Solid ground

The earth is severely sere here.

The mud has alligatored,

the clay refuses to mix.

October, at the end of Fall,
the ground is cracking open
as if fault lies everywhere,
lies, blaming saints, spirits
and the howling or screaming
of wind through narrow channels
gives way to funneled expression,
dust devils and whistling

which
severs connections
and strains the crust, curling up
at the corners

The baselessness of these terra firma's
now below sea level
seem deprived of all
but the wound salt.

And while we stretch out
in our gravel beds
the ocean spreads
its legs, the rivers open slender arms and
canyons yawn, too tired to carry more
and have already
spent all
the time
in the world.

In need of nutrients and lubricants,
and seconds,
we wait for the weather to change
it's mind and stay the way it was
predicted to be by date.

Terrestrial we talk of air and water
as if we did al-
right
with fire.

We have no choice but to dig our ruts
and pace ourselves
to death.




Painting by Arthur Streeton (1867-1943), date unknown, in [Public domain].

Data and Dust

Be real.
Do you see yourself-
or is that too close to
the source
of your own breath, body
and a-scent
afloat
and uncontainable-

Yet you try.

What do you mean
by that, when you say
portrayal in lieu of betrayal?

Whose idea was it?

Could we share this notion
like an opinion?

Whose line is this one
with no name before the semi-
colon?

This audience participates
and encourages
the foot-notations.

Closed quotes leave no
space for interpretation.

Where have all the dial tones gone?
Open lines have all been taken
for granted.

If we pretend we appreciate
the little things,
will all the bigs things
call our bluff for the
precarious positions
we attempt to balance
all our collected hopes
upon and continuously
adjust our appearance for
others real life,

meanwhile,
erosion is always itself,
revealing.





Painting by Odilon Redon, c. 1696  [Public domain].

Forts

Broken down, the All
was noplace, collectively
rather-scattering
That there is no longer
meaning
there is no there there
no such thing as a moral hunter
there will never be
a thing
that is
wholly itself alone
and shatter-proof. 
There was nothing to see
that would help us
recognize entanglement
as a knot to be undone. 




Artwork by Salvador Rosa (1615-1673) in Public Domain. 

Over hear

I know it looks like
that
but things aren't always as
they appear,
Projection like protection
is from another layer,
a down souljacket, feathered
to deflect harsh elements
that pour in mammalian pores
poor us,
it is not like smell
is a choice, or to touch and not
feel they all are
trying to seem and seeming to try
but not really
the application of.
Polished is not
unblemished but accented
by the distinct lilt of singed seals
in the air, where a voice trembles
as it is shattering the still morning air
by spidering the panes at connecting
angles, a jade of view
wearing purple dawn under 

muffling mists.
What to where,
is unpredictable
with wisdom or sense,
like accessory,
essentially we look away
and close our ears
to shelter the self
under the breath.





Painting by Eugene de Blaas (1843-1941), 'The Eavesdropper' in [Public domain].

Unfinished forms

The turned ankle
at this angle
a jaw line, the hip
parabola evocative of
obtuse angles and petals-
or leaves could be open
to holding light in colors

the movement blends
on the page, the note
hangs on the sheet-

precarious-
ly awaiting harmony
of echoes like blur and hum
where sound escapes crashing
into narrow canals, omitting any
consonants collected in the
folded corners

melt and fade under the sun
goldenrods spearing silver weeds-
maybe shadows will go there
and settle in

to stretching the fibers
into a conversation with object
and subject
interrupted by
chime and shape
to fit in

the picture would never

what it was
only what could be.





Image by John Singer Sargent, Study of Mme Gautreau c. 1884 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Listing ships

Had I been listless,

Done. Nothing To Do

for lack of wood pulp, or would

and pulp,

for want not to float upon 

facades, skirt on edges, to not

feel the marginalia and rip rap

hit the sides,

holding back

the body,

there would still be 

an attachment to enough rope

to go around.

