Pulp

Oh bare soul

                    Ink stains

On white sheets

                 hinting impressions of what

came before

                    Without a dark mark made

Leaving no footprints or

                             creases and whatnot

Simply sinking in

                            a breeze shuffles

across the surfaces, 

                                      Lost in the sheaf

reams of lives, 

trembling forests,

                                     all are ashes too...

In the tree outside

the bedroom window

                                     Atop the tallest branch

A mockingbird gives an Aria

Jumping up in bursts, 

Flapping,

                Landing, bleating again

Relentlessly

                   it seems to me

that if a free spirit were

truly so

                     No one would ever know

The full story of a tree...

does one begin with roots-

                                 the buried seeds

nay, so I draw 

a delicate leaf

                                   Hanging mid-air

and am fixated

                        noticing the fallen

Bark below, scratches, and scars

That healed long before

                                       Now sloughed off

and suddenly I erupt 

                        laugh aloud

Along the same avian pitch

                                    Mocking my own

disbelief in the resilience

of composition

                           finding forms

of Liberty.

Erasing all I have done

In the air, irrigated charcoal

           a trace, a gentle summer 

Rain is coming

           so I jump up and go for a run

In the nearby woods

Blood pumping

                       through limbs

Pounding the soft earth

                      I carve a secret Path

instead 

of writing this poem.

Image Title: Bob; the story of our mocking-bird

Year: 1899 (1890s)

Authors: Lanier, Sidney, 1842-1881; Lanier, Charles Day. (from old catalog); Dugmore, Arthur Radclyffe, 1870- (from old catalog) illus

Publisher: New York, C. Scribner's sons

Contributing Library: The Library of Congress

Credit via Wikimdia Commons in Public Domain

Baby rock

A daughter is the only true conversation
that never ends...

Domesticated means kept
for companionship
by necessity.

Friend-
ships sail easily in a passing breeze.

Love spins
the Earth,
holding us close
to the core
or heart
of matter

like all of these
intangible connections
that bind
our words to the spine.

Once upon a time
we were here
mattering to one another

collecting the loose fragments
that spin off
and calling them stars.


Artwork credited by NASA/JPL-Caltech / Public domain.

The page of gathering places

Chin jutted level with the horizon line,

arms clasped around thin elbows which palms

cradle against the abdomen, the body becomes

a sensual veil, loosens its threads, the carpet of moss

appreciates the spaces across smooth rocks such as

She-

And I hear her voluptuous sigh

giving weight to attraction,

attention and focus upon

the tiniest moon

as though the stars were an entourage

of criticism-

She begins again, stainless in the mud,

I inquire as to what is bothering her,

what matters more than

rocks and trees-

She beheld a single sheet of white paper

which explained her glow,

scratch that she noted and tore

it into thin strips

but would not say another word edgewise.

I knew I would piece it all back together

when she smiled, opened her shoulders,

spread her wings and sang

like a mocking-bird.

There were too many notes, index cards

and pages coming back, 

returned to sender and un-

deliverable-

Yet we agreed

on something so stark

standing on different patches

of land and future, undoubtedly

paper was better than plastic.

Painting by Poul Friis Nybo (1869-1929), 'Reading Woman' c. 1929 in Public Domain. 

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].

Settle in

Gathered all

I could manage

to ex-press-

an in-audible

scream

that left the bereft-

ness expended
under foot.

See

me

as I never was.

I am only

Now

as can be

good enough
to reach.

Not a word would match

the fiery-ness,

not a wet thought lying

around to ignite

the waxed wick
convinced in ambiance.

Shivered at the losses

when the blood concentrates

on the speed it needs
to lose groud, to blur
the lines.

It was always time

and matter to dwindle the days
back into a neat stack.

Meanwhile,

my toes curl

atop a thin sole

inside the shoes I have outgrown
I am misshapen.

One day

I will feel

the temperature of the earth

and find it

just right
where I happen to Be.

