The night that the Accountant

The night that the Accountant figured out poetry
was a simple story
about a man and a woman
and the stories they tell
each other-
About
who should and who should not
discuss poetry,
since there is no GAP
in poetics or likewise, alibis.

I told him a story about a poem
that was a story
I made up,
I was never really there.

He said, 'Of course it wasn't true.
Being pushed off a bridge was just a
metaphor-
for what-
I don't exactly know, but if I know you,
it was a feeling
you felt that day.'

I confessed
it was true, all of it.
I could have jumped.
He understood
more poetry
than he ever could have
accounted for.

Along this
line lying between non-and-fiction,
a subtraction connects us.
And we reconcile our difference
of opinions in between
heads and tales
black and read
to solve all word problems.




Photo credit by Mathew Brady, Long Bridge, Washington, D.C. in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

With the worms

Shaking off his jacket
spotted with purple dots of dew,
he unfurls his wings
and dashes off
to a new perch
higher up.

In the insistent rising sun
my head and shoulders form
an opposition,
casting shadows on
soft golden blades
rooted underfoot.

Stirring begins from the ground
where settled matters to-day
such as History and alternative pathways,
are made with each step one leg takes
at a time
to make movement or progression
of orbit

in order
to get there
only to see the selfsame shrinking
without feathers, but by a hair
and blunted nose not pointed beak.

This is sharp steel light
severing the warm body
from the sound mind.

A murmuration demonstrates
the reason
for gathering
our resources
but taking them
lightly.





Painting by Léon Bazille Perrault, 'The Bird Charmer' 1873 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Round the bend

At this time
change felt like the fog rolling in
and when driving into the road mirage
and not hitting a thing-

in a blur that stranges the familiar,
stretches out time a little
like a band,
rubber or air-the change

lingered heavier than mist,
more solid than virga,
icy in all the same clear ways that
when you try to cut it out

from what was always
called Now I am-
like routine and rut,
running along the edges fray,
more than decor, drapery, or flax
like flux, anticipated
or a natural change
of season.

It could have been
Only that-

At this time,
comforts naked shoulder
cooled in the exposure,

where same,
felt somehow strange
like never before.





Image credit By U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Thirteen ways of holding one's breath

I

Thru metamorphosis, emergence of

butterflies and frogs, spread and span

red cheeks, the gymnastic belly below

sticks it with

loins lurching

in love

untold dreams discontent 

unwonted wishes, woos and woes,

it comes and grows

infectious.

II

Heavy is the moment-

He is gone,

gone, gone, gone

Gone.

Generations gone by 

that beget her, 

forget her, the family moves on.

A casket, a Triscuit, 

another he dropped it,

and I put it in my pocket.

It is still there, in my jacket,

old as it is, new every time.

He was…

III

The spider, the car trouble, the anger,

the appliances, the curses,

the denial of utterance

which makes it so

makes it so,

laughable

as a bad day, a bad life, a stroke

of bad luck, 

against the odds

I would survive,

still born

dead. 

IV

All in. Cleared the accounts.

It has to happen now. 

It will be, what will be, it will,

still there remains 

doubt in the dregs.

V
Remind me:

You were never about you

were about them never being 

about you being you, or just you

and not them. They needed you

to be. You knew them before you

knew you were just being 

about them needing you needing 

them to be about being themselves and

not you being yourself to be by 

themselves, not you, being by yourself,

which would mean the end of you,
remember-

VI

Sow seeds are the things with feathers.

No, germination was more gentle.

Like television, what harm? What’s on? 

That’s always on.

And on lines, tapped for groundwater, mineral

rights and tracking cookie crumb trails,

I was being watched. 

I was being stalked, like prey, today.

A seed has been sown.

Murder,

she wrote, consumed him 

of her. 

VII

The same thing is

The same thing is

not 

the same thing is 

the same thing in

sanity.

VIII

Poison is in the food

poison is in the fear,

the body shrivels

the body resists

itself

healing.

IX

What has been done? What did you do?

About that-

Excuse us, excuses us,

in liberty, for just us,

to wait and seek happiness

coining it as pursuit

of private pleasures and 

philanthropic altruism,

we donate dirigible good

deeds, after our needs

have been met 

and mingled with resistance.

X

Go. I will 

meet you 

over

there.

XI

The next phase of the moon that wanes

knows how the shadows will fall 

before the darkness sets us in place.

