Quicksand in the hourglass

Turned overnight into the shadow,
an ominous space easily overlooked-

devoid of light in this dire dilemma
of grasping at grains, starlit seeds of time,

accepting these days that display
traces of altered spin-
and small places
for sin.

Take out the woven-store the sheer.
Year after year, resort
the bookshelves
by ilk
and most pointed dagger,

Titles,
those names mean nothing
-Placeholders-
arm your selves
about the fire and ice, in these
extremities, inside and isolated,
the glass steams up,
the walls smolder around the skins,

and the colder they get,
the deeper they sink
into the thickest of thoughts.

Tucked in this virtuous blackness,
the rest had no peace,

and the sand moved slowly
towards what could only be hours.



Painting by Sebastiano Ricci, c. 1706 in [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Blank as a sheet

The white space
was where to put the truth
It makes some
uncomfortable.
Black seems more
accommodating
since dark energy and dark matter
abounds.

Night conceals and reveals all
color theory,
holes condense, space expands
whence we
subcontracted time
to finish
painting the picture
in tones.



Image credit By English: Clarence Hudson White (1873/1925) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Panthera poema

Crouching in the shadows

its form blends into the pitch.

Pads perching on pillows,

lightly as an idea as not

to break a thought...

Whose scent fills in the breathing air,

sourcelessly seeping like smoke

with out fire. The spilt perfume vial,

wafting with ripe open stamen

acid breeze that chills your nape.

Of carnal mists and earth dusts,

pores choking on essence

smoking roar that singes

leaves, flashing green torches

smoldering for three days-be four-

Envy eyes curious to find

fresh tracks laid and lining

the way to walk without a 

sound, reason. Knowing 

you know it's there.

Indivisible pre-occupation with you,

incensed and bemused by notions

elusive to all traps set, over-gliding

to terminal reality

true never twice.

I prey the stalking, we share,

means we smell the same.

Image by Singer Ron U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

“...understand the nature of that illustrious vernacular that Dante claims to be tracking down like a perfumed panther, 'whose scent is everywhere but which is nowhere to be seen.' (DVE I, xvi, 1).”**-Umberto Eco (From the Tree to the Labyrinth, p 297, Harvard University Press, 2014).

** “It was thought in the Middle ages that the panther had a richly perfumed breath and left a trace of its passage wherever it had been. But, for the hunters who attempted to trap it, it was practically impossible to locate. So they would smell its perfume but never success in catching it. This explains how the panther became a metaphor for poetry itself.”-Umberto Eco