Growth

The poet steps away from the poem(s)
but feels
the groundwater trickle
nourishing the green.




Painting By Fyodor Vasilyev (1850—1873) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

A certain ring

Not only is my smartphone listening
to every word

there is the Universe
(which must receive so many messages
the black box is always full)
-proof-

of echoes, ripples, whole
motes of dust
in Brownian motion
waving.

I mentioned the name as it came to me.
My daughter likes the little names
I give other peoples pets.
                    A name that starts with a B
she says to me-
Baxter
                    Baxter! The woman calls
yanking the leash,
                    C'mon, she pleads.

Of course much has changed besides
my voice, my tone, my hair, my skin,
and I need to start over-
and I need a wage
when
a dear old friend calls me out of the
grey,
to catch up, to ask a favor, to present
an opportunity.

Meanwhile, my daughter and I attend a lecture,
I worry she will be bored, get lost in the
terminology,
so I compare thee
Nobel to Oscar
at the Academies

There the man of the hour,
Professor, Author, Scientist, Poet, mentor
mentions the film industry
as an analogy

Have you ever seen a one-man show?

You know
somewhere, someone
is listening
to a podcast, to music, to poetry, to birds,
to the running water
for a sign of life.

The signal dissipates
not hitting any home.

Evidently-
the Universe reads our clouds.




 Painting by Sophie Anderson (1823-1903), 'Birdsong' in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

An Art a part

On PBS the show "Civilization(s)" or some such name,
chronicals the human
                                 
                                 amongst humanity.

In a sense, the dawn of man
thru the hours
to the twilight of Idols.

                                         The
                                  form of self
                            fashioned by and from
                   some self-wanting to express
                                self by making
                                  another self.

Michelangelo famously pardoned his images
(from exile on the mountain),
like Capone on Alcatraz (the Rock)

-sharpness being no more requisite of tooling
than persistence in method(ology).

I doubt they knew
                     who was waiting on the other side. The face emerges
masked in fine dust.
It is a face of surprise
that does not expect
the stranger standing
                                 before Him.

The idea came to me-I did not go to it
                                 and yet
the unexpected visitor
leads the way
                                 by blocking the wrong path-
ways, giving way
to avalanches and mudslides and this (re)arrangement
was an expression                               of liberation
                                from the body.

Water will
evaporate eventually,
the granite
breaks
down
its crystal components.

The two cannot compare

Maker and Made.



 Painting by Lovis Corinth, c. 1904 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Pride

Baby-proofing is not men wearing condoms
or women popping pills,

it is a process that involves locking
mechanisms
and elevation.

In various combinations,
I have tried both-
but now she comfortably reaches
my heights
and effortlessly spins back and forth
opening lockers with magic numbers
that are hers alone.

I have hidden all painful memories,
the sharpest points,
behind my forehead.
Too close for comfort,
she reaches my shoulders
and rest her head there.

She is drawn toward the sealed letters,
she wonders, prods, and asks
what do they  say

yet I know she will choke on the words
made not in her mother tongue.

She persists, pleading,
if you knew-why didn't you?

I don't have all the answers,
I took all the chances,
she stole glances
while I stuffed my pockets
with copper thoughts

being the safest place,
unlike the mouth
we learn the heavier our legs become,
we find memories can be-come
choking hazards.


Painting by By Waugh, Ida, d. 1919 (artist); L. Prang & Co. (publisher) (Flickr: Baby Seated) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Strong brew

'Heady' is the word used to describe a strong flavor
in a frothy beverage which elevates air bubbles
atop like a crown
posing as liquid
refreshment.

Ritual reminds us of our human places
since we have lost our short memories to
long distant goals in a wash of faces.

Denial dislodges the grey dust in the river
Lethe,
making banks
to hold all the silt.

On one side
the body wants
crossing over
the other
side, the mind seeks
an abundant place to camp,

this way,
we will never thirst
for fresher air, mineral waters
or will-power.

