dead end

Like Darwin's finches,
would we know why our beaks are shaped this way?

Poetry, like mathematical sentences,
cage the pigeon, momentarily truth can be contained
in theorem.

History was written to expel,
revise, adapt and to forget the way it happened
in order to make story from time with a line.

A plot never seems to develop
or hold
what was expected.

I do repeat myself,
I say things I often don't recognize
as mine, I smell fear in my atmosphere
and wish flight was my choice.


Artist Jacques Callot (1592-1635) 'Traveler' early 17th century, in Public Domain. 

Look (it) up

Anyway, it was a woman

who actually spoke first.

“I smell a rat!”

said no Henry or Hamlet

Hard(l)y a Thomas, nary a Richard but a Jane Doe

made this first lament 

despite the great efforts spent

assigning credit-worthiness, 

sighting the source, casting quoted blame

upon small creatures.

And ultimately, it comes to require

repetition, a mask

of sense-ability, or sorts

of ilk and stank disguised with must.

The woman slips into the cloak,

it spreads across the floor.

The folded entity

has been

erased from the scene. 

A mole scurries out from the hem

leaving a mark of beauty 

above the spoken word.

Painting by Giovanni Segantini [Public domain], c. 1891 via Wikimedia Commons.

The last volume

This last couple of pages 

I have edited quite impartially and frankly

heartlessly or as autonomous as could be 

anyway,

and I mean that in a most familial way.

This closing volume,2017 in the year XLI

much was burned,

including bridges and outback structures,

dilapidated and in need of wildflowers

after all these years of standing 

and resisting color.

This is why some things remain

and others leave no trace.

There was once a line,

or anchor

I cut

this year.

To say only the most necessary things,

required no speech or recapitulation

of histories and books burned all the way 

through to The End. 

Painting by Yehuda Pen [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

With the worms

Shaking off his jacket
spotted with purple dots of dew,
he unfurls his wings
and dashes off
to a new perch
higher up.

In the insistent rising sun
my head and shoulders form
an opposition,
casting shadows on
soft golden blades
rooted underfoot.

Stirring begins from the ground
where settled matters to-day
such as History and alternative pathways,
are made with each step one leg takes
at a time
to make movement or progression
of orbit

in order
to get there
only to see the selfsame shrinking
without feathers, but by a hair
and blunted nose not pointed beak.

This is sharp steel light
severing the warm body
from the sound mind.

A murmuration demonstrates
the reason
for gathering
our resources
but taking them
lightly.





Painting by Léon Bazille Perrault, 'The Bird Charmer' 1873 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Moving her lips

Distracted by a flicker, brutishly I burrowed

under the thickset arboreal pathway, forward through,

not needing a Virgil

Whereby, I found myself subdued and lowered

my angel body, knelt upon the gathering scrag,

with knees upon the well curb, my two soles

Watching my back, I feel the frosty shade

Safer now, I may close my shamed eyes

And I know why others have come too.

I reach right into my hip pocket,

making a tiny discomfit chime,

half-expecting the birds to flap.

I take out the three pennies

used for the i-Ching,

fingering the Nineteen eighty-four first,

it sits in the color of old adobe

streaked in rain grime.

I toss it into the blackness that is not

Empty nor dry

and I wait, waiting, listening, breathing,

hearing nothing...

The next one picks up the red in the sun and

glows facing its prospect of good conduct-

Two thousand and one

sided History, the honest man does not smile

I let it go as impersonal,

It falls quickly

I lean in

this time

and I don’t hear it hit

gulping back it was swallowed hole.

I never wished.

The last one left, I save for a

second thought, more

about splashless wishes

for Change.


Painting by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

History v.1,792

        What if we learned our lessons backward

instead of ignoring what lies ahead,

would we start at the end and dig ourselves out

from there

or is Here too near to Now to know?

What if we learned language primary by poetry,

as in, taught this way, 

if we made an educated guess 

we would we think more

if we understood less.

And what about what the ocean says, its native 

cetaceans, their migrations…adaptations.

We would find a place 

in their tragic tales, perchance

see ourselves in the eyes on fish tails,

mermaids and white whales.

Yes, hard to translate

some things don't

clearly. 

Well,

what if we listened harder to things that seem

indistinct,

do you think we could hear the earth exhale 

say deep in sleep, could we focus then

on the multiverse-

But here we are fracking up.

Waiting for a guide out of some terrestrial curse.

Would it be worse

to know we were too little to hold on?

We have cumulatively uncovered

more historically,

we have yet to discover

meaning,

we barely understood

what all of this implied-

No 

Time to speculate

about Grand New Beginnings 

By starting at the infinite Endings...

After all, how could History be 

far too long ago and have not nearly enough

relevance or reverence for Us

by glaring reflection,

with Us reminiscing about the great old days

adding and adorning, making the old new.  

We like changing the story as we go,

we can know just enough 

to make it up

to you.

True-

with no good place to start

chaos will return,

before it was missed. 

Our Resilience is rote,

Granted,

we have witnessed starting over

and elliptical orbits

again and again.

And I insist, as the diluted optimist,

we are still learning

on a curve,

spilling as we spin.  

Shall we take it from the top?

Painting By Joshua Reynolds [Public domain], Fine Arts Museum in Argentina via Wikimedia Commons.

The Day

That was the day

the day we won't forget.

Why this day, they may ask.

This was the day that marked a change.

Back in the day, we used to say

Earthquake weather, which means Danger 

or Forgiveness.

You could smell it sometimes, 

the magnanimous brink in the air,

yet the ground remains stoic so we are lucky.

Like the time we lived, when we shouldn't have.

When we fell into the chasm of misery only to fly out 

                                                   with Joy.

That was the day we never went back 

the same way.

It tasted new but felt like always-

                                         even if just briefly. 

Art by George W. Joy [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Why we bother to bother with Why (a deepity)

Because we are here now

facing each other,

listening to the music

we are submissive-or brave

Because we stand up and speak aloud

to show another view,

we abort our own conception

by consent-or dissent

Because we fret and dodge regret

ruts are dead set, circuits carry currents

direct, a dexterity of pre-determined design

connected by linear contact-or experience

Because stasis ensures us

and the foreseen guarantees us

safety in numbers, with all the fish in the sea

our place is secured in parsimony

Because Things don’t change, instead We rearrange

our conception, our perception-a deception

based on learned History, founded on prophesy

we perverse possibility-or reverse responsibility

Because the incentive is steep

Regret is shallow

Because the chances are scarce

Retribution is the final reward. 

Image of cover publication "The Masses", c. 1916 By E. Higgins [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Poem inscribed on bottom left corner reads:
Revolution
Anyone can write Revolution-Revolution
is written
By pale young men with the new conven-
tional mind;
Though it causes, indeed, no such havoc 'mid
humankind
As Samson's did when the Philistines were 
smitten.

It is easy to preach-Revolution-Revolution
in pink reviews,
Or flourish a Phrygian cap from the top of a 
steeple;
But if ever it came to an uprising of the people,
How many pale poets would stand in the leaders 
shoes?
-William Rose Benet