Depth perception

With ten thousand neurons 

in one single suction cup 

on an octopus tentacle,

could even you imagine

what it would feel like

when touching

anything-

each other-

No contact-

like eye contact.

There may be a nest 

of tangled live wires

behind the wall

behind our masks

we are currents

of electricity.

And as the eel shocks every-

thing but itself-

we have so many blind spots 

not baited eye-

spots-as fish-

Don't you wish 

chameleon when needed to be

or to know so much

feeling

with only the lightest touch...

Photo credit: 800px-Octopus_at_Kelly_Tarlton's, October 2012 via Wikimedia Commons in Public Domain. 

The poem

Perched to pounce

on the sheet white page

Ink propels itself

infinite as adrenaline 

from fingertips

feeling for details

Not saying

what was a thought

before

Another word placed

Itself

to getting somewhere closer 

needing a 

tangible witness

to guide.

Painting by August Macke c. 1910, in Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Insufferable

Poems do not feel
anything
Yet they are something that says
with words feel me
If only
there was another poetic way
to speak
to emotion
(in order)
to capture, to convey
What was meant
to be left unsaid
                           Silence
                           is full of
                                  This
                           pulsation
                           felt as a compulsion
                           to give way
                           to gravity
For no sound
reason.



Painting by Wada Eisaku, c. 1926 in the Pola Museum of Art [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Round the bend

At this time
change felt like the fog rolling in
and when driving into the road mirage
and not hitting a thing-

in a blur that stranges the familiar,
stretches out time a little
like a band,
rubber or air-the change

lingered heavier than mist,
more solid than virga,
icy in all the same clear ways that
when you try to cut it out

from what was always
called Now I am-
like routine and rut,
running along the edges fray,
more than decor, drapery, or flax
like flux, anticipated
or a natural change
of season.

It could have been
Only that-

At this time,
comforts naked shoulder
cooled in the exposure,

where same,
felt somehow strange
like never before.





Image credit By U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

A Gentle Hand

Not speaking for other species,
a human being shall not deny
the power of touch, tact-tility.
As in a word, requires the
relinquishing of an invasion of space
for a sense of felicity, in kind

where seeming accidental, more so
gently, intentional, affixed upon
shoulder or thigh, put so adverbial or
propositional, it is
in earnest, rightly so,
it feels heavier than
the application of pressure
or happenstance.

This need to reach out
and grasp toward
this living moment,
or clutch the vibration
that is life, date-stamped
within our fleshy fingertips.
It is compulsatory

that we soon become
etched or embossed with entitlement,
as in adept for survival and
toward those celebrating this.
It was a touching thing it was said,
to feel mankind
using his hands wisely, for once
in this way.





Painting by John William Godward [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Grass blades and power tools

Stood up,
freed our hands
to tool, implement and imply
utility.

Thus, sentenced within predicates
held under knuckled thought,
contortionist
fingers fist in refusal to feel,
with open palms, red
and pointed tactile tips,
being blue,
leads us through rooms, people,
towns, and nightmares,
fumbling for switches

to turn in from out, left from right,
divide man from beast, past from present,
and fulfill this suspicion to see
the last site from its first sound-

With time on our hands
seconds passed.
While waiting,
we outpaced ourselves,
only to find the finish line
lying down.

The race was over
before the dog slithered under
any fence, and the walls caved in.

Too late

to place

bets.




Artwork by Walter Crane, 1909 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. an illustration for the poem The World's Age' by Charles Kingsley and the lines 'Still the race of Hero-spirits/ Pass the lamp from hand to hand;/ Age from age the Words inherits-/ 'Wife, and Child, and Fatherland.

Working up to it

We had hopes

And held on

To air

Imagine this, delicately, with your fingers.

Tell me,

Is your faith strong, rigid, cold?

When we close our eyes, nowadays,

our metronome is muffled with backfire.

It is still

So busy so

We try to think

Optimistic, or up,

But that is not doing

Anything

For lift.

We had work to do, we all knew

Sweat

Yet, we hoped it would all get done.

Painting by Paul Peel [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Worlds apart

You-There

may think

I-Here

pin words in place

For: me

(from: You)

i do

try to feel you

through these lines

a trap, a web, ripples, 

and the butterfly 

admittedly

my soul smiles

when the moon sees us both

on the same side

maybe I'll make a map

wrapped in a legend

a poem dangling on the net

groping for paper

I made a place to meet

Anticipating Always,

You-Here

I-There. 

Image By Kraigsta (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.