Without implementation,

rudders, or other such

contraptions

to head our aim, ply and slog,

drifting

is all that is done right.

To go on 

observing instead of 

commanding, holding 

on to the rails

with fingertips and first

knuckles only, lightly

the self adjusts

trading winds

until all seems leveled

up, like glass or calm

glimmers that dance,

smoothly this rock

glides underneath 

carrying its own weight

violent and jealous

of the flotilla holding up-

right for a fragment of time.

There was nothing left

To Do. 

Painting by J. M. W. Turner, 'Rough sea with wreckage' (c.1840-45) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Post

After moving
around
this much
it is fair to suspect
that it takes more than
             one year
before we feel a place
is our dwelling.

After loving
two liars
too long
it would be cruel to conclude
that white promises were
                                purely made,
or that honor does not fade
                               when exposed.

After giving away
our time
so freely,
it is common to become consumed
by generosity and lacking
                              surplus or seconds,
starvation is written on the bones
of the donor.

After writing
all of these
                   words never read,
there is learning
                    in letting them all go
and watching them
come back together
                    long after
they have sunk
in, disappearing from sight
and causing a subtle
                                  displacement
After all.




Painting by Mary Cassatt, 'Young woman in a black and green bonnet looking down', c. 1890 in [Public domain].

Plywood windows

If I could wear soft and loose clothes
every day
                and be taken seriously,
forgetting for a moment
that comfort is for lesser creatures,
I would be less ill
                              at ease
and more sensitive to
zippers and seams.

I lost a drinking habit years ago
and found every thing
                                    sharper with age,
which does not clot the
bleeding, or numb the
site                     I remember I last had it
with me,
my cups are bone dry since this thirst
has all
but evaporated
making the air thicker around me.

If I found a diamond encased
in every silver lining,
                  carbon acting under the pressure
                  of those that have convinced me
                  to forgive
                  in these conditions
                  with sparkles on top,
I would have tasted love
                  on the rocks,
and choked on the hardest facets.

Time is our only personal property.

In-kind, community property
has foreclosed upon the pearl gates.
These lips have been boarded up
to deter any passer by's
                                       from dwelling.

It may not be safe
to live this way
without proper uniforms,
window dressings
and with naked wrists,
lacking a steady leg to pivot upon       
                             in order to see things
as they are
and find slighted contentment
enough of a shelter and shield
from monsoons and bad moons rising
every weak day.




Photo credit: Carol M. Highsmith, Kinney County, Texas. 2014 [Public domain].

Re-cited Rite

I have read the Legends
shared around the world
in so many ways
as I have had Sundays

And took notice
today
Nobody is looking
forward
to the second coming,
a sequel
is too much of the same.
None await a haloed savior
to share a repast
this silver evening
under the Hunters Moon.

Faith, as taught to us,
has burnt the crust
of broken bread,
the wine has overflown
its chalice, insatiable desire
the mortal hands quiver
and become stained clasping
the thorned stem too tight,
the feeling is lost.

Though dutifully,
we cradle the spines gently,
as if History could crumble
in our salty psalms
And the words
on the opposing side
of scritta come through,
like the shape of your body
inside its cloak and robe,
alluding to a language shared
in mythos by Ahmen.

And I find another Sunday
to read seven ways
of looking harder at the structures
and steeples
we have built
in order to live with
introspection and novelty
recited inaudibly in tiny volumes
the atonement we create to
consume us in ritual.

It feels right.




Painting by Ambrosius Benson (1495-1550), 'The Mary Magdalen Reading', c. 1520 in Public Domain. 

Pace

Around the mountain
The way to proceed sideways
Looking at the rocks.
*
Loosen the rein
the heavens unlock in gasp
exhaling hail.
*
Each step taken
is a charge
without receipt.
*
Certain of what we
do not want and cannot take
our bags bulge with These.
*
Lighten with laughter
Serum of Sun, what is done
is never complete.



