Out of darkness grows

It feels like rain
in the bones.
It is as though
I have known
the subtle differences
of hours
from reading water lines
and by translating the stain
visibly left behind
similar to thunderheads.

Another dawn lightens over me
and after so many
thin and pointed
Winter moons have waned,
it becomes easier to reminisce
in this Time
alone and perishable.

Soon enough,
daybreaks the serene brow
into blended spectrums
dampened down seeds are sown
deeply enfolded into the crust
and the anticipation of flowers
made nothing but sense
of Beauty.



Painting by Jean-Francois Portaels(1818-1895), 'Spring' c. 1879 in Public Domain. 

One a.m.

Under an unforgiving winter
full moon
light,
bonded
I become
by these rules,

heavier than gravity
or speculation.

Disheveled sheets show
lasting impressions
in icy blue hues.

The sky reflects
jagged pieces
like a shattered mirror,

Fragmented
by this time
life traces the artwork,

Homer hovers above
A tired lady remakes her bed,
tucking in the corners
mitered under the mattress
as taught-

as if poetic justice
could be concealed by folds
or heat could be
contained.

Art is often a window
to what we are about to be-
come.

Cliches cling to us.

See,
beauty was always drawn to you
in long strokes thick in color
and time-
You would not look-
until Now.

It would always be shown
how moonlight erases any line
untrue
to round forms,
like heavenly bodies

tumbling through
mortal moments
both heavy and light
in alternate perspectives.


Painting by Winslow Homer, 'Moonlight' c. 1874 in Public Domain. 

Social security

Unless you were born
a boy
with silky chestnut hair
shaped like a perfect bowl of soft wound thread
nested as in a kitten ball
atop an angelic head dappled with
a sole magic dimple under the high arched
cheekbone amidst
perfectly placed and sized features,
jawlines of a steed,
eyes of witches hazel,
long indulgent black lashes,
long limber legs, strong steel shoulders
broad aspirations
long ago,
No-
you will not be chosen
as the one that was
a man for all ages
a perfect fit,
the right breed,
hand(y)some or skillful.

The rest shall be
Employees.



Painting by Benjamin Haydon [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Bare Essentialism

When we speak of

Ars Moriendi

You and I are finally getting somewhere,

beautiful.

When the Poet dies-finally-

The poem is freed.

The libertine line advances

meaning, perspective.

Morals are not the main characters,

plot is where we were going,

a scene made, is setting,

is a container, set and broken down,

a frame to hold all the pieces

to gather in one assemblage

and enable anyone to walk around.

Implicating exclusion by category, genre,

red and not read,

unbounded through decohesion, 

letting leaves fly-

Well

we must determine-

To finish or decompose.

After all This

Art is all that remains after speech,

after thought, in memoriam,

the pictures point and the words paint

only where there is

Life. 

We recognize these reflections

and find them beautiful. 

Painting by William Orpen, Reflection in mirror c. 1917 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Ghoulish

Zombies are us

Afflicted with somnambulism

We blurred the lines in pixels, likewise

Vampires infect

Simultaneously leech

Our blood.

Thirsting, vengeance

Immortality

Ravenous black birds

Eat lizards tails,

Caw and peck

And never become full-

Since some spiders

Escaped, hatching plans,

Lit motives and wrapped them in silk fibers,

Offers of choice, delicacies,

As if free

As with blindness

And nocturnal natures,

When one sense is absent,

The others fill in the blanks

With color.

Outside,

I found a world waiting for someone

Real

To notice

Nothing is virtually

Immune to nightmares, or others

Fantasies

Just beauty. 

Image Credit: The original uploader was PiCo at English Wikipedia (Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons.) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

The sylvan man grows in light

After watching what you say

In the way

of change

concentration

cures

our severed taste buds and

need for salvation is mis-

taken for thirst of knowledge.

Flavorless is so often

Distasteful.

With the impressions all-ready made,

castes cracks to make like-ness, best selves,

come rise to the occasion or surface,

holding up the sky for the stragglers,

last ones out-

So beauty is the last thing any-body sees.

Rather-build an experience stacking up

of extrapolated theories, compacted clumps,

we build like dutiful doozers

busy before the Fraggle ruins it all

over again.

A variation of pattern provides for knots,

gathering spaces and pulls punches with curves

unfit for naked kings.

There can be all or nothing

theoretically and answer is not the source,

it is a question of directed desire, of

questions and may-bes.

Fear and famine are inadequate seeds

of inspiration for a fish to continue to grow on

and on immersed in its own currents.

The air is different amidst change and chaos,

at the same time, it was always happening,

never staying the same-

except the way you speak

of change.  

I accept the way change 

speaks of you.

Artwork by Jusepe de Ribera [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Give & Take

The most random growth

strikes me as superfluous

Beauty.

Look around;

Light, colors, temperature, 

                        and patterns too ornate

to recreate by free hand. Living proof.

I take it in too deep, bury stars under dust

And as ugly as I try

a mote may hope

to grow out of it.


Illustration from Patrick Moore's Watcher of the Stars in 16th century[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Remains to be seated

I had been staring at Van Goghs empty woven seat chair,

where he left his pipe, and all the aesthetic advice

of others alone, given room.

Is this pretty, accurate, I wonder

do we really agree to disagree,

I can no longer hear any one.