XII

From inside the cave, gasping for air,

before light, 

unafraid of the burn, the yearning to yell

grips the mouthless beast 

hidden herself and longs to fill her lungs

with sound of feeling and exhale 

the pungent stench of death that goes

unheard,

the beast falls and the volcano erupts

with more of itself. 

XIII

If the sky holds you,

you will be carried

the rest 

of the Way.  

Inspired by Wallace Stevens poem "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird"

Painting By Alexander Mann (1853–1908) (oil on canvas) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

In our places

In winter it is warmest
in the pale sun
and under your light,
even behind the dark glasses

your eyes smile bright
while we talk softly,
without effort
the breeziness knows

understanding the sky
without words
needing to hold us up
against our own presence.

Placed here, like so,
sharing tastes and sounds,
noting the harmony
we share by proximity

and savoring alike. I know
you know, it takes two
to not let go
with one glance,

promise me
one day-
seasons will allow
a change-

when we lift our eyes
holding out hope
over all others
like this

there was no need to explain
how a line catches
all it can tether
together in one sky.



Painting by Johan Christian Dahl, 'Winter at the Sognefjord, February 1827 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Explain yourself

The words were all too long,
became easily tangled and how I kept
pulling at what I thought was an end,
pulling, pulling, pulling, and
thereby taking too much
out of me
the body became barren.

What was understood as a major shift
of power, in direction or by time constraints,
was the anticipated and alternating current
as in that way
opposition acts by force.
Listen, it was my fate,
or decision
to do or not to do.

Small acts, even one
may be a miracle,
after all
this, one thought, one
surviving-

the risks were all there, caution was
issued too. Accuse, dismiss and relish
the sound of ones voice,
and how it comes out, represents
the avatar or holographic image
taken at the ideal angle
or time.

We were all Free
to walk around and not utter a word,
or like me, never give thoughts away with
dignity,
to light, to mind, to mouth, to hand
and inevitably, words were dying.
The Words
were writhing and gasping for shape,
despite the hand that rushed
along-

Definitions, unlike synonyms
carry want and need, unable to
extract and dilute the difference
between
I am and I was.


Painting By Yamashita Shintarō (29 August 1881 to 11 April 1966) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

likeness

The colors blended
one moment, one thing divides
a-similitude



Painting by Albert Bierstadt, Yosemite, Twin peaks, c.1859 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

5:59

Four minutes ago
it was  -My Time-  to shine, rise
above dark valleys



Painting by Claude Monet, 'Haystacks at Chailly at Sunrise', 1865 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Sunrise

And then it sprinkled

not enough to wake any

momentary bliss

You're glowing

Bright burning Aura, Aura!

Night inside of the forest;

Eye or hand, what immortal

fearful symmetry could frame thee?

Skies what in distant deeps

eyes thine of fire burnt

on wings, aspire he dares

Fire what hand the hand dare seize?

Art what, and what art on shoulder

sinews of the heart twist and thy could

beat and beat when thy heart

dread feet, dread hand and what

What chain the-what hammer the-

brain, a furnace twas thy

grasp the dread and what the anvil?

Clasp and dare deadly terrors!

Spears threw down stars

tears water’d with heaven

See him smile at his work?

Thee make the Lamb smile, at making me

maybe?

O Bright burning Aura, Or a

Night inside the forest again:

Nor eye or hand, what mortal

fearful of symmetry would frame thee?

This was an experiment with one of Bernadette Mayer’s Writing ideas (http://www.writing.upenn.edu/library/Mayer-Bernadette_Experiments.html) on mirroring an existing poem, which I did hear (sort of) with Tyger, Tger by William Blake (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43687/the-tyger)

Image By Fritz Erler, 1897 (Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Angel and...

Clean sheets

The poem stared back
at the two pleading eyes

saying nothing
about white or black

nor was any indication given
as to where a poet

should set up thoughts
for the night

with rigging and taut lines
for a reader to traverse across

in high winds
and find their own

-balance-

if the stanza is strong enough
to support mass tourism

and photography.

If you look long enough
or blur your eyes

an Image develops,
what comes through

was over-exposed, covered
with a starch of pareidolia

it was still safe enough
to be considered
shelter.






Painting by Désiré François Laugée [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Agendas

It was never about the invention and the potential

Lives it would save,

It was about who would be written into History as the Hero.

Humphry Davey tried to hide his poetry but stole the lamp.

