316 million tons: Our weight on the world

Deadweight
Feels heavier
Without a light source

Emitting and casting off more than
Darkness which regenerates
On itself
Like a quiet tumor
Reaching

Look at Atlas,
His flexed muscles
Atop his torso
Showing his amassed
Strength and Dilemmas,
Symbolic

The woman is rounded
Into fetal position
Cradling her empty
Gut, where lead linings
Rust

She must endure
the pulseless womb
Internally,
Empty

He will never feel this weight
Carried
in her pit, shriveling up
Potential
Against will

She will take on more

Despite this moment
Wedged under a
Ticking clock

Like counting down
Our rock planet teeters
Without her brace

It would be wise of man to
Expect the Fall.



Painting by Adolph von Menzel (1815-1905), 'Sister Emily sleeping' c. 1848 in Public Domain. 

Shifts

Today
I will
write
paint, read and make marks
in space
empty of purpose.

Tonight
I may
Sleep
In trust
A soul
Is given another wake.

Painting by Rogier van der Weyden [Public domain], 'Saint Luke drawing the Virgin',  c. 1435 in Public Domain. 

Dem bellies full

When the fridge is empty,
I crave paper money.
When my pockets are stuffed
with receipts and detritus
there is nothing more to buy
into.

Love does not accept
money as tender,
yet it seems to alter
chemistry
dissolving this exchange.

As compelling as it is
to appropriate,
as we must, everything
has a place,
the toil never ends.

Pockets of air
take care of filling empty
voids and holes
and we are all full of it-

Language to gnaw,
gristle and by the way-
none of the above
ever satisfied the thirst
for our own consumption.

I will find a way
to take smaller bites,
preferring less
seasoning
or taste in love.


Painting by: Pyotr Ivanovich Subbotin-Permyak. Down the river (1918).

Net wait

A blessing comes with a curse,

wait and good things will appear,

like whale spouts and comet tails bursting forth,

you will see-eventually.

And chances are 

choices awaiting a verb,

like the other side of the coin

what is tossed in the air,

must plummet to its lowest nadir.

We have seen this played out. Likewise,

such sweeping statements, proverbs and prophecies,

do little for everything-in-all-times, 

yet consistently, this movement tends to

strew the smallest fragments more widely 

distributed across the floor and

atop all the lowest planes, building up-

just as the feather duster spreads its wings,

the timepiece propels one to practice 

gathering oneself more

and in doing so, magnetism must assert 

its basic properties are acuter 

than our elemental bodies

behaving and obeying the laws.

Well, we can only collect our thoughts 

and arrange them in an orderly fashion 

so that they may be 

overlooked,

making more room to move around and since 

wisdom was a woman, things, like elimination, 

we tend to find 

liberating in corners.

Everything here, in a sense shows, 

entropy was a mirror image of 

this empty room, piling up with dunes of dust.

While waiting for change,

chaos was creating 

lines in the sand and

when the wind broke in for one last sweep,

there was nothing to weigh any of us down.

The holes served their purpose. 

Image By A Stieglitz, c. 1899 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Harmonic Anthropic Principality

Obviously,

the world around us demonstrates consistency so beautifully,

at least, that is what we prefer to see.

Moderation, enough and contentment and some

conservation of raw necessities and bare dirigibles.

This perfect white light can be too bright to look upon directly,

as when the sunlight dives too deep in

behind your eyes.

You may see empty spots being eaten by black holes bouncing

off magenta frazzled strings-maybe...

some hear C, some do not see (not heresy),

some say this in synesthesia,

most are cured from this disorder

by adulthood through normal amnesia.

Not to worry, what is out of sight does not mind.

What is behind is aftermath,

Insistent remainders which prove

expansion is true and mostly

more lies, well

beyond our view-There is more.

Listen does not change the sound that comes out.

It is answer. It is not your answer. It is hidden in harmony.

We can only

Here

what is most touching (outside).

Painting by Willem Cornelisz Duyster [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

inner child

My body disrupts this empty room.

Thoughts are just whispers

but move matters around.

Inside voices, 

no need to interrupt

by asking

Nobody was home.

Woman at the Piano (1889, oil on wood panel, 26.0 x 13.1 cm) by Tom Roberts (1856–1931).

The painting is in the collection of the Art Gallery of South Australia.

Remains to be seated

I had been staring at Van Goghs empty woven seat chair,

where he left his pipe, and all the aesthetic advice

of others alone, given room.

Is this pretty, accurate, I wonder

do we really agree to disagree,

I can no longer hear any one.

Yet in this instance, my tile floor is the same,

I wonder where we went…

I wonder would I listen to opinion, like onions,

what makes a beauty, is it unami?

Does beauty know it is some thing

special, sees ordinary and adds extra...

I have a mark on the top of my left foot,

Some call it a mole, I spy on it more usually.

It is often under cover,

unless I am caught barefoot.

It is pretty to me.

I also have a strawberry-

patch that I myself cannot see.

I came this way. Stamped and stickered.

Lately, my blue eyes have turned all grey.

My hair grows on, twisted and tangled.

Overtime,

It helps to see excess skin. Our outfits are now

hanging out of place, dangling heavy dead dreams.

Aging strains our vertebrae,
and wrinkle releasers wreak havoc on new software.

Our critical updates have failed.

Like you, I despised my body for far too long,

it has only gotten worse. It has gotten old.

I wear it down
to nothing.

Somewhere between scars and black

tattoos, my tastes have changed

and details have grown
and fascination falls short.

Aging is pretty when felt deeply.

Somewhere down the hall lies
Beauty, the ugly frame
hangs empty. Which are we,
classically posed
beasts of opportunity
making white
walls
more colorfully...

(non finito)

“I would define the poetry of words as the rhythmical creation of Beauty. Its sole arbiter is Taste. With the intellect or with the conscience it has only collateral relation. Unless incidentally, it has no concern whatever wither with Duty or with Truth…” 

-Edgar Allen Poe (The Poetic Principle)

Painting by Vincent van Gogh (1888) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Done with Do-nation

Dutifully unattached,
with nothing to hold onto
it is faith that floats
when nothing is left, you have done right.
Giving, to give, give it all away and pray,
my wish for you, my everything...
Be just, just keep what you have taken and leave me
alone since I have nothing of value
any more than I will be...
All that I could get, I tried to do for you...
To give, to want the best soley for you,
all that I do it was-
I shouldn't say it
in this way,
but I'm lost and cannot find
the kind
the need...
High and low I looked, sought, and fought
for more, yet there seems to be
none left in store
of what I have no more of
like love,
there's nothing more above,
I've given out more than I had,
none for me but I now can see
from looking down on thee-
Life seems much lighter when your empty.





Image of painting by Edmund Leighton (1895) The Chairty of St. Elizabeth of Hungary [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

I can see why you thought

I was gone
transformed into the shapes of shadows
of a dancing butterfly against the fence slats
of a vampire bat who changed his shift
or the wolf spider watching the broken winged crow
these were once me on the dark side of noon.

I was here-then there's was none
no empty room in the granulated chute of light
for this forsaken passive body
to occupy or entertain
I remain one
you cannot see, the undertow of echo
Your assumptions have found me
displaced.


Image By Ministry of Information Photo Division Photographer [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.