Currents consume us in a present sense
of temperature and surface speed
while wading and resisting the pull
to go deeper and deeper
filling the mouth and
trapping air.

It begins
to sink in.


Photo credit By Paultoff [FAL or Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons.

Phone photographers

Every-one is armed-

could you pass without shooting

to show every-one?

(I was here)

Photo credited By Frontierofficial [Public domain or CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

9 Lives

The cats that have made my home theirs,
the same two cats that don’t get along,
the un-partners in feline crime,
Smokey & the Bandit, ogle me-eerily
I feel this, but they
look away when I return the long glances.
And I feel fine-but there is a chance,
most likely greater than one out of nine,
that they see more than me.

Surname

Five-hundred generations since writing
and gathering, hunting and making
Families have failed
to evolve
at a decent pace.

My own stagnant genetic make-up,
imagination and desire
to do, to be, to come, to rise
higher
hovers-
inert for three generations.

An only child understood odds
and ends,
I had two children,
one son, one daughter,
two opportunities
to raise human beings
the right way.

I have left
all extended family
I have left a legacy
of language,
I have stoked creative fires,
I have drained all the juice,
I have praised
living self-lessly.

I have risen².


Painting by Paul Peel [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. 

Fe(me)

The kind man is as
to the woman in kind-rare-
fied
and endangered in
practice,
she still sacrifices
her position
(for mankind).

His footsteps are found
making an impression
with heavy pockets,
likewise
high tide has reached her
last line.


Painting by Henri-Jean Guillaume Martin [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

(r)ejection

Fair warning was given
about conjuring the friction of lightning
between fingertips by rod
and cone
resembling a dunce cap

Yet left alone with our (de)vices
the pattern unfurls and we sew through
our patchwork day
cross-stitching moments like frayed ends
we measure progress
in squares,
the roots are bound
to wrap and tangle.

Observers interrupt our busy work
with every blink, the weight shifted,
the curtain fell, the lever broke,
the shim slipped in
and stirred up so much hope
the air welled with thunder.

We should have known better.
We could have made ourselves welcome.
We did not know how to enforce Liberty for all.
There were signs
and symbols denoting the escape velocity,
with arrows, the Exit sign was always live.

It was easier to get in.


Painting by Abraham Solomon, c. 1859 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

In other wor(l)ds

A new day called my name in the mouth of the mockingbird.
In the bullseye of the black widows web,
light is caught in crystal sections
as it tends to happen-sometimes
we don’t hear these things or fail to notice
where chimes and footsteps flail in midair

we were suspended there.

I proceed to contemplate the unwinding of
allotted time, in all its shrinkage and compression
I stuff what I can in my pockets
and balance my left foot precariously
upon the nearest dark cloud that appears
solid enough to leverage my being upon
while I levitate upon
accumulation.

At least, in this way,
the sacrifices won't seem so removed and far
fetched, as stars for life cluster with emission,
timing is everything
and nothing.
The silence can become crippling with
such volume of errant data,
unsynchronised heart beatings
in unison making static lines blur.

Meanwhile, the earth rolls inside of its shell
as if there were nothing to see here
in Turtle Town.
No lingering, loitering, savoring, reminiscing,
embellishing-
making no more mention of
names of things.

The best of it is yet to be made our own.
I take in the wind, I take notes
as I go
this way-paraphrased-what is said sounds familiar
as if we have heard it all before this way
our re-membership lapsed into disparate sounds
it sounded like a name.



Photo By Claudio Giovenzana (Claudio Giovenzana www.longwalk.it) [CC BY-SA 3.0 or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons.

A murmuration of bodies

It is not all about the long (form) poem,
or the short (form) poem that

captivates the reader to go on,
but form, oh form! It must be solid-set-and square-

there it is identifiable in space,
man-woman-yin-yang,
it must lie there

flat and
come around the full circle of Oh, I see,

and be intriguing, as eyes tend to be drawn
to bare bellies showing

the sex

it becomes impossible to look away, rude
to rend attention from the white scene that unfolds
sheets,

we tend to go too far in our search for likeness

in passing, we come upon the sight of a crash-
rollover and rubbernecking, our prying eyes seek
identification (relationship) of bodies,
make and model,
fault and genre
or scheme
or theme
(the way we drive).

