Goldenlocks

I stumbled upon a short 

story, written

as if it were a poem-

Lines broken like cracks in the side-

walk that one steps

Over

Its title did not evoke its

gait and I hazard to observe-

if it walks like a big duck

it could be a small goose

and then

what do profiles 

Reveal or musings in marginalia...

What makes a poem,

a place, a sense of something familiar

almost like thoughts

Severed

So many stories

follow a straight line

and then

I 

turned a corner

saw a different path

without backstory and confident

Nobody

was following me

(anymore)

and then

it was done. 

Artwork by Virginia Frances Sterret, 'Old French Fairy Tales 0077 in Public domain in US, via Wikimedia Commons.

(w)hole sentences

This practice 
does not make perfection
but a percentage
lingers with something special.

There are notes everywhere
like atoms of crumpled 
origami sound making the shape
of scribble.

Misaligned,
a cacophony
anyone can blow or bang, shout and wail,
I am trying to make some music
but I cannot flesh out
the transition.

I was always fondest of shoes,
Like endings.

I wonder, while I look at all the
scattered pieces, 
amble across the landscape
of my desk like deer pathways
is why I cannot seem to finish...


Artwork by Hans Holbein (1497-1543), 'Studies of the hands of Erasmus of Rotterdam' in [Public domain].

Writing it right while the house was quiet

The duplex dreamt and the tenant typed

The reader was making a book; and not

Unlike emulation, was editing generously.

The building in the barrio with a tiny yellow light.

Worlds were created in near silence,

and destroyed even quieter still. The writer wrestles,

with choices and stalled situations, corners 

and trap doors until stuck no more, after all was imaginary.

The darkness provided the right light.

The writer made galaxies with aether.

Contrast and focus, like noise easier to see

when the dimness has long nestled in.

And the scrivener muffles scribbles, while snores and strokes 

of keys alleviate worries, working while the rest slept.

The word wizard cast spells, swept up by sunrise. 

The writer reads what the reader rights, a better ending after all.

*This poem was inspired by the famous Wallace Stevens poem, The House was quiet and the world was calm, featured (also a recorded reading) on the Poetry Foundation website.

Painting by Rembrandt [Public domain], 'A Hermit Reading (c. 1630) via Wikimedia Commons.