All for naught, while I sat in the reader's circle, stitching

around Cat’s Cradle-the Dissertation,

and  getting into mining

text instead of ice-nine, we found something like 

fire-ten

and it is spreading.

They were all over the place, Vietnam, Silicon Valley,

East and west coasts, away from the story 

and as Vonnegut said,

Disappearing up its own-

Never-mine-

The kids are still mining for cobalt in the Congo.

No, no, no better. In any language

even with repetition. When does practice make

better-off schadenfreude

Karma is driven toward the one who hit my car 

and drove away.

The grandma laughs at the puke from her grandson.

That makes her son puke too,

and she gets her just desserts 

in between the seats.

We both like the smell of horse manure. 

Italo is easily distracted at first, every day, I should stop 

feeling “death hath undone so many”*.

“In headaches and in worry, 

Vaguely life leaks away

And Time will have his fancy

To-morrow or to-day”**, as Auden would say.

Of course, the dryer refused to spin,

the bills keep pouring in, and there are two-thousand

nine-hundred synonyms for drunk, but sober I remain

loaded on the sole adjective, waiting on the verb

of Time. 

Meanwhile, inspiration is found in flying buttresses, 

among the changing sky, ribbed vaults and pointed arches 

that withstood thirty percent more stress.

Oh yes, it was time again

to act as if one never knows

how things come together.

*T.S. Eliot and **W.H. Auden

Painting by Frank Dobson, 1944 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Sans compunction

No point. No point at the end.

How do you know you are there-

Where?

At the end, I don’t.

(In)³-8

And is it Close or Close? Close.

As meta for unraveling also ravels.

Breathe. I forgot what inspired me.

If used, it still possesses zero dimensions:

Does it matter if there

Or here, or Not? I appreciate the white

                                               Space(s) left by you...

As in, moving targets that spin

seem still, hazy-but fuzzy was her favorite.

How do you know when it is done,

Or the piece is a settled preposition?

Just to suppose, juxtapose those positions,

what if feathers deny making a Pound

is the Emperor Penguin still Dressed (Up)?

They were all thought experiments. I thought they were poems.

A poet cannot leave re-normalization-alone.

I came pre-traumatized, I sat subserviently

and listened for the equi-valence on this side,

punctuated by give and take.

The man said most don't know. As a physicist, he fishes.

His curiosity overflowing banks and boxed cats

and asks the layman to believe in nothing proven safe for consumption.

The stomach still drops in

conceptual elevators

labeled Science and Art

                                   "Going Down"

                                    (rabbit holes).

This poem was composed of notes I took while at an event hosted by the Arthur C. Clark Center for Imagination featuring Rae Armantrout and her condensed chapbook titled "Entanglements" (pub.d by Wesleyan) on April 13th, 2017 (also her birthday). 

chiaroscuro in chalk

The thinnest limn of luna
fights her way through forests
of shadowed beings

Dimly disappearing cusp,
the darkness drinks its last sips
of amber

Spheres spinning so fast none saw
the movement, as vertigo, camouflage
in dancing shadows, the coins spin

The same two choices,
flashing rims and eye lids
make vertigo

Below bodies levitate between
the same two choices
quintessence finds the balance

between particle and wave,
reflecting accord on a fulcrum
or where to draw the line

between light and dark spaces.








Artwork by John Bauer [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Fruit bearing

When you peal back all the exterior layers that have built up
around the original seed
of conflict-which stems not from the picking of,
nor the eating of the lowest hanging fruit
or thereby sharing its ripe pungent juices
with another needing nourishment-
generosity doubles its pleasures
and we are both guilty-expelled-and angry at
the circumstance.

The great divergence actually occurred
when it was Found.
Of course, she saw it first, so she is the gatherer,
but inevitably, it is his Discovery.

Her gaze may have given it away,
yet, let it be known, consumption was never her goal,
it was a thirst she learned to live with
his hunger scared the birds.

With his long arm, and extensive reach,
He provided
for himself
bittersweet meats, her nectar, her basket,
the load she carried, the bodies he dragged,
the plates she cleaned, the fires he stoked

he becomes sated with his accomplishments,
being the first to find,
everything a man could ever need or want
and will defend his property
to the end-

He cocks his sharp weapon,
its poison dipped tip enough to take a life
hostage, something stirs, scares him, he aims
while she is busy gathering her bearings and things,
biting her lip and drinking the blood

They divided the chores
between conquer and conquest, bleeding and bled
out.
She seeks
comfort, security,
he finds
himself lost without her
basket.




