Terminal Velocity

The blur through a window

from a moving train-

Escape is jumping

Off-another adventure

The temptation to forget

Your given name-

Every thing is new

Once

Or more, 

how many places and things

to see

versions of yourself

Landing 

Through the pane.

Painting by Eva Stort, Deutsch: Blick aus dem Fenster (Schöneberg). Signiert. Datiert 1890' in Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Duck, duck, & Goose

I see you ducking & hiding

as if this could keep you safe

of course, most enjoy a good game

of hide & seek-

except when there is no-

body looking

for you

the pain sets in,

nesting in the corners

where you have stashed secrets.

Fleeing from danger

is both fight & flight

instead of planting ones

self in the belief of growth & resilience

where you are

is never where you choose to be

there is disregard

for the hidden

wanting to be found

under a shroud of a woven

textiles you gathered,

that felt like encryption,

yet your secrets strobe across

all of our four heads

illuminating the dark valleys

spreading across your scape. 

Painting by Carel Fabritius, 'Hera hiding during the battle between the gods and the giants' c. 1643 in [Public domain].

a disenchantment of nearsightedness

We searched
each other.
Diving in
with our whole soul,
unafraid of the brackish waters,
darkness, mirth or depth
of each other's eyes

Seeking what we had
lost, once had, where did
we put it, over there, outside,
ourselves, and with the things
that keep us
apart,

Spinning wheels in alternating
rotations, going nowhere fast,
or beating our chests like hearts
and pinching nerves to make a
sound come out...

Oh No.
There were so many ways to say,
I see where you are going,
you are getting smaller
as you travel
away.


Painting by Lionel Constable c. between 1849-55, Yale Center for British Art [Public domain].

Fertilizer

I distinctly remember
being told
when I was very small,
the plants and leaves,
of course flowers too,
but branches like
to be touched,
it moved me.

I wanted to spot
the stem bending toward the
rising sun,
I wanted to
believe

all things would benefit
from this sleight of hand,
a touching moment
or the gift
of genuine introduction
to irradiating warmth.



Painting by Grigoriy Myasoedov, 'Forest Spring' c. 1890, in the Public Domain.  

The mouth heals fast

Tongue is too fat
to speak-
not because I bit it,
when I should have
known thy musclar
self-well-enough-
when I should have
known well enough
to shut up.
It is still swelling-
pride protrudes itself,
a warning-

NEVER
put that in a poem.

And Do Not Step on the grass
while seeds sit on top, germinating
like a poem. Too much
disruption
dislodges
any potential root
formation.

It is best not to flex with words
or assign metaphor more meaning
than conceivable
or suffer the stretch.

Here the open gash pushes
the inside out-
hypersensitive to air, this is where
salt heals,
and the best solution
showed its work,
long-hand,
ones carried
over the columned
poem.


Painting by Jules Breton [Public domain], 'The wounded Seagull' 1878 via Wikimedia Commons.

Does a body good

I was not born a child.

Strange. I was allergic to all milk.
I was openly resented for this
Growing up.
My bones are stronger for this.
Never broken one.
I don’t drink it.

I was raised as an orphan in my family.

I was taken in, hosted, taunted and cast out.
I was not like any other. I was an only child,
a broken mold.

Bearing no resemblance. A reassurance,
that nothing contagious was mixed in the kool-aid.

I was ugly, I was sexy, I was young, I was powerful,
I was smarter than most, I was curious and sensitive
I was giving and giving and gave it all away.

I lied. I faked it. I made and lost it.

I was nothing until I redeemed what
I was worth and after taxes,
it was not equitable to fulfilled.

Half-full and half-cocked.

This fair skin is not thin.
I have grown vicious through exposure
and ferment my sugars.

I have soured and forgotten too often
before I remember, I am

Lactose intolerant and hormone infected.

(But as far as childhood dreams go-
I do like the new milk commercial on TV).



Painting by Harold Gilman, 1918 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Season-ings

To witness growth
one must take a step back
but not remove themselves
from speculation,
change, like belief and bubbles
alter in temperature and light.

