempt to grasp the shape

                                                or solidify some things that matters

                                                enough to cast shadows.

Withheld itself                        Where we have both eyes

                                                and this simultaneous process of thingness,

                                                the space it takes when ones eyes are closed

                                                or looking too long at any thing,

                                                turns to creamains, a small pile, still smolders.

In rote repose                           Mind over matter is when matter takes hold

                                                of our mind and an argument ensues,

                                                this circular discourse becomes a deep rut,

                                                here we go again, making a smile with left overs.

Umbra                                     The darkest parts, those chunky photons assembled

                                                from all particulars and are open to letting the light

                                                expending the conservation in equal distribution

                                                of temperature into background

Where loss of certainty           as love and mild.

Makes one move around         Musical chairs taught us how to listen

                                                while in a hurry to save ourselves and

                                                change our point of view without preference

                                                for any place other than staying in the game.

Look                                        Listen.

Within                                      Many layers of glass make mirrors. 

Painting By Paul Fischer [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

ante meridiem

The first crows of day take flight,

Gliding across the cool metal morning sheet

Confidence rises cool and aloof,

Early raw and pink dissipates like sunrise,

awakening forges

Here to face another view of this again,

All anew and alloyed with quill. 

Photo By Hillebrand Steve, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Public domain images website) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

No gift receipt

Give me
a dry wood chair sitting in the filtered summer sun...
Give me
a dry chair in the summer sun and a thin book of dense poetry to peruse...
Give me
a dry chair in the summer sun with some poetry to read and my blue cat upon my lap,
smiling.
Give me
a wood chair in the filtered sunlight with some sweet poetry and a fat happy cat along with a fuzzy soft peach sweating sugar at hand...
Give me
a warm chair in a little shade, some sweet words and a light breeze, along with a little purring, sticky lips from stone fruits, and the tiny taps of beak smacking mocking birds...
Give me
a chair in the sun, sweet poetry to sink my teeth into, a comfortable cat and a bleeding pen that simply translates all the birds' words,
then I am spoiled
in a shower of gifts,
sated and barefoot in the Bermuda.



Painting by Béla Iványi-Grünwald, 'Lady sitting in the arbor' (1903) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Versus Verses

Clearly, there are differences.

None of us is part of the amalgam.

Equal is not the same

as same as, but in lieu of

just as good.

With nothing to lose,

save the uniform of reason,

we could all bare the truth

as bad as we may see

this in them.


Painting by Jean François de Troy, (1735) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Rae of sight

She was the one who spotted

a fawn in the thicket.

She felt watched and sought the source.

Her eyes pulled up to the top cap of a cement post

where a cat has perched his torso behind a trees' trunk,

she catches a green flash and but holds it like a butterfly.

She did not smell the smoke since she was not there,

she pointed out the scorched earth,

noting the stain of fire.

The marine layers danced in choral lines

without fear of heights,

her sights set upon cirrus clouds,

she traces her lips over the shape of words

forming patches on her salted skin,

she is alone in wondering

how to move the world

without making a sound.


Painting by Franz Marc, 'Deer in aMonasteryy Garden' (1912) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Vapors and Vice

The hole in the ozone is still there.

Scientists are scratching their heads,

growing again.

It never changed our view anyway.

We caught no breeze, the barometer hovered

as it had, the particulars were all accounted for.

This is us, inside

a paneless window that doesn’t divide

out and in and even

if we were told an escape hatch had been made

none would climb up and peak,

resisting gravity

for a chance at Vertigo.

We have proven with balloons and bubbles

so much depends upon a human to wield his barrow,

display his collections,

vend his hot wares and drop his cool coins

in finite jest.

Planes and boats, both heavier than conscience

will float, but we must hold our breath.

Balls drop the same, roughly we round up

all the probabilities

and project our tiny lights towards metaphors of

eternally, outside of the time.

Separating by degree

and elevation, those that climb the walls

and those that sink their souls

in the sand, focused on forever

slipping away,

while worried about the whole.


This image or media file contains material based on a work of a National Park Service employee, created as part of that person's official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, such work is in the public domain.

Finely printed news

The woman with the thin narrow hands
trimmed and nude nails,
received the good news
And here she was
spent
and broke.
She was tired and should have slept,
instead, she nearly died
with the pen in between her fingers
and raw knuckles.
Even this was half expected,
she thought the words were enough
but they did not touch her in a good way.



Drawing credit by Ernest Blaikley (1916) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.