Avow

Truth be told-

The clean secrets

are the ones

most easily over-looked, 

like tiny happy pills,

like big gulps of fermentation

like bottled pride, 

once swallowed

often gets caught

tickling the throat

edible if not credible

sharp.

The bleached lies

are the ones treated

as though sterilization 

made us all safer

instead of regretful

for draining the color from

all storied possibilities.

Cheeks and skies

Sunsets and dawns

pinks and yellows

the way you see

plain as day

something always there

in between...

Kisses like clouds

Words like wind

fighting infection and odds

debating the will without power

Nothing to trace

Distance cured us all

to be saved for later

Revelations.

Painting by Gabriel von Max 'Praying' c. 1915 in Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons. 

What was the question?

Time, like money, isn't tangible 

Neither is love, truth and what

is real-

made up, rounded off, different

for you and I-

what is real...

And yet, some

times

are frozen or elapse slow

and many too fast to enjoy

Enough-

What about dusk-sunset 

or dawn, or the times

I look at the clock and it's the same

Times-day and night.

Well, what about a pastime or a memory,

Truth be told from one 

person in a place with

Nothing-

is real

for you-for anyone...

Do blessings count?

Photo of Woman at spinning wheel in Studeno na Blokah, Slovenia taken August 1962 in Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons. 

Should've asked first...

We were connected
to each others gaze
and more
deeply, once
we wished would last for-
ever.

Remember
with me
conversations, deeply
endless opportunity
being
together only-
beginnings.

I know
that was then,
but I do not know
when this
is-
more endings.

True, I only speak
most
honestly in poetry.
Saying more
than I could other-
wise.

I only ask
now, how we changed
focus-frequently
away...

Don't answer,
I won't repeat.

The blue-lit face,
red cheeks, empty windows
and presence-
elsewhere, I try to focus
on something
as intangible and
deeply infinite,
as sky only to resist
the falling atmosphere.

It is my fault.
I should've asked
you if you think
we get what we deserve
always?



Painting by Philip Hermogenes Calderon (1833-1898), 'Her eyes are with her heart' c. 1881, in Pubic Domain. 

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.

Capital T

It was coincidence that
Truth hit the margin so hard
it made the big
T.

The answers were always,
just lying there. True or False.
The truth was filed away,
in the oven,
on ice,
just beyond the horizon,
outside of our reach,
out in front of us and
most visible on our fore-
heads. Indicators of attention
-span.

Granted, little u's
the q's so well,
as if wedded to one another.
Infinitesimally too quantum
to separate
from the microclimate
too minuscule
to divide or conquer
or entitle affectionately
Grand Fallacy.

So the tee's were crossed and
the eyes forgot
where to aim
the sentence.


Painting by Henry Stacy Marks [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

To dwell

I hear the sirens and should be more
alarmed

they do not cease
and I meditate
or try to find the silence
in the thicket

of noise, nerves, signals,
cymbals
and flashing red lights.

Meanwhile,
the wind was howling outside
loose things slammed into each other
and the panes quivered
in their sills.

I thought of somewhere
life being whisked away
and let a fear
inside.

I stared at the door
but did not leave
knowing this
would be the death of me.


Painting by Paul Cornoyer, 'The lights in the window' c. 1910 in Public Domain. 

Vessel

There is nothing about
a something of which
nothing can be said.

So each support beam gave way,
broke hold, splintered in the grooves-
except for this one,
strong enough to grab ahold
of a pen,
despite the fear of failure
or plain truth.

Enough is enough.
We all get fed up.
And then are left to pick up
where we left off-
our stuff, the baggage, the mess
we left when it all went wrong
when we turned away.

When the pillars piled up
we were promised
the worst was over.

Nothing is over.

Levitation is indecision.

There are times we feel the time
tap our skin, seconds like rain,
and this time I felt like screaming
so I did,
only sunshine poured in when I opened
my mouth
and the light flooded the empty body
reminding me
to stay afloat.



