Obscurities

Dense fog rolls across the chiseled terrace
steps from West to East.
Downtrodden and quite oblivious
of Man's conventions, this mocking
mist, as in a gathering of ground clouds,
shrouds the serial sequence of events,
entrances and exits undefined and occupy
our focus, hazily
we get stuck
when we cannot see
ahead.
Shadowless spaces between,
scoff at the series we expected,
anticipated
of Inventions and Evolutions
and Apocalypse.
We've tried to rise and plunge
gradually
to adapt
in this solid state.

We seem to seek the End as if it were
the top.
Admiring an ascent out of view
despite our narrow window
to appear or seek
escape and opportunity
everywhere but specifically
over there.
Such low lying obscurities like
grey matter gathered in this way
concealed the landing
so we may walk across the clouds
making us feel mist
the most, despite always Being
invisible at certain angles.






Artwork by F. Childe Hassam, 'The Spanish Stairs' c. 1897 in  Los Angeles County Museum of Art [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Green copper pot

When a woman has
One child and makes
Zero investment makes no
sacrifice(s), contributes
None,
the yield on this bond
does not depreciate
into negatives-no
this product multiplied
Itself,
condensed and compensated itself
entirely with exposure to the elementary,
the obvious and raw goods,
thereby taking its own shape
by directed collisions
with steel objects,
only adding
character and patina
values molded with age.



Painting by Martin Dichtl, 'Still Life with copper pots' circa 1639 (Public domain), via Wikimedia Commons. 

kindling

Maybe the best way

to keep love alive

between two

is to

always start

but never end

with a Maybe. 

Artwork credited by Charles Jacque, c. 19th century in the Metropolitan Museum of Art [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons.

Blind i

Losing one's eyesight is the prelude to
insanity,
indirectly.
The words lie there, lined and
blocked,
and the Brain knows what to do,
but can no longer sharpen
the peripheral
imagery with ease.
Poor lighting perhaps
not more than denial
that it was all a blur.

My grandfather had Alzheimer's,
I used to think it was called 'Old Timers'.
My grandmother got glaucoma,
we don't know when it started,
nevertheless
we never saw each other's point of view.
Makes me wonder which is worse...
I think up and makeup
for fading memories, visions,
and finally, recall, I remember
what I came here to say-I now see
Time erases All



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

Mis(s)worded

Since
I couldn't
no-wouldn't
stand the voice
No-noise,
the incessant barrage
of worded white noise,
I wrote poetry
(for constraint).

What does happen when
2 pennies are rubbed together,
a spark
of sense?

The sound that silence plays
while filling in the gaps
has become louder the older
I get, as if I get
something.

Who is the I
that claims to Be not I-
the poet

The words with an alibi
from elsewhere
saw how small and narrow
the mark Itself made, and made
more width and depth
to shroud the naked nouns.

When I went
quiet
you covered your ears.
My two eyes narrowed
even more,

the poem burst and dissipated
in front of us, like memory
maligned
for lack of metaphor
or something nice
to be noted.






Image credited by Edgar Degas [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. 
Title: Louise Halévy Reading to Degas, c.1895

Time's up

The two women acted tough,
forgetting their lady-like roles,
trying to win a popularity contest
without a prize,
and as petty little ladies often do,
they threw a-round the word "Best"
like a dodgeball.
But women can jump in heels,
can see behind and see through
costumes.
Make-up is removable.
****************************

The gentleman was gifted but
he knew the charges were coming,
soon. He would owe more than he had.
Hands on the trigger.
His desk is packed up in a box
that sits dutifully like a dog
by his dull loafers. Emails erased,
trash emptied, a final scan a-round
a corner window office
formerly occupied by a-round peg
seeming to be a dull square. Any body
could hold his chair. Professional,
calculating and an all a-round good guy
with a giant fear of the female,
her articulation, his worst case
just dis-missed due to conflicting
interests in gender roles and their
unjust entitlement or oppression-
he wouldn't say.
*************************

The young boss man is full of vim,
vigor, rigor and righteousness.
Bless his greedy hands clutching the reins
of his tall steed. He tramples the herd,
whipping them into his desired geometry.
Only now he found,
there was nobody a-round to
blame for missed fortunes, for the gaping
holes, balls rolling, for getting in his way.
Elders eyed another path,
an alternate pace, a safe place to
participate without giving away
experience.
*******************

