Intro-version

Things fall into place and we can safely say
gravity had a heavy hand,
although it is a weak force and spineless excuse
for why we stand up-
right

despite the pressure this places directly on
our crowns,
fashioned from sand and stone,
the weight resists the wait
reeling into terminal velocity
blurs and gives
in, collapses into itself,

and condensing, reducing what is necessary
by its lowest denomination

We still build and rebuild as if we knew it would
all work out this way,
and not that way we tried
to change the inevitable, like laws, universal
and blind,
like this dark energy displaced
with good will

things were determined
by the absence of things
accidentally
heavier than we could imagine.


Painting by Jules Charles Aviat (1844-1931) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

tepidity

I said my feet were frozen,
he did not care
but took notice of my canvas shoes
atop the icy mud.

The fire he made,
started by Him,
should have been
enough-

but the wood was wet
atop the dirt that was sand,
the grass still green despite the dew
the smoke swirled
inside the pit.

His forehead and eyes settled into the comfortable scowl,
his red cheeks took upon themselves an orange glow
and I knew he felt
contentment.

I smiled at him over the inferno.
He often mocked
the speed at which I walked
on December nights near the open sea.

After explaining over my shoulder,
like salt,
why the air felt so distinctly different
between us

he said no more about what he could not feel.

Together,
we find our way
a-part
of accepting
differences by degrees.



Artwork by Felix Nussbaum [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Here yee

By anthropomorphic standards;
that which possesses the sharpest quality
is able to penetrate without drawing a drop of blood-

it is the words that slip under the skin,
instructing our sense of tactile awarenesses
that are permeable, absorbed
and mixed into our blood or consciousness streams
beneath the smooth surface, it flows like riptide

whereby, like all liquid bodies,
we obey the laws
thermodynamically,
by an embered blush
or spontaneous hurried chill.

I will listen more closely
when the words
are honed
to the point of Truth.


Painting by Théo van Rysselberghe [Public domain via Wikimedia].

ill at ease

Ill at ease
does not mean a discomfort
to the point of nausea
aroused in a state of self-satisfaction.

I suppose it is comforting to know
that this same word, Anxiety,
is on everyone's nerves
and coming out through the lips as
verbal indigestion, along with a liver and onion
aftertaste.

How many times have I needed to scream
a curse word
with the most volume possible to project outward,
to release some other demon
banging on the walls of my soul to escape,
as if my sound would shatter
gates

and makes me ill
swallowing this thought back like moonshine.

That was not a question.

Our survival depended upon this fine line between
cooperation and fugitive, patient and shaman,
poetry and prose
words and thier usage.

We made statues of security and braced ourselves
with agendas, acting in stone, we planned, we waited,
we toiled and cried over the temporal state of
poison, we consumed all we could with-
stand.

Resistance said not a word
about its origin.

Philanthropic to I

There was never enough time
and the anxiety pushes down
regardless of knowing that it is certain
to never be finished.

All of it.
None of it.

How long would we all go on
notching our lives in rectangular weeks,
segments and inclines, corner piles
sidling past
hurdles and ho-humming
thru the week til TGIF
and the recursive sickness of it all
as in another episode, chronic
cases of the Mondays,
if we can only make it
to payday to pay the day
we said we would.

There was no question.
We did and do.
Our lives depended on such
boxing and enumeration.

I figure
if I live to the age of eighty,
I will have a little more than two-
thousand weeks left
total.

And I realize I haven't taken a vacation
in 208 weeks, or four years,
I have accrued comatose
creative inclinations, arthritic
anticipation, or being too busy,
and paid or not
the work wants us
to not take notice of the numbers
always changing around
by only ones
and zeros.

My heart flutters in the rhythm of time
to myself, also frequently attributed to
quality of life, a pursuit of joy, or
volunteer work for the self.

Well, we all know we could never afford
to quit
counting,
adding and subtracting,
projecting and losing
the balance that remains.





Drawing by Louis Leopold Boilly, 'Studies of Hands' Unknown date, located in the Metropolitan Museum of Art [CC0].

a disenchantment of nearsightedness

We searched
each other.
Diving in
with our whole soul,
unafraid of the brackish waters,
darkness, mirth or depth
of each other's eyes

Seeking what we had
lost, once had, where did
we put it, over there, outside,
ourselves, and with the things
that keep us
apart,

Spinning wheels in alternating
rotations, going nowhere fast,
or beating our chests like hearts
and pinching nerves to make a
sound come out...

Oh No.
There were so many ways to say,
I see where you are going,
you are getting smaller
as you travel
away.


Painting by Lionel Constable c. between 1849-55, Yale Center for British Art [Public domain].

Go pace yourself

Two hands
for beginners,
my mother would always say without
knowing what she really meant.
She quoted Nietzsche with
the same naivete.