Photograph of the Ruins of the Aduana in Intramuros (Red marquis at English Wikipedia) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons, taken 2012.

Professor

He spoke of the same humbling
Revelation
As if he had just learned it
himself
forgetting he had said this
every time I met him-

The first time
it was
news (to me)
Now, he says
it as Truth.

It may be so
fascinating, even true, however,
there are reasons
it is
he will never know.



Image credit by Metropolitan Museum of Art [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons.

The night that the Accountant

The night that the Accountant figured out poetry
was a simple story
about a man and a woman
and the stories they tell
each other-
About
who should and who should not
discuss poetry,
since there is no GAP
in poetics or likewise, alibis.

I told him a story about a poem
that was a story
I made up,
I was never really there.

He said, 'Of course it wasn't true.
Being pushed off a bridge was just a
metaphor-
for what-
I don't exactly know, but if I know you,
it was a feeling
you felt that day.'

I confessed
it was true, all of it.
I could have jumped.
He understood
more poetry
than he ever could have
accounted for.

Along this
line lying between non-and-fiction,
a subtraction connects us.
And we reconcile our difference
of opinions in between
heads and tales
black and read
to solve all word problems.




Photo credit by Mathew Brady, Long Bridge, Washington, D.C. in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Systematic

That

Nothing can be in balance

never maintain harmony-

All is; push and pull,

give and take,

more or less.

That

Life itself, in order

To Be,

swings

back and forth,

like Galileo’s cathedral lamp

from chaos to entropy-

you again. 

Rest and wake are processes

of changing states.

Death doesn't change.

Life is never the same.

That

even though two far-flung

pendulums find synchronicity,

two clocks seek divergence.

Both are counting 

on each other.

That

Truth is not always true,

what is left lying there

awaiting our grand

Discovery?

That 

it may be easier

To be

savages, cold-blooded

toward each other, 

hot under our collars, getting

callous without tools-raw, blistered

and running behind and away from

the greater risk of being

alone and afraid to touch

each other.

That 

This

Homeostasis must not be bliss

to the civilized, passionate man

That

Balances

Truth with Justice

ending up with a loss

for words.

Photo credit by Dietmar Rabich / Wikimedia Commons / “Grand Canyon (Arizona, USA), South Rim nahe Tusayan -- 2012 -- 5893” / CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Free Will-but save yourself

The whole truth and nothing but the truth,
You can't handle the truth-
Truth be told,
If you dare,
I swear on my life
It had all been said before as time and time again repeats itself, this time is different,
as assertion or assumption that the old is new again-this time
there is no way all the way around without seconds-
You've tried before, before the moments meant more than muddled memory of cake,
a building block, an hour glass or year more changes things, dims the lighting while we change
and seek something original before sunset-
Yet nothing new or true has been said yet...
except we still try (and propose)
we still lie (and suppose)
we still die, believing legacy lasts longer than I told you so,
as though the truth shall set you free
to choose
just
one.


Painting by Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson (1786) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Light flavors

Now,

without the sun

                        overbearing

we can be

just

Honest, say don’t hurt

just

because you can enunciate

                        I can.

            I can-say it-

Now you say it

Strong like Bull-

            Head

Built like brick

            Chicken

-house-

Homeless vagabond renter, 

                         squatter be

categorically dissimilar

part Yokohama

                        by strolls through Ipanema

Say, there goes another

                        Bohemian

Fine

Young

Cannibal 

               could eat you up!

What have you to say 

that won't sting?

From where we began

Now finds us in the strangest

                        Truths.

I too prefer plums

                        To lemons. 

Painting by Hieronymus Galle (c. 1636-1646) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Not needing Neruda

Tonight I can sleep because of what I wrote, out there and just right.

I may lie here and feel weightless for too few precious moments.

It is because of you, whom I submitted to, stripped down to my soul

To show utter naked truth,

And you did not flinch or cower but glowed at the unknown,

Making more for us both.