The company decided to set the price
as high as the bar
could be raised,
so the product always hovered
just out of reach.
The company did not discount
the value of free advertising,
disregarding all costs.
****************

The free world leader
traded his hefty income
for a chance to control
the immeasurable,
to push the ethereal agenda,
to take a title already under copy-
right, to hear himself proclaim,
denounce, hear his own voice
and believe the words
were enough to fill empty bellies
not just heads.
The leader chases his tail
and demands we follow a-long
the lines
what comes a-round
goes on to repeat itself,
itself, the same as
his 'huge' following.
***********

Insurance, like promises
does not provide tangible compensation
unless a claim has been made
on total losses.
We must be living
to learn.
The finest print
excludes all the
preceding liabilities.
******

A reaction is a result,
the equivalent of
a resolution.
***

The movement
already occurred.
**

We just witnessed-
A passive act.
*

In-dividuality

These few
need to be near me.
Draw themselves into the fold in-
creasing the density of space it-
self-personal bubble, but
flat out refuse to be
touched
There. Too in-
timate to be considered
delicately. Anywhere
these bubbles abut,
list and lean in-
to one another, there is
a bursting of the seams.



Painting by Peder Severin Krøyer, c. 1881 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

All Five's

Magnetic minute

reconnected to the time

of track, I am back.

Image credit by National Archives and Records Administration of William Duncan c. 1916-17 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Target practice

One of the most helpful things I have learned
(about myself) is my tendency to
Jump the Gun-

But I can't stand the thought of standing still
while others take aim
and bullets fly.



Image By Ronald N. Keam (awm.gov.au) Austrailian Women's Army Service, Queensland c. 1942 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Lock jaw

Her too young jaw locks 

And she becomes her father

In this tic, to clench and wrestle

Her heavy breathing seems

Reminiscent of the little girl 
Not letting go

Of her bottle

For one second

Chance to make it without…

She gags at the mention

Of breakfast

Quite suddenly,

She says she is repulsed

And it may be

Because it reminds her

Of those café's and

Scattered mornings 
Here and there 
With her distant father.

He makes her stomach churn 
She says, she thinks she never needs
Breakfast again

It wasn't me, it wasn't 
Him, it was the way it started
To get tough
To hold on
To promises 
That are hard to swallow.

She learned about nourishment,
and its ultimate
End.

Nurture does not provide enough

For closed lips. Empty rooms, 
Empty calories, empty pockets 
Never kept us alive.
She is learning that it is more 
Fruitful to say, than for 
Him to hear.
Standing here and listening
Through the cracks,
I see narrow bands of light seeping out.

Forgiveness will be the only key

That opens her too young lockjaw
Allowing the Light its fitting
Liberty. 



Painting by Albert Edelfelt, 'At the door' 1901 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Mann kind

“The diaries of opium-eaters record how, during the brief period of ecstasy, the drugged person’s dreams have a temporal scope of ten, thirty, sometimes sixty years or even surpass all limits of man’s ability to experience time-dreams, that is, with images thronging past so swiftly that, as one hashish-smoker puts it, the intoxicated user’s brain seems “to have had something removed, like the mainspring from a watch.”

-Thomas Mann (The Magic Mountain)

Should I have sweat through those provocative dreams

Since time is running out

And shall I have watched, disturbed and overcome with infatuation,

Pleasure, intent on the scene, all its folded lines hung out,

The mosaic scene, the spackled tiles of moments to keep

Float over the surface of settled matters.

Transience penetrates us to move on and on.

This minuscule thought that writhes its way under

Eyelids-between us, selves. We are

Something small, private, intrusive, edgy and loose.

The Splinter severed from the smooth grain

Pierces its way deeper into our softness, 
past the seventh gate, writhing in quicksand

Only to break off the relationship,

Leaving a white fleshy hole with dead skin
light floods inside singing delicate motors

Before it can draw an arc, or a

furrow atop the brow with vapor and sweat
and feel the tickle from

blood running down wrists and pouring out nostrils.

Resilience needs rest and a sense, a little air and darkness,
solitude in a moment to hold on despite the vertiginous spin
We are in this together, that you remember 

That this horrific nightmare

Has occurred to me before, many times, before

I woke. 



Painting by Ivan Aivazovsky, 'Pushkin at Ai-Petri during sunrise' 1899 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

The results are in(side)

As much as we can
plan, prepare, project,
anticipate and speculate,

none of these internal actions
guarantee consistent results,
busyness does not guarantee business,

and if these formulae were applied
to physics, they would be rejected,
expelled from the multi-verse
for lack of proof.

