Respiration; Inhale

He said we are doing it wrong.
None of us take in enough.
Honestly.
As if this regulation
Was anything more than an expression of self-
deprecation
Whereby,
The Universe must be
Breathing us in instead of the other way around.
As if all were not made
in exchange
for what was needed most.
As if any-one was not worthy
of inhale.
I follow sounds with reasons.
It was said
We should only speak in exhale,
which blows treble
Over the top of a quiet rustle
A cacophony
Unanswered
Baseless breathing refused to unlatch
The belly of burden, to remember
To breathe.



Painting by Thomas Cole, 'View of the Round Top in the Catskill Mountains' c. 1827 [Public domain].

Proof to feel

Exempt from Rule three
'Seeing is Believing',
poets have felt gravity waves for centuries
before proof,
evidenced in the condensed packet called
a 'moment', that hits him square in the numbers
chest-wise.

Arresting breath with bondage attention
the neck braces itself out there
nearly knocked into shadowed fear-
don't look here-
it seems safer to watch than feel.

Despite the blind faith and electric lights,
the poet reads the ultraviolet signs as liminal,
hairs will rise only to settle in an
oppressing scream. It thinks it is escaping in
reaching for its own echo, those
vibrations shake the sound loose
from source.

Entanglement matters most
to poets without deflecting further penetration,
those background noises were called white
for lack of definition.

The poet lights his metaphor,
inhaling all that remains too minute
to make time.


Painting By Charles Furneaux (Hawaii Volcanoes National Park archive) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Wolf dreams

The  blood flows as current
through and around the brain
spilling into empty as I lay
down to sleep.

We say-Wheels Spin-
is this where we begin and end
that recapped thought, witticism, and dig
deeper as I have a conversation
with self, explaining
why Ezra Pound is not
considered
an American Hero-
although I fancy the lad,
I now understand and so
much evil clumps in corners
the sealed eyes squeeze and fold in
the car repair for son, the phone for daughter
colleges, dinners, stories and towels-
so many towels-folded, washed,
thrown down, tossed, appropriated in the rain,
picked up-creamer but forgot the bunnies
and the pain better not grow or settle down-
the ER is not OK today, I am OK, I say,
I am, I am, I am, I am, I am, I am
hear-not here,
my body belies deep breathing
and I still think
I sleep
too much.



Painting by Albert Joseph Moore (1875) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

An act of breathing

meditating lady

calmly cross-legged

thinking nothing

intentional unmentionable

quiet riot

creeps beneath

wily smiles

holding denials

blissful kisses

near misses

Eros arrow

strung out

flying fishes

Bitter bites

strangled air

choking up

thick ness

never was

for ever.

Image of painting by Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904) 'Painting Breathes Life into Sculpture, 1st v.' [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Breathe of Reflection

Image credit: Unsplash by Robin Benad

I once could breathe
wholly and deeply-
because I was outside
myself,
looking in...