This reassures me, we will always have enough

To do- -between us- -You

being the first person who said,

It will be all right, and all ways was. 

By Rembrandt (1654) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Make it Official

-State your Name and Intention-
Do Not mention any affiliations
or become subject to litigation.

Acts of remediation are often post facto
in futility even-ergo, better never
than too late
to instate your Greater Purpose
or your amor fati, by decree of entropy.

You see, if you aim for Truth
untethered to ego
you may move more freely
About.
If motives move
unannounced
they are pronounced
Wrongly.



Photo By Archiwum Ilustracji Ilustrowanego Kuryera Codziennego (corporate author) (National Digital Archives) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Forthright

The T
with its crosshairs
feathered with aech
and too
are used as wings
in a word-Truth-
with you in the middle.
The angels arrow
hits the squinted bullseye,
stuck in a black hole lie.




Painting by Giovanni Baglione, The Divine Eros defeats the earthly Eros (c.1602), [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Quicksand

Since poetry is up to interpretation, meaning-wise-
how does the poetry reader understand the Poet's intent
with certain-T's like Truth and Tale
divided unevenly...
Mostly, we knew the poet forgets these two
So how does a semblance come together as a sense
of justice, (common sense) or was it just us
who smiled at the cool plums...

Electromagnetism asserts its charge,
Gravity resists a zero,
the Poet's ears are taut
the words that wobble and worry
about none
poetic and pathetically undone
in ink.
Welcome All.
Let that sink in, a lifeline.
Try this barefoot
with a poem,
touch the earth with your toes-
read it again, it will tell you
its potent-ialities
softly, poetry
tart and juicy.



Painting by Ilya Repin, Tolstoy Barefoot, 1901 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Muted Miranda

It is clear
we are obscure.

You can relax.
It is right to let it go-
and by the way,
you never had control
autonomously anyway.

Listen,
I know you hear
the same eerie prophecy,
drowned in echoed epiphanies,
or floating on fantasies
of everlasting
We Were Here
dwelling in fear
and drawing it out
by quarters
intones.

Why we comply-
we know not
everything was true.

All will pass
all the same
as though
blue were something
new-yet there is nothing
we can do
but witness.

We have the right
to remain silent
left behind an
afterthought
with guilt
by association
lurking alone
for the safety of Others.



Painting By Pompeo Molmenti (1819-1894), The Arrest of Filippo Calendario, 1874 (FineArtAmerica) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. 

The writing in dust on mirrors

They lied
              all along
They think
              they were lying
(to them-selves)
               it showed through
eventually
wear and tear:
tears and wears

feeble few
who knew
               the lies were untrue
and said
(to them-selves)
                it was naturally so,
unfolding
upholding
For now
                 yet I know
the decay
                 eating away
Bones and Memories
(buried)
Stones and Sticks
(thrown)
                  shatter glass houses
and mirrors
reflecting angel dust
                                 and cobwebs
clouding what could never become
(the whole truth)
after blowing
                   living a life
being numb,
breathing evil wind
it's too late-
                   nevermind.



Image by By עירא (own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Keeping it Inside Out (There)

Between you and I
secrets
Yes
You've seen parts
none cared
for, but me.

You see,
remember that time
you knew
I was lying
or the time
you knew truth
was hiding right there
and both times
you thought,
why not?

Or of a poet-
that needs words
that hold places for
secrets
that are not known
but shown
anyway...
In between
poetry shared
somewhere
someone
else may
someday
care
and keep
secrets 
with me.




Image by Julia Margaret Cameron [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Rise and Shine

Today was the day

we knew

we were wrong

& had been all along.

Trusting in their truths,

evidence, predictions, proof, profession

Confession: certitude with servitude

brought back into light

when the sun did not rise. 

Image By NASA [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. Taken October 20th 1968 from Apollo 7 altitude of 120 nautical miles above Earth on its 134th revolution (213 hours and 19 minutes after launch).