Painting by Lucien Pissarro, c. 1900 in [Public domain].

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.

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.

Trace particles

We need oxygen and yet there is
only 21% of this to share...
What else is there...
Well,
We all need water, and yet we find
one percent of this elixir, potable
on this Cagean terraqueous orb.

We need sleep, we tire and tear
with wear, we need to turn it all off,
down and out, overdone, burnt and
wasted, inward.

And consumables can be
inedible as well as hollow.
But empty calories make
friction

wiser we no longer mind
insurance and investments
but with luck we discover

miserably in need of love.
Just don't hold others breath
or lick other wounds,

this one silent assassin,
starved by selfish need
of Other.

We will share,
because we want to live
to some percent.



Pastel on paper by Stanisław Wyspiański, The Mulchs ("Planty" at night), c.1898 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Blue earth, Red sun

Earth will end on a Sunday.

The sun will have had its best days behind...

The moon, long retired, makes wax figurines.

So we are all stars.

Nothing disappears without direction,

even inside itself.

Concentrate.

The ethereal essence is growing without us.

Earth, like a sponge, porous

we take it all in until full

dripping with light.

And just like deja vu, we knew

Earth will end on a Sunday.

Drawing (pen, ink, graphite) by William Blake [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. The great red dragon and the woman clothed with the sun.

Reception

The ocean rose
the sky fell
the rain beat the drums,
the fire spread,
the earth shook,
the sun set,
the moon was full,
the water ran,
the sound grew,
the people pled,
the stars said,
the cycle ends,
the wind screams,
the thunder claps
eager for more
Encore, Encore
the world wondered
if the message sent
or had been red...



Painting by Joaquín Clausell [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Mars 20/20

In collaboration with private and public agencies
-contingencies aside-
a head of schedule was announced
slating the date
for merely five years a way-not (be) four
(hundred million miles)
We are ready, and some of us will be
by twenty-twenty
what will we see
that we have not conceived
on earth
since the birth of humanity?



Photo credit By NASA [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons, Mars by Mars Observer.

The Earth in equipoise

Home,
the word hums
and soothes in smooth repose,
perpetually proves, be-
longing, to know hospitable
conditions are predictable.

We hold these truths
in suspension,
taut in timely tension,
grounded in granite,
equating gravity
with magnanimous motive.

She spins out
like a top
to a point
where sound and light
are white
in stasis
harm-ony
equate-or
aligned in orbital
epi-phany.
Home.


Image taken By NASA/Scott Kelly from ISS 7/19/2015, Moon, Venus, Jupiter, Earth [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

In the Zone (everything flows)

We have been put in our place “Now”

some feel trapped “Here” -in this dimension sandwich-
Between the roof-sphere-sky-bread
the floor-terra-granite-salt-meat.

Chin up, wi-fi buzzes
humming high-pitched all ways
electric energy
flows
Every Where
we insist on Being.

It originates and stimulates
somewhere
too far to hear
below
the lines,

of sedimentary sheets
compressed in ambient ambivalence
resting in a peace of a kind,
we minded and kept in our place,

like calm, comfortable creatures, calculating:

Where is “Here”
No Time like “Now”

with or without Us
life flows
with no End (in-sight).

Image By NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. Atmosphere of exoplanet taken Dec. 2013.

Terra Firma

The mountains spill their dirt downhill

And the hills give up on the valleys

The palette mixed of mud and will

With wanton erosion to appease

Nothing one can keep for good

All things betrothed by buried Earth

In all trees being equal to wood

Why the emeritus mirth?

See the mounds abound the domain

And the offspring shoots rise above

No human souls whole may remain

If which no one should love

And take notice of roots strangled in fear

And the green lights trying to escape

What could grow without a drop of tear

If the soil won't stay in shape?

*Inspired by "Love's Philosophy" by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

Image By U.S. Forest Service ([Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. Elkhorn Mountains, Oregon.