Then again,
on second thought,
coincidence, chance, luck, and odds
are signs, symbols we play

while pretending to know the words,
pretending our sounds can sway
life
a little more our way.

We all have just one chance,
with many potential outcomes.
Any way
we aim our intent, cast our gaze,
manipulate, edit and re-calculate our theories,

the many verses when sung all together
touch notes, tickle fancies, connect
dark matter making the inconceivable,
tangible, the noise, harmonious,
and the future full of space.


Image By NASA/JPL-Caltech/WISE Team (WISE), Rho Ophiuchi [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Moot

They expected me to say something wise,

Profound, say, an illuminating discovery.

I honed opinions, made my share

of mistakes-

What can we know about the limits of others

Patience, heft, and resilience? 

No way. Hence,

Nothing could be said.

Too late is not better than never,

since never never was reason

enough

to stop

Here.

Photo credit: Imogen Cuningham,'My mother peeling apples' taken in 1910 (Public Domain) via Wikimedia Commons. 

The mouth heals fast

Tongue is too fat
to speak-
not because I bit it,
when I should have
known thy musclar
self-well-enough-
when I should have
known well enough
to shut up.
It is still swelling-
pride protrudes itself,
a warning-

NEVER
put that in a poem.

And Do Not Step on the grass
while seeds sit on top, germinating
like a poem. Too much
disruption
dislodges
any potential root
formation.

It is best not to flex with words
or assign metaphor more meaning
than conceivable
or suffer the stretch.

Here the open gash pushes
the inside out-
hypersensitive to air, this is where
salt heals,
and the best solution
showed its work,
long-hand,
ones carried
over the columned
poem.


Painting by Jules Breton [Public domain], 'The wounded Seagull' 1878 via Wikimedia Commons.

Tender are the soles

The body whines inaudibly
running organs with life's
friction or electrically charged
circles, as if one organism
could be fulfilled.

Cash can be exchanged for dignity,
pennies and thoughts are donated
in parking lots and churches
liberally, naked feet are sensitive
where there are rocks worn down
to pebbles by caloussed souls
heaving their weight in grains
of sand.

A mile more
to go
with these legs, feebled and folded
they foretell the weight of what we carry,
with the shoulders pinned to the sky
the strings held us up, dancing and frayed,
until the puppeteer, robotics engineer, and fear
take over,

it was all for the show,
since there was nothing the human could tell
about soles moving on
light as can be
like water
we cannot breathe.


Painting by Ford Madox Brown [Public domain], 'Jesus washing Peter's feet' c. 1852-56 via Wikimedia Commons.

Collection bin

Dust
has been built up
atop the grout, between every square tile,
darkening into mounds along the top of the base
boards, hair, tissue, lint, a leaf and pink peony petals
sneezes, boxes stacked like artillery, mortar, bricks and
explosives set just so-goodwill gathered in standard black trash
bags, a segregation of sorts, some have labels, tape, names, places
congratulations ribbons, important and fragile balance atop
the denser matters,
the walls leaning in on the things consume
all space never room for more than what has been collected in
between the seams, along the borders, under the foundation and
                                                                          hanging on the edge.


Photograph by Carol M. Highsmith [Public domain], 'abandoned gas station in Selma, Alabama 2006 via Wikimedia Commons.

Does a body good

I was not born a child.

Strange. I was allergic to all milk.
I was openly resented for this
Growing up.
My bones are stronger for this.
Never broken one.
I don’t drink it.

I was raised as an orphan in my family.

I was taken in, hosted, taunted and cast out.
I was not like any other. I was an only child,
a broken mold.

Bearing no resemblance. A reassurance,
that nothing contagious was mixed in the kool-aid.

I was ugly, I was sexy, I was young, I was powerful,
I was smarter than most, I was curious and sensitive
I was giving and giving and gave it all away.

I lied. I faked it. I made and lost it.

I was nothing until I redeemed what
I was worth and after taxes,
it was not equitable to fulfilled.

Half-full and half-cocked.

This fair skin is not thin.
I have grown vicious through exposure
and ferment my sugars.

I have soured and forgotten too often
before I remember, I am

Lactose intolerant and hormone infected.

(But as far as childhood dreams go-
I do like the new milk commercial on TV).



Painting by Harold Gilman, 1918 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Buffet

One day, it will all work out for the best.

One day, karma will come.