Artist Unknown, 'Pavillions in a mountain landscape' c. 1550 in the Philadelphia Museum of Art [Public domain].

On the cusp

Setting one's sails
toward a life
and geography

we have long sought
becomes legacy

Maybe on Mondays
the horizon is too far away
to project any other color
but grey.

Anchoring ourselves
against the skylight
to the hours of shrinking shadows
where we are finding
bending light
a production
there was stillness to be
stolen, every now and then
dangling

the arc of our residence
may only be seen from great distances

and the greatest home
feels like there is nowhere else
to go.




Painting by Elioth Gruner, 'Fristy Sunrise', c. 1917 [Public domain].

Time will never Tell

With these hands
I have cradled the past.
With these hands
I have buried memories.
With these hands,
still-lined with life,
callused by death,
I grasp air in my palm
and feel it trapped there
squirming in a fist.

With these hands
I held my babies-once, long ago-
now forbidden to touch
With the same such tender care.

With these hands
I sealed my ancestors in dirt
now sealed away from all five senses.

With these hands,
I make words
that lose their matter while gaining typeface.
I multiply my meaning only to divide
by the given definition of what it is
To pen or poem.

With these hands,
I scratch the wet shoreline,
I was here
With these hands.
I open my palms
erasing my place

just in Time.


Image by By DashaVZ (Own work) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons.

Mists without a Gist

What was that mist
that frost kissed
air where you touch
the exo-soul
and hairs rose
up to hold
indiscernible
pin droplets
that stab without
penetrating
any depth
in essence
or presence

that obscure eminence
amorphous atmosphere
vials of voluminous
sound, found abstruse
as your own voice
seeing you project
yourself from
somewhere else
ambiguous as
the mist that
never touches

ground.

Image By Fabio Cipolla (1854-1924), The Maidens in the Mist [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Currency

If taking time
or stealing a moment away
is a luxury
interest grows only with age
invested in decadence
a mass
of intangible
wealth...

There is always more work
to be done,
and not being done
is a better way-
let us never finish
before we have spent
our Time
as if it were all we had
with Us.
Image credit info: Snyder, Frank R. Flickr: Miami U. Libraries - Digital Collections [Public domain].

Asylum

Two-too
Clean and sterile-
eyes-
cataract and contract,
sting with bitter solutions.

Brain washed, scrubbed free
of build-up, calcification of old deposits-
there grows lye.

In the right conditions,
isolation is cleansing
by promise of reward,
acidic seconds feel like
first wounds and kisses.

In doctrinated, what grows
in sand and silt,
by narrow slit or gill
does any thing survive?

I listen as hard as I can strain
the tiny hairs,
metal and maddening stone,
there is no voice or moan outside.

Whispers cannot be made
out or in complete
thoughts shift weight,
in a pendulum.
Hearts of palms, beastly as apes
beat their fanned fronds
in the autumn air.

An oasis sits and steams
with life, preserved in pits
outside these pillowed walls

pane-less as this space is.



Artwork by Austin Osman Spare [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. 

The hanging of a self-portrait

The man tells the same story,
since it is all he can do.
Demanding to be the center of attention,
he hordes the space under the illumination
of a sole recessed light.

Tells the same stories over and over
to all passing faces and yet
always forgets some very fine lines-

Contrasts come out, where
he smirks slightly,
unbothered by the crackling
of sky overhead, he only looks a-
Head.

Robed in velvet red,
a coat he swore he never wore,
he has positioned his
arms for the ideal pose to portray
of strength and endurance.

The distant family gazes at the portrait
Through centuries and canvases
but sees nothing captivating or similar.
The same (his)stories,
making his image stretched
and one sided.

A life made good-
despite the gilt and frame
that flaunts its ornate opinion
of self.
He was once
a handsome man,
despite the way he looked

at them.