The way
we seek familiarity in reflective surfaces projected
outward from flat atoms that cling together making a solid
point

reflective and with water
like cement, belly flops
that sting and leave a body red
scared us straight.

I see me

Cadence reminded the reader that the
human body and its homeo-static form,
feels it is not wise to slip into
a semi-permeability-stage-phase-
that would be weakness,
or prose

in words of erosion which sink quite naturally,
predictably.
Under pressure diamonds are made
by poets sitting on ideas
awaiting the train of thought,
engineering the license to use lines
at unsafe speeds

with glaring lights, blaring horn

blowing by

en route thru

to

the scene.

                   The limp body becomes
                                                     ejected
                   and stains the concrete
                   longer than rubber-
streaks.

Anybody can learn to drive
a point
Home
(some are more [w]reckless than others)
and the point Being
only the poet knows where they are going (if they do)
it doesn't help.
                       Detours and congestion both seem inevitable.
There is no way around
the good poem.

It just lies
there
(as in Found)
or flies away
on an impulse, taking the words with him wherever he goes,
traveling light
never arrives.





Image of starlings in flight at sunset taken February 2006, By Tommy Hansen.B.A.C. at da.wikipedia [Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons.

Hot thick air

One cannot, or should not
argue with Stupid.

Or is that a bad word-too-

the argument proceeds as follows:

Mountains may-be moved one grain at a time,

Rocks don’t roll,

alone, but may-be take a tumble

for a slide.

Downhill,

they had brain damage, self-induced,

how to be mad from up here?
It is supposed to be sad, but they are not
missing
what they never had. 

They can no longer help themselves

along. I wish I could, sometimes

I am livid with stupidity,

it makes me mad.

Before I recall-I predict.

It was made-up
of all short-term memories,

cluster-plucked

for the littlest of minds

for the tiniest of bodies,

for the biggest disappointment

of intellectual potential or IP,

as in A.I., a.k.a. Artificially Inherited traits.

I’ll take it from here-

I have built my own family, twisted the DNA

around counter-wise.
A mutation is the adaptation of one

alone.

 “The decrease in instincts which are hostile and arouse mistrust—and that is all our ‘progress’ amounts to—represents but one of the consequences attending the general decrease in vitality: it requires a hundred times more trouble and caution to make so conditional and late an existence prevail. Hence each helps the other; hence everyone is to a certain extent sick, and everyone is a nurse for the sick. And that is called ‘virtue.’ Among men who still knew life differently—fuller, more squandering, more overflowing—it would have been called by another name: ‘cowardice’ perhaps, ‘wretchedness,’ ‘old ladies’ morality.'”

— Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

Painting Master of the Female Half-Lengths, c. 16th century in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Deconstruction

What more is there
to discover, look around
we are always finding
new ways to die.
*
Good humans finish their plates
last,
only to find
nobody to tell-
savoring is a learned skill.
*
Ritual releases the mind
from its chain-
if only we could be less
superstitious, sixth senses would
evolve.
*
Not saying-None listened-
Nor inklings or outright protest
overcame the decomposed granite
of speechlessness.
*
We tend to build things up.
*
We pretend to be the designers.
*
I found myself
looking away.
*
All the death
has been done
before.


Photograph by Carleton Watkins [CC0], Devils Canyon, Geysers, Looking Down' c. 1868-70, via Wikimedia Commons.

How salt takes to wounds

I made it-
not to say that it is done-
that I can breathe now
that I know this.

I am here
none-the-less
by the sea
all-the-more-
for me-
guilty
pleasures are all mine
in fine coarse grains.

I am aware,
consciously,
that the measure of success
is off the charts, the beaten path
off the grid,
infinite and yet most
definitely a direction,
like horizon.