I told my daughter about books
on records, that bong when you should
turn the page. She liked my retelling
of Peter and the Wolf
best.

I watched her start off,
as passionate as possible,
with everything at her fingertips,
only to try to finish
like me, too hurriedly.

I figure
-Slow Down-
is good advice
for any age.

In the beginning
I heard myself say,
two hands for beginners,
knowing that holding steady
requires much practice.

We make it look
too easy.
When using both hands
we should say something
about the strength
required.



Painting by William Adolphe Bouguerau, c. 1899 in Israel Museum [Public domain].

7 WDS

There is nobody
who goes unnoticed.

♠

Time spent on memories
never returns more.

♠

Together two words
leave space between.

♠

Indulgence is for one
expression for all.

♠

I see you
seeing me as you-

there are things
that cannot be shared.

♠

A star, like the ocean
reflects light.

♠

A speck is not one
of anything.

♠

What is possible
has a chance too.

♠

A full deck
is not limitless
luck.

♠

Arrival is not the same as
presence.

♠

Here we are
just now
and then.



Image credited by: Snyder, Frank R. Flickr: Miami U. Libraries - Digital Collections [No restrictions or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Photosynthesis

To grow in the moonlight
               whispered the purple breeze,
daunting its profundity
                in a lilac lilt,
makes for the most sensitive
skin, the thinnest rays
               wasted across barren lands.

A tiny trio of skylights
show how syllables
need less volume
when speaking in
                         moonshadows
across open floors.

Grey becomes more than shade
when the pale moon
was more than enough
to still feel
growing pains.



Artwork by Ohara Koson [Public domain].

Summary of a shadowed moon

Struck with a new Idea,
I held onto it like a treasure map,
rolled up,
with the lines inside.

I carried it around
so long, wrinkles
were inevitable,
weathering and what not
made it fade.

After revisiting this place
I am lost a little,
afraid to start
wrong,
I fear it will not become
as I thought I remembered...

No mark would be made,
no footstep
impressed,
unless
anywhere I begin becomes
a starting point
that vanishes...

which made it obvious
to fill the space,
flooding it in white
so I could build it
by taking away.


Photograph credited by Jon Sullivan [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Fertilizer

I distinctly remember
being told
when I was very small,
the plants and leaves,
of course flowers too,
but branches like
to be touched,
it moved me.

I wanted to spot
the stem bending toward the
rising sun,
I wanted to
believe

all things would benefit
from this sleight of hand,
a touching moment
or the gift
of genuine introduction
to irradiating warmth.



Painting by Grigoriy Myasoedov, 'Forest Spring' c. 1890, in the Public Domain.  

The hardest directions are the ones we follow

Take a left, or a right?
                          Go West-toward the ocean.
So, left or right?
                          Where are you now?
I'm in your neck of the woods.
                            I think you have gone too far.
Left or right?
                            Straight-toward the ocean.
I've come around the bend.
                            Drive-thru to the dead end.
Are there any land marks? I am lost...
                            If you keep going, you will find it.




Painting by Michael Zeno Diemer (1867-1939), Pera Museum [Public domain].

bird braned

small minded man
only capable of moving
one limb at a time
one a single plane

some said Stanley
explored out of his
comfort zone

and yet he is known
by other names
irrelevantly so.

The circle is wider than the sun
or, as the crow flies
across the radii
it would be a straight shot
between sight and
understanding
potential

the small-minded man aflit
fills his hands with too many
occupations,
he is past the limit
of how far eyes may be
set apart for depth perception.

After observing the same flight path,
year after year,
the soar-
ness sets in
and feathers fall off
my sides.

Painting by Paul Peel, 'Bringing home the flock' c. 1881, in the Public Domain.

thingamajigs

Call it crude
if you insist
to designate
that whose design
and functionality
seems rudimentary,
basic shelter
remains enough
for those requiring
little more than
distance from destruction.
Wallowing as we do,
from time to time,
the space becomes so small
between,
our feet become our shoes
and it was as if this was
plentiful,
the question of survival
posed as neither
safe nor sound.
Not saying
there were other ways,
and more than enough
to fill blanks
with trinkets.


Painting by: Anonimous french master previously attributed to Trophime Bigot. See official website. [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Dem bellies full

When the fridge is empty,
I crave paper money.
When my pockets are stuffed
with receipts and detritus
there is nothing more to buy
into.

Love does not accept
money as tender,
yet it seems to alter
chemistry
dissolving this exchange.

As compelling as it is
to appropriate,
as we must, everything
has a place,
the toil never ends.

Pockets of air
take care of filling empty
voids and holes
and we are all full of it-

Language to gnaw,
gristle and by the way-
none of the above
ever satisfied the thirst
for our own consumption.

I will find a way
to take smaller bites,
preferring less
seasoning
or taste in love.


Painting by: Pyotr Ivanovich Subbotin-Permyak. Down the river (1918).