Painting by Albrecht Dürer [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

D-cision (times)

When a person says “hanging by a thread”
Do they feel where the tether is connected?

Mostly suspended and trying to reconcile
Borrowed time,
Time itself stood firmly in front of me

While I was waiting to be told
how and where to move,
pretending I did not care.

How long each second seems when counting days…
I anticipated,
Am anticipating, I await a yellow box. Maybe today.
Already sent. To be
Here soon. Some of us can picture it
In transit.

I wonder if Schrodinger’s box can change colors,
Mid-ship-ment-
inside the dark mail bin-
People were praying,
And I did not know the words, so I thought
About the power of thoughts and how we change
Across our journeys
Those new destinations dangle the
Yellow fleece
But still, here we are,
Standing atop pins and needles
remaining tied to a place.

Painting by John Singer Sargent, 'Marionettes, Behind the curtain' c. 1903 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Montaña

I have never seen
a mountain
I did not like
until now.

I had never before seen
a mountain
you could fall in love with
whose body hovered over yours
like an angel, whose shape outlined
the carnal tone
and muster its mass
against the sky with ease.

I found myself
at the base.
Cowering in the shadows,
meeting the mountain
I thought I had been dwelling atop
for the first time
seeing level
as plain as today. 





Photograph credit: Ansel Adams [Public domain], Glacier National Park Montana c. 1941-42 via Wikimedia Commons.

Click

It wasn't a loud sound
per se
but resonated deeply
each time I looked
                   into his eyes
                   briefly
                   penetrated through
                   his haze
                   and saw
the injured beast, writhing
and lashing out,
foaming at the mouth,
                   standing before him
unafraid
to listen
                    to his screams
     I wait...
for him to catch his breath
and re-stoke his anger
to re-assure
me
                      of fear
it becomes clear
he wants me
                      more than
afraid-

I stay still
staying
vulnerable
                      taking in
                      all the black hate
trying to
level up
with love
I try to feel
                       sorry-
for him
for us
for this pain-
sans blame-
when it clicked
                        the lock
and I rose

inhaling deeply,
and walked away.

Painting by William Kay Blacklock [Public domain].

And then...

Been dying to tell you the secret-
just like it is
Everything is in fractals-not by structure
but in grid-in-side-grid-space holders,
a map of anywhere on parchment.
Pores perhaps provide a relief-map.

Fractal as a symptom of a laser aimed at
a prism, facet or side-effect, escaping only where it burrows out from
hazy photons penetrating angles,
becoming-White. There.
Be coming color-full.
Describe what violet looks like to you?
Is it between two shades?
Tell me how to do the steps for the
choreography of light,
or memorize algorithmic sets
without giving away the Bigger picture
as fractals demonstrate, inevitably infinite.

They have kept me quiet long-
enough to forget what was wrong
to begin with.
They asked, finally, what I see-
They didn't-
know the origin of the light.

It is on.
Won't you come in-
(secret)
I have seen the missing pieces

between us-the dates do not align.

Painting By Sigmund Klempner (1867–1941) (Christie's) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Mirroring matter

Mirrors may make us
uncomfortable
because they are not-
omni-perspective-or
All
of view.

Things like this,
that seem to be
merely a reflective signal
may not be observed actively
holding and casting light.

Some of us,
completely visible to some others,
may be seen through and seem
somewhat scared of such spontaneous
reflections
that move like we do when we
go about
Being.

We need to be shown
how to hold ourselves
together in order
to be taken in
without seeming to fall apart
or over refract-and distort

such as you noticing yourself
between all things and still
yet unable to divide photons
by four dimensions
or separate yourself
from what is behind you.


Painting by Pierre Bonard, 'Mirror on the wash stand' c. 1908, in Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

Round and Sound

To find a new center
we can focus on balance,
sides and equilibrium,

Although atrophy never lasts
-nothing to sphere-

Diametrically, we weigh shape,
as if a perfect circle was the ideal
to show the ray.