As the gardener cannot see his progress
the bloom feels its way,
leaning on its stem,
aiming was its own reward.

Mothers are often blinded
by this slim proximity
notice the pulling chord
that is heard as heartstrings
plucked.

She knows all things grow over night,
the young years thunder on tired legs,
over time, the smell of blooms and bodies
become intoxicating,
telling.

It felt like Summer,
it was Spring by morning.
the light rushed in
ahead of the sweeping breeze,
but we knew it was coming,
we smelled the way
things change.


Painting by Frédéric Bazille [Public domain], c. 1866-67 via Wikimedia Commons.

Growth

The poet steps away from the poem(s)
but feels
the groundwater trickle
nourishing the green.




Painting By Fyodor Vasilyev (1850—1873) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Saplings

Not a lack of empathy could turn us-

or the inability to love the ‘other’-
rationally,

we small rats.
It separates us.
A green miasma seeping up

from the loamy soil.
Familiar, like family, the smell of our
(grand) Father.
Toes curl and cringe and yet

we knew all about decomposition,

slanging dirt on white walls,
shit that flies and flows downhill.

We recognize, collectively
all information is absorbed,
the leaves in turn
throw shade.

Dark times don't always dictate
a Virgil. This time,
we were early.

It only takes a conceit to break
sacred ground.

All this diurnal mist adds up
and seeps in-
to crystal beads made for
costume jewellery
to be strung across
the sky.

There were stars
where pupils should be.

Scurrying mice and men gather

blind,
feeling their way away
from a threat that smelt like a fresh
grave.
All information is recreated
to be fertile today.

It stinks making fresh air.

Painting by Tom Roberts [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Growing pains

Something happened
he said
but wouldn't say more,
and he changed.

Something just clicked,
she said, at that age
she guessed
but couldn't say what.

Something felt different,
like stepping into the wrong shoe
but I couldn't tell what-
It was
(left or right).

Painting by Thomas Eakins [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

More Lore

Her fingers finally feel longer to her.
The ears and nose never stop growing.
Her feet are done.
Her brother, here first, walked and drove
at his own pace and patience grew taller.
Sprouting new grey hairs that draw silver lines
over peach fuzz, made coarseness more reflective
and full and great amens.

There are no coincidences in story.
The ending we will never read.
Ends meet and repeat.
One of a kind assumes kind came first.
Always out of touch with clouds that contain
snowflakes, we thought we could melt together.
Instead we end up in grey
lines of silver and touching someone with story.


Artwork by Pietro da Cortona, c. 1632-1639, in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

A handle on things

Of course her hands would eventually

Change, I accept the adaptation

And know I must let go of the little one.

Trading the paper and the pencil, manual

We labor, we trade and I watch

The same ring on me, though this one

Is rose gold-

And I cannot demagnetize my eyes or

tear them away from her new woman hands.

It is

The way she holds the pencil

The way she hovers over the white page

The way she hopes it will be good

I am confident

She is in good hands. 


Painting by Marie Bashkirtseff (1881) in [Public domain, Public domain or CC0], via Wikimedia Commons.

Synthesis

Two saplings sprang up
simultaneously
on the top of the Eagles Eye ridge line

Each grew taller from the others gentle support
alee with privacy shade,
goading each other on
lush in envy green

It did not take long before you could see
distinct personalities budding
from these two trees
with respect for the space they shared
not thier roots, but in between
branches as arms with finger
leaves and sparsely
touching

By now, from far away some say
even today-you can see how they've grown
apart
reaching for different light.


Image by Asher Brown Durand, Nature Study Trees Newburgh, New York, 1849 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Me, me, me, me

Is it fair to wonder
when I can be the me
I see,
when I think of who
I want to be-
come from where I stand
now-
it looks far as never
and if I am ever as close
as I am now,
I wonder if I will notice
the fair resemblance
to my former self-
or will I wish
to go on
wondering who
the next me will be?



Image of painting by Léon Perrault, c. 1868 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.