It does not move me
along-
but still, I bother
to rise to each occasion,
daytime, in lightyears
despite the erosion, in spite of doubt,
the tides still rise
in order
to pull stars in
circular motions,
like me, reeling.

I am pulled back to sea.
The end begins again
with me
mixing carbon and salt,
separating oil from water
I found a solution
to stop the bleeding.




Watercolor by William Matthew Hodgkins c. 1894 in Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Lie Claim

As far as policies go,
Honesty was the one underwritten in blood.

After all the lies and liars,
both black and white,
I read-in plain ink
that the selfish gene-takes over
all of us.
Altruistic illusions of gene-rosity
have delusions of granduer, like Welcome signs
in kingdom come.

Lies lead to more lies like
mitochondria and kudzu.
Entanglement and estrangement are different versions
of the same (k)not.
As an only child with given chromosomes from unknown
x’s,
I feel more than a tad teal
in a pond full of swans.

They all lie and I recognize these
traits. We learn to float.

With two eyes, ten reasons,
heads or tails,
what was mine is yours,
two cents for a back scratch.

Do animals lie? I asked him just
yesterday. He says they just don’t
tell the whole truth.
I recall the fox, the raccoon and he smiles,
conceding
finally, my point-even
when there is nothing to gain.
There is always an angle he adds.

Nice girls never finish anything.

I wanted to get around to
telling the whole thing;

I smell it all over him, breath and body,
under all the covers
I see the disappointment in my daughters' eyes,
I should have been more-
I see my sons deflective shield,
I should have protected him more-
I see my mothers obsession with self,
always wanting more-
I see a step-and a push-
a trip, and fall.
I gather things, gingerly, trying to lose my place,
because these truths were below me now-
I find myself
dancing around the pyre of pants
like the moth
I am drawn to be.

Those genes look as if they were made for you,
he complimented me.
But honestly, he knows
they were handed down this way,
ripped with holes
and a little too long.



Painting by Edgar Degas [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

id est (in other words)

The ink pot solidified
in the -unpreventable- evaporation
of
all things
considerable.

Words were
the only way we could try
to grasp the conceptual -framework-
of the time
it takes
to become
a person, place or thing.

Of late,
it is more common than not
to notice the disappearance of
what
seems -indescribable- where only by means
of observation
could we conserve our precious
resources.


Artwork by Hugo Charlemont in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

STEM cells

Being a woman, it took a lot of courage

The kind that clenches your abdomen

Like menstruation,

And then it was only once, not monthly. 

I once asked a cosmologist

about his poetic tendencies, I thought I caught

a glimmer, it was in fact, a pungent reaction.

The mere concept was rejected as any preposterous old electron

Would be out of line. Needless to say, the hypothesis was

Brushed off like the free radical

I was standing there, circling him

And trying to get in-closer.

I was the chicken laying an egg,

Peeking inside his paradox.

In hindsight, it was foolish,

Asking an astrophysicist, a theoretical one, anyway

About his propensity with words, metaphorically,

In lieu of his numerical potency,

Silly me, little lady.

Considering I am entitled to (k)no(w) facts,

In my female tone, I displayed

A type of  indiscretion, often a woman’s way

Of adding verbs to scientific theory.  

Photo credited to National Photo Company; c. 1919, Restored by Adam Cuerden [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Bulbous

The earth slows down
just enough to focus on a handle
as if made for us,
made for touching and gauging
the sum of all things
with the unbearable lightness of possessing nothing
earnestly.
Time flies, hope levitates, spines flex in-
tensely repulsing gravity
just to keep up-
right
after the fact, I heard back home
the mighty oaks had toppled on perfect-
ly calm days,
the redwoods, however, stood their ground.
Meanwhile,
down here, the passiflora
already swallowed the fence
and now nibbles away at the eave.
On this evening
the colors come too quick to name.
It was
the tulips
we were expecting
to Spring,
the wait was too much to hold still.
Over centuries,
it has been discovered
our heads have become rounder.
When I look harder
it seems like
Venus' belt is shrinking.




Painting by Franz Werner Tamm [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.