Light bends, travels,
precedes, tints, radiates,
shape-shifts, falls and lies.

Some angles are smoother
than others,
shorter like radii
Such is life.
Piece of unfinished pi
and I-colored-out-side
seek only to penetrate

Inside the lines

of poetry.

Painting by Vassily Kandinsky, 'Circles in a circle' (1923) in Public Domain via Wikipedia Commons. 

A sense of place

There was this song I have never heard
but its rhythms told my body that we've danced before.

In the yellow sunrise, the old farmhouse glows
like a candle in the road and looks as though I've lived there before.
The side door, if I remember, is unlocked.

The old woman that peddles vegetables every day in her blue bin on a bicycle,
I've never seen her before, but I bought some more Romas anyway.

Tulips in the garden are breaking their silence, like the mockingbird
the chorus, the words, I've heard anteriorly in this same spot before.

I thought by now I'd be pining for the giant hewn tree,
the shade it once made-but the roses are blooming,
and I'm left feeling stumped.
The grass is greener.

The new postman, who sometimes rings twice
because he forgets where he is at,
delivered a package for me down the street.
A neighbor I had never met brought it over to me,
like long lost friends, it was good to see both of them.

At home, I have house-guests
I rarely see.
Teenagers, some call them.
Outside, I feel out of place.
Inside, I feel too big in my own space.
Today, I picked up a peculiar novel
idea, and went with it.





Image By Yinan Chen (www.goodfreephotos.com (gallery, image)) [Public Domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

wild is relative to tame

The wildcat lazes in my lap,
his sleep disturbed suddenly by my human
sounds-briefly he stirs to make certain it was not him,
my stomach growls at him,
when his attention snaps suddenly, pupils go black
above me, behind and over my head,
enrapt in some blurred glassy vision-
I see-I feel nothing-my vision is going-
and he is cautious, cowering without stalking-it moves
His focus-
Upward again,
I peak-

A cobweb, or ghost spider home
flutters downward over us.
The hall light flickers, like my pulse
and then I can only close my eyes
and pretend I am purring along.

We rest our heavy animal heads
and listen in deeper
but fall into the same trap
as our hairs, split evenly
and stroked lightly
by an errant cool breeze.
It was touching
to be chosen

likewise.

Hunger strike

Neuroscientists now say,
our guts shrank
as our brains grew-
in finite-ness of our Energy,
due to our limited potential.

(1. the maximum energy output
is metabolically capped
2. larger brains accompany
smaller intestines in primates)

Have you heard that we only use ten percent
of our wetware? A grey area, I guess.

(Our brain is at best two percent of our total body mass,
yet devours twenty percent of our energy -at rest)

For better or worse, without any reception
or honeymoon, we are wedded to this
precious ratio for the next
few billion years it seems...

The smarter we get,
the harder it ALL becomes to digest.

Repetition can find and (sometimes will)
correct errors such as duplication, repetition
and redundancy.
(Try, try, try again)

Do I look good in these genes?
The smarter we get,
the harder it becomes to fit in
to our thinking caps
with all these insatiable cravings

to consume (us).

(This poem was inspired by the article "How Humans Evolved Supersize Brains" featured on Quanta Nov. 2015)


Painting by Gustav Wentzel, 'Breakfast II' c. 1885 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Relay racing