Painting by Emmanuel Benner the Younger, 'Hunters in wait' 1879 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

A Gentle Hand

Not speaking for other species,
a human being shall not deny
the power of touch, tact-tility.
As in a word, requires the
relinquishing of an invasion of space
for a sense of felicity, in kind

where seeming accidental, more so
gently, intentional, affixed upon
shoulder or thigh, put so adverbial or
propositional, it is
in earnest, rightly so,
it feels heavier than
the application of pressure
or happenstance.

This need to reach out
and grasp toward
this living moment,
or clutch the vibration
that is life, date-stamped
within our fleshy fingertips.
It is compulsatory

that we soon become
etched or embossed with entitlement,
as in adept for survival and
toward those celebrating this.
It was a touching thing it was said,
to feel mankind
using his hands wisely, for once
in this way.





Painting by John William Godward [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Ellipsis

.

The point was never to be asked

as to why or where

for it was only an aim

as if trying may turn

chance into favor.

..

We looked together

at the same art on the same page,

seeing two very different

images

before us in this self-portrait and

agreed only how much it resembled 

us, individually. 

...

Another reason to dig deeper

and to not avoid the back-breaking 

work or big fear,

is discovering 

that the work worked perfectly

for making castles with dirt

or other temporary shelters for our

homeliness. 

Painting by Colin Campbell Cooper, 1921 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Quicksand in the hourglass

Turned overnight into the shadow,
an ominous space easily overlooked-

devoid of light in this dire dilemma
of grasping at grains, starlit seeds of time,

accepting these days that display
traces of altered spin-
and small places
for sin.

Take out the woven-store the sheer.
Year after year, resort
the bookshelves
by ilk
and most pointed dagger,

Titles,
those names mean nothing
-Placeholders-
arm your selves
about the fire and ice, in these
extremities, inside and isolated,
the glass steams up,
the walls smolder around the skins,

and the colder they get,
the deeper they sink
into the thickest of thoughts.

Tucked in this virtuous blackness,
the rest had no peace,

and the sand moved slowly
towards what could only be hours.



Painting by Sebastiano Ricci, c. 1706 in [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Direction

The pod pulls past

super slow

And in one way

the future is seen

in a second

Under notions of nightsky temerity

when moon rises and shines

and stars fall and flame out

The past twinkles

inset overhead

A fine line

between the living

and the dying

dissipates

when we look too long...

Image credit By C.R. O'Dell (Vanderbilt University) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

If looking-She went crazy

Rarely left alone

for obvious reasons,

when given more than

a minute in solitude

She would start a poem

or worse-

(See)

Dependable as ever

they required her presence

while there was still time

together-no stability

stays the same

(after all)

And dutiful too,

as anyone could be,

she served herself last, cleaned up

after others

with a smile [happy]

And far away gaze,

busy going nowhere

(and getting there)

The blame belonged

not to poetry

alone

(finally.)

(See, after all [happy], and getting there, finally)

Painting By Michael Sweerts (Flemish, 1618 - 1664) artist (Flemish) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Montgomery Street Cleaning

The German poet, bartender, magician, wanderer, playwright, refugee, and performer

who was Exiled in Vienna

arrived at the States United in 1933.

Uniting people was a thing in the thirties.

She had drive. She was a hitchhiker. It took her places

she had never been before.

In 1952 she stopped.

In 1952 she stayed around

because of the fog.

Because of the fog, she left

no more. Set up a shop with no-where’s to sell

on Montgomery Street,

1010 or in the closet -1014

in North Beach on the hills of San Francisco

where All the artists cranked

Out-

Work-

Inspiration

with little more than smoke and mirrors

they beat the Underdogs.

Panned dirt. Found gold. 

The difference between street level lingo

and horned poetic motifs.

Looking back now about it All,

she said the shower was the best, it was

on the roof.  After a rowdy, stinky night

she would disrobe in the Pacific Bay air

and sacrifice her body to hot beads

pelting her thick Austrian skin under New York neon gas,

atop sirens and broken glasses rolling below.

The steam from her body mixed with the fog in the air 

exchanged vows, made love to each other there 

with ruth standing in the middle in

all lower cases, cleansed.

She rose above the ruth-less-ness of it All

below her. She sticks out her thumb, finally

making the last word a gesture 

of straighter lines and mist ends.