Yet in this instance, my tile floor is the same,

I wonder where we went…

I wonder would I listen to opinion, like onions,

what makes a beauty, is it unami?

Does beauty know it is some thing

special, sees ordinary and adds extra...

I have a mark on the top of my left foot,

Some call it a mole, I spy on it more usually.

It is often under cover,

unless I am caught barefoot.

It is pretty to me.

I also have a strawberry-

patch that I myself cannot see.

I came this way. Stamped and stickered.

Lately, my blue eyes have turned all grey.

My hair grows on, twisted and tangled.

Overtime,

It helps to see excess skin. Our outfits are now

hanging out of place, dangling heavy dead dreams.

Aging strains our vertebrae,
and wrinkle releasers wreak havoc on new software.

Our critical updates have failed.

Like you, I despised my body for far too long,

it has only gotten worse. It has gotten old.

I wear it down
to nothing.

Somewhere between scars and black

tattoos, my tastes have changed

and details have grown
and fascination falls short.

Aging is pretty when felt deeply.

Somewhere down the hall lies
Beauty, the ugly frame
hangs empty. Which are we,
classically posed
beasts of opportunity
making white
walls
more colorfully...

(non finito)

“I would define the poetry of words as the rhythmical creation of Beauty. Its sole arbiter is Taste. With the intellect or with the conscience it has only collateral relation. Unless incidentally, it has no concern whatever wither with Duty or with Truth…” 

-Edgar Allen Poe (The Poetic Principle)

Painting by Vincent van Gogh (1888) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Chit for chat

You can keep your cloudless days
              I prefer the truth.
Don't tell me about the clear blues
              when I've been hazy grey.
Why waste our time-
why show me natural beauty-
when I am more of a metaphor...

You can take your warm sunshine
                I was already too hot.
Leave me alone in the cold
                where my heart feels homey.
Why talk to me about exotic places-
why try to fantasize about far away-
when I will always dwell in self-fulfilled...

You can give it up
                holding others happy.
Don't tell me it was yours
                when you've never had it.
Why keep saving everything for later-
why not save yourself-
when there's nothing left-now.

You can say you would
                  I will not say.
Don't think I might change my mind
                  when it's on too tight.
Why not convince
why not debate your own issues
while I'm sitting pretty writing poetry
not seeking what may be-
                                         outside of me.




Image of painting by Laurits Andersen Ring (1908) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Best Bend Forward

By bend and nose
by eyes and toes

we can only
go a head
of ourselves
instead

of looking up
stopping to stoop
and smell a beauty
that eyes cannot spell

what others don't see
what we cannot tell
about the roses in your past
kneeling eyes downcast

By not being Here
By smelling your own Fear.



Image of painting by John William Waterhouse [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons, The Soul of a Rose, 1908.

The Rainmaker's Prism

There's this thing I'd like to show you

                  -but I found

                                 I am incapable

                                                        without poetry...

Which is exactly where I first discovered this guarded secret,

                                                        symbolical sound all around

I assume the answer is Yes

                                                       -but from so far away I can only guess…

See first, we must see
Both

Science and Art so often             stand        so         far          apart.

At opposing ends of each spectrum,

without blending a hue, without refracting a filtered thought,

                                                       contrasting, considering, what may or may not be-

but knew with certainty,
both Science and Art were connected by the arms of Man.

                                  And for just a spot, a moment right here in between
agree to see congruently,

both Art and Science know

the Beauty of a rainbow.

                                  You see, Science will easily explain how tears are not

                                                                                       the same as rain,

but only Art can undoubtedly prove

                                                        a compelling hypothesis for the Sun to move

from day to night, casting various shades of light

                                                        glowing proudly in-between-

questioning, magnanimously, spreading is possible rays

                                                         for everlasting days…

Now if you just look through here-

and squint your mind’s eye without flinching or fear,

See-Science cannot make Art,

                                                         in symmetrical chaos

by simply building and implementing its material parts

                                                           of mirrors and prisms-

directing the light, the rainmakers plight, the triple refraction effect

                                                   
reflected back in the miraculous infinite true blue skies.

                                                          Aha! Now I can see it clearly in your eyes.

                                             Beauty.

A lens through crystal tears, prismatic rain,

light making rainbows,

gathering its energy scientifically

perfecting the Art of rain.

Image By Madhubala Naicker (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons, 'Rainbow over Boulder, (CO)'.
                                             

After all

After doing some research

               in Philosophy and Being-

I came to conceptualize,

               thinking is pro-verbial.

After looking closer into,

                and reflecting upon what is Beauty-

I came to see,

                I bear no resemblance.

After debating what is Truth,

                the subjective and absolute,

I came to understand-

                people don't like its sound.

After feeling lost-

                from seeking and pursuing Happiness,

I came to find-

                it's a place that cannot be found.

After digging deeper into History,

                beneath the surface, between the lines-

I came to discover

                the past is exactly where it was supposed to Be.

After searching for the meaning

                of art, music, and goosebumps-

I knew,

                no definition was required.

After pondering all these

                baffling banalities and easily explained enigmas-

I realized,

                the art that is poetry is unexplainably the most beautiful music after all. 

Image by Antonio de Pereda, (c.1636) [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. "allegory of Vanity".