Pluto is not a planet.
The atom cannot be cut.
The moon is not cheese.
Stars do not fall in order
to make our wishes come true.
Lightning strikes wherever the hell it feels like lashing out.
Tooth fairies are Bone Collectors-specifically
employed by the American Credit Counsel for Est. Wants and Greeds
otherwise, controlling the supply and demand for our Ivory Towers.
And, we all know now that Columbus was lost,
Not just directionally challenged.
Native doesn’t mean ‘Here First’,
it means ‘Grows Wild’.
Weather was never an omen
forecasting results of the battle between
Man and (his) Nature. It just is.
Women are naturally gifted in Sciences such as;
Biology & Psychology.
Men possess many gifts they will be glad to tell you all about.
Men may cry. Women may murder.
The Human Genome Project collapsed
in the storm of clones.
The Brain Maps that intended to carve a path for AI,
got us lost somewhere between the formula and the fractal.
The last one left was the hen.
The race was over
before the starting gun was fired at Heaven
and the sky began raining steel
in sharp scraps of twisted space junk.
Gravity, being the weak force that it is,
cannot uphold Truth
against the atmosphere we have made
Here.
it must be okay
to come in last
because we finished

in the first place. 

Painting By Paul Louis Martin des Amoignes (1858–1925) (Bonhams) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

VR

They have to learn us-
I mean, accumulate all
impressions captured,
you know, geo-tags, less spikes and lags.
And by establishing parameters around
relevant competition
so that the satellite knows where to point-seek
Look-scan-interpret-coordinate-
see and target
your location. Listen. It is always on.
The side windows have been tailored to suit your
viewing interests and browsing history,
like likes and bounce rates, time on page,
so we may streamline and then stream it all
in quibits and bytes, encoded in panglish
to converse a vice
between hard and rock, speak and spoke
or 0 and one
copy(right)
away
from figuring in and factoring out the optimal solution
to reality and our abundance of equations.
They will learn us,
if given enough data to digest. Input. Output.
Recycle and Reduce the point of Occam's Razor.
Another You beta, only in row phase,
randomized for optimum complexity.

We taught each other how to live. 

Image credit by Carol M. Highsmith [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons, 'Data Storage in Modern office building' c. 1980-90.

The w(h)ole thing

When we say something is porous, it is a description of the holes
that allow other matters to fill the spaces between,
also known as absorption.
And this process ends when the porous body becomes full
of itself.
When we say, "poor us", we mean what we don't have,
as in desiring something to fill the void.
When look closely for the smallest common denominator,
we would find scores of pores all across our largest organ,
we would be referring to the spaces between
us and the world. Da Vinci knew there were no dividing lines.
When this skin tightens and turns to gooseflesh,
it is an act of repulsion or rapture.
We open our mouths and nothing escapes,
this is a microcosm of the black hole.

Standing atop the threshold, I open the door and I wonder
if I am letting the hot air out or welcoming
the cool air inside? How is relativity related to reality?
Loosely. Do virtues exist in the virtual world?
Is our privacy other peoples business, like common stock,
traded for common knowledge.
Have you been to the Public Domain?

Time is money expressed in regular intervals,
like breath, hard to catch with our heads at this altitude.
In theory, if we can't count it, can we make it count
without real numbers? It all adds up

to unfathomable astronomical units.

What was needed was more space,
but how to go about collecting more nothing
and where would we keep it...
Something was missing,
we knew this much.


Painting by Ernest Slingeneyer, 'The art collector' 1881 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Wait lifter

Where I have sometimes
pled with pronounced pain,
head nestled in a pillow,

I find myself
Now
heaving
and overcome-
weeping with joy
at the alignment,

at how far
these things travel
and come back around.

And I levitate
the world-

at least it feels this way

in the middle.



Image of art installation Title: Levitated Mass by artist Michael Heizer at Los Angeles County Museum of Art in California [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Hunt(her)

She said to me the strangest thing,

I want to smell her alone-
away from the others
out of the masked scent
of deer and leaves-

The muse has her motives.

I am still
here
for you to pick up
the web-line
and feel me
waiting
for you
to find me
First.

I must warn you,
to not go too far or listen in too deep for
the Metaphor man who
speaks with more than his tongue.

It takes a second.

Imagine how he looks
back,
being a target is merely
one point to shoot for.




Painting by J. Alden Weir, 'Hunter and dogs' c. 1912 in [Public domain].