Upon further refraction

The dark parts are never totally absent
but make counter balance
while the wave-
lengths of light
lure us to the edges
of our material domains.

And tenacious as
we are, discover
how pointed
the arrow of time
must be-in order
to pierce the shield
we forge between
then and now,

somehow
All
observations become skewed
and miss their tiny targets
more often
than not.

All the while,
the incessant beating
heart, clock, hands only
amplify this glaring
temptation to shatter
our own gently built
crystalline structures

aligned and angled
just so-

objects prevent the light
from penetration
into the facets
that make us so
Reflective.

In retrospect,
the gradient
is held dependent
to a degree,
only to consider its own color
cast on the walls
and splashed across the floor
in the time it takes
to name
something never
There.


Photo credited by Kelvinsong / CC0, 'Prism tribeam' taken 2012 in Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons. 

Out of darkness grows

It feels like rain
in the bones.
It is as though
I have known
the subtle differences
of hours
from reading water lines
and by translating the stain
visibly left behind
similar to thunderheads.

Another dawn lightens over me
and after so many
thin and pointed
Winter moons have waned,
it becomes easier to reminisce
in this Time
alone and perishable.

Soon enough,
daybreaks the serene brow
into blended spectrums
dampened down seeds are sown
deeply enfolded into the crust
and the anticipation of flowers
made nothing but sense
of Beauty.



Painting by Jean-Francois Portaels(1818-1895), 'Spring' c. 1879 in Public Domain. 

lying in the grass

It was just a dream, but I woke up wondering
if I will ever again meet the dapper demon...

who offers a choice to become blind forever
or deaf to only my own voice-

much like the migrating fish in the Lethe...

up or downstream doesn’t change the course.
I remembered saying that I’d rather never
see brand new green or the sad sky again-

I would just try to feel them touching me

from now on, without sight
I might believe in conductivity 
through contact,
life, this body... 

And assuredly, others will certainly appear
more clearly to me.

But the handsome hellion in the dream
misheard the choice, 

or chose otherwise on my behalf,

and my kaleidoscope eyes kept confusing 
up and down, 

feeling my feet in the bluegrass, 

facing the limelight. 

Painting by Albert Joseph Moore [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Space flavor

Swallowing photons

every breath man meanders

tastelessly obscene

Painting By Peter Graham (1836 - 1921) (Scottish) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Dreams casting shadows

One needn't try to demystify
precisely why the shadows lie
the way they do.
There is always an excuse.
Dare not to ask the old salt and pepper nurse
how she came to be the sole caretaker
of crows
and a single cockatoo
every morning, every single mourning,
she knows
they are there for her too.
The brown boy that is now
a milk chocolate man
still slices cold cuts and fresh white bread
at the local sandwich shop and a decade later
still says 'Hi'-
don't ask me why
the police roll by
and I am reminded, it is just a job.
Do you remember that riddle
about what is black and white-
I've read too much...
Speculation bleeds ink.
I think
I will never ask
why my dreams are now in vivid color.



Painting titled Cloud Shadows (1890) by Winslow Homer [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Canvassing the scene

Perhaps it is only when we paint
that we can taste each dash of color
on our palette.
Like when we listen
to silence
and find none.
And where we see
almighty vistas
and are awed in a splendor,
agape at the sheer place
of our infinitesimalness.

If you close your eyes and exhale-
notice, the black dissipates...
The volume condenses
to more than a sense
of some thing.
And when you look again,
it is evermore,
 the first time you've seen
this way.
That is
a work of art.




Painting by Henri-Jean Guillaume Martin [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.