She looks a head, she looks be hind and she finds All is again

circularity, repetition, rhythm,

and heart beats bumming free rides to the top. 

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

Text after image:

"The bench to remember George Sterling is on a San Francisco hill that commands the Golden Gate Sterling: Tribute By Idwal Jones(S. F. Examiner, November 18, 1926) GEORGE STERLING, touching on his fifty-seventh year, and feeling wearied turned his face to the wall and died. He quitted this life from his little room in the Bohemian Club, and with no more regret than a bird quitting a twig. This was somewhere between 7 o’clock of Tuesday night and noon yesterday. No mat-ter when. For the curtain had fallen on the drama of San Francisco’s Bohemia in which he had been master of revelry for two golden and charming decades. The Dionysian had drunk the cup to the lees, and found the end of life bitter. The reason for living was past finding out. He said good-by to no one. To say good-by would have caused his friends grief. They are many, and they all wept, for he was an exquisite poet, and a charming and loyal friend. I last saw him two weeks ago. We had walked arm in arm through dense fog at midnight, and we..."

By a heir

On a full moon night
near the solstice,
there was no gentle way
to be honest
under the naturally blue light.

I have long said,
everything travels in waves,
like this; light, sound, heat, idea,
emotion, news and aromas.

It made me angry
to remember
standing there.
He said I should do it,
for the money, for some sense
of justice
I ought to
make an effort,
as if it were worth going
backward.

There is no gold in those hills
waiting for me,
He disagrees.

For now, I tell him
I am still too busy.
And he knows how cold it is already
and knows it is too cruel to drop more
on me.

I reminisce how
many moons ago
I dreamt myself right here,
and never needed to remember
how it all happened.

Honestly, there is nothing left there
of value
for me.
I know I will have to go
back there, as the only child, the only one
who will-
It will cost them
only a little peace
when all has been
said and nothing done.

You left part of you
exposed there and turning blue
waiting for you to finally go back
and bury the body
deep in the hills
like treasures of the past.

We finally agreed,
a wave of relief washed over us both
Not Now-
in due time
it will come needing me
and my cold-hearted honesty
in the full moonlight.



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

Granular

The moon was the same this morn,
the sun did come around,
eventually,
the hourglasses agreed with the sky
for once
what was needed was more
sand,
some moonrock,
and salt water.

All these things were sought
outside of day and night
in a blur of grey
it was just bright enough to find
the soundness, the source
which would not part
with the wind.

And it came down to all hours.
All Hail-
the spin master, mixing
time with light,
blind to the difference of circles
ingrained.




Artwork by Peder Balke, 1864 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Space flavor

Swallowing photons

every breath man meanders

tastelessly obscene

Painting By Peter Graham (1836 - 1921) (Scottish) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Seine

Nets needed their holes
as much as the lines, holed in
meaning, bold definition.






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

Cords work

Cords work

themselves into fetal knots

while dust collects

Itself.

Boxes commonly contain cherished contents

to be kept out of touch, like death and memory.

Musicians and writers make notes 

and draw out descriptions,

Artists picture

new sound, reason, 

and likeness in the jagged line

that makes connections.

Verbs hang in midair proposing movement;

chores, change, promises, and poetry

for nouns to untangle. 

Electricity junkies, 

trying twisted ways to say 

what was entangled worked. 

Painting by Hans Dahl, 'Girl in a field knitting' c. 1879 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Courthouse, North County Division

Under the gravity of the situation,

somber faces and the grey sky were suitable.

Walls were also reliable in their place,

one could depend on the sole purpose

of holding up-standards

and keeping apart-reactions.

The cement colored building stands unphased

and stained with gutter rain streaks

as if the structure shed a tear and smeared its makeup.

The four-hundred and eighty-four small square window panes

allow white graph paper light, tinged with green edges spill into the

Security Checkpoint.

The cage presents itself guarded.

Red hands enter through the back,

while white hairs breed in single file lines.

This is where we are all turned in, (the gates

are not pearl) they scan for sharp objects 
with invisible laser fingers.

The grey walls watch over all the pleading people,

mallets mark ballots like bass drums

with skin stretched tight over the top.

Heartbeats happen to match beads of rain on glass.
Indoors, behind dividing walls, we are all dry and

held for safekeeping in the big grey house.

Image credit by Carol M. Highsmith (Monroe, Louisianna) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.