One day, destiny will find you.

One day, it will be easy, one day it will be hard,

One day it all happened-as it should.

One day we will be together, one day apart,

One day we see eye to eye, one day we disagree

One day, or today, you say, we will,

One day, it may take longer to get there,

One day, I looked, as of

Today, it took

One week (will) to say no more.

To blend in and get the right shade of Hope

moving past

One and blending together for more. 




Painting by Imre Ámos, 1939 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Corners @ 90°

None believed her but she still tried to tell

She did not do it for being right or to 

skew hindsight with foresight.

She was just learning

to look at it with new eyes too.

By liberally applying divine 

Rules of architecture to structures

We discover limits 

Hover in the rafters

Broken beams, pride paid the bills,

Support came in pillars, mortared with guilt

No doors were hinged on labors of love-

but all things settle down, inevitably.

It was working, building

And making 

New sense

Of our life in boxes and wreck-tangles.




Painting by Antonio Pérez de Aguilar – Painter, c. 1769 in the Museo Nacional de Arte [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Sound Reason

Poetry cannot

Preach and Listen 

simultaneously make or destroy

sense nor sense-ability.

Rock music and video games 

are responsible for all evils

not to mention

Others who don't do things

like we do.

Literature no longer poses a threat.

People don't read. 

People can spell but are inept

grammaticians. 

A poem can 

fair enough

hear and here itself becomes an echo,

like music, to sing along, to say,

open to all, an invitation

to taste.

The poet breaks line 

and all paper currency

down

so the pocket sings

wildly.

Relax, nobody is listening.




Due to the limitations of early cameras, this is the only known image of American orator Robert G. Ingersoll before an audience. Taken May, 1894 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Pearl-esque

At some point, it all becomes too condensed
to hold in one point, place or person.

I believe this to be the equivalent to the
internal pressure of a proton, that
binding force, around 100 decillion Pascal or
the compression at the center
of a neutron star.

These pearls glistening
in my lower quadrant of vision,
the milky way so to say,
are warm, as heat is conducted over
centuries. The pearls being given
to my grandmother by my grandfather
because of her name

He would take
a grain of sand
and a jewel was made.

He would wink at me every time
she tried to open the clam.




Painting by Charles Joshua Chaplin [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

20/20 Solution

Coincidence is a convenient
excuse in lieu
of exactitude, like revenge,
directed.
Which explains the
all too common
aversion to poetry,
making many believe
in God,
or a guiding hand
like muse and magic,
where attributions are
misplaced in
disappearing ink and through alchemy.

Ultimately, it seems we see
what we want
based on capacity, like neck rotation,
like breath and lung,
blinking and humidity,
following instructions, under certain conditions
these operate smoothly
without our requisite participation-

Yet when an event occurs
unfathomable and unforeseen,
scaring one's vision deep into the optic
down to the spinal column,
making it more important
to look away,
than move
on
without directions
that is when we say
we knew it, we caused it, we planned it,
it was meant
for the best.


Painting by Aleksander Grodzicki [Public domain] 1893, via Wikimedia Commons. 

Conductivity and Rhythm

The bass was low all day,
the only thing that resonated
was my deaf ear toward the treble.

When my eyes bulge with tears,
it is time to surrender,
when the bones feel metallic and leaden,

light notes miss their harmony.

A dread tastes sour and acrid
in the back of the mouth.

An idea of where one is and
what must be done is conjured
in a line, the music keeps time

alive, lightening the load

a feeling carries a tune
echoing the heart and human
need to be moved by sound.




Painting by Johann Carl Loth (circle of) (1632 - 1698) – Painter (German)Born in Munich. Dead in Venice.Located at the Palace Museum in Wilanów [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Elders and Elms

Officially adopted at the age of 38
by the man married to my mother.

The man's mother and father
put me to work on their ranch
over the summer breaks 

from school.

My mother was a strong woman,

I knew this
even though she worked in an office.

Until I turned thirteen
the man had never been afraid

of losing control

of a woman.

I remember the fear in his eyes.

He slapped me across the face.

I laughed and the man's eyes changed,
forever.

When I mentioned this occasion
to the man's mother,

she slapped me too. It felt the same.

This must have been touching to them,
genetically.

When she died, 

her husband, the man's father

molested me before the funeral.

Still-I lie there-

Since we were not family,

the father died a happy man.

Instead of bears, I take secrets to bed. 

My mother was not as strong as I thought. 

Painting by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.