Pray, Prey

"Praying is asking; meditation is listening"

At what point-if any-does saintly
become so sacrificial
that death is its ultimate end?

When, if ever, does the heart of an angel,
hit with its own dart,
concede this too
must be divine?

Whence and why does Spirit
move energy so intensely
it reverberates into the material
realm?

Maybe the middle is maddening
to mock me
for the time
I put into making such massive
messes.

I have studied for this test.
All of the questions cannot be known
before-
I have learned
only enough to get by
and yet I try
anyway
I can
to pass-
to move on
to the next question.


Painting by Margaritis Georgios, 'Sappho praying to Aphrodite' before 1843 [Public domain].

Leave a message at the tone

The universe has a way of hearing the things we say,

aloud, Eliot knew this too.

No matter whom we direct it to, sound waves ripple

the atmosphere which hears this 

stretching--of---imagination

into speech tones, a whistle from the kettle of

the thermoshpere or body-cavity.

The rising sound, or the Doppler effect teaches us

the source

is closer than it appears,

-omnidirectionally-

It absorbs  itself and replies

as a twinge, wave or spasm, clenched

in the sinking feeling of a heavy heart

that beats on itself, calling everything an echo

of what was thought, solid enough to move bodies

into empty spaces and fills itself with volume

from heat, or by imagination.

It conceives these shapes and translates them

into words or wishes

which will settle for a collection of particles we

have  heard before

we knew the source. 



Photo By State Library and Archives of Florida (c. 1948), [No restrictions or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Echo-interpretation

Few knew
how little we were
hoping to be noticed

Not that
they wanted more
and less to be seen
here

Some found
they never heard
(of) the likes of you
before

Some sought
outside as outcasts
too frigidly
accommodating

Some stayed
in place and inside
by the fire
alit with artistic rage

Not many
more than we
can handle
touching
poetry
without scalding
the tips

And know
none pine
for ringing cedars, pet rocks
or chop words, but quarry
here
for the echo...


Image of painting By Adolf Mosengel (1837-1885) (Dorotheum) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

The missing lyrics

When I do not say
                           it is not that-
I made this mask
                          this way.
You can see its guts
                         through the eyes...
The cogs and fogs.

When I listen
                         I welcome news
from outside.
To share a smile
                         is a welcome view,
a radiant defiance of conservation.
When I hear
                         music in the mundane,
I take it out
                        of context
and am moved by its song.

When spoken
                        I regret empty words,
that fulfill
                        nothing perfectly.
All the non-existent ways-
                        I said nothing
In so many days-
                        it has all been said.
I am done telling
                         All,
when I do not say.



Image of painting by Vittorio Matteo Corcos (1892), [Public domain] via Wikimedia Commons.

Audio astronomy

The signal came from the southern sky

traveling through pelagic open space,

in intergalactic waters,

way out in the extragalactic sea

where wails with corkscrew tails

sing like wet rings, bottle-tops

humming up a cacophony

politely one point three billion

miles away we heard-

a New drop in Newtons bucket

a ripple we just heard, a chirp,

a slurp of bodily attraction

placed in interactive

angular momentum

just one parsec apart

and the moan, a new word

pronounced audioastronomy

a visual dichotomy

once again,

we were not using our sense(s).

Let's pretend we're dumb

and listen to what space may say

about a billion yesterdays

inaudible ways.

Image By X-ray: NASA/CXC/Curtin University/R. Soria et al., Optical: NASA/STScI/ Middlebury College/F. Winkler et al. [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. 

Description in English: An extraordinary outburst produced by a black hole in a nearby galaxy has provided direct evidence for a population of old, volatile stellar black holes. The discovery, made by astronomers using data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, provides new insight into the nature of a mysterious class of black holes that can produce as much energy in X-rays as a million suns radiate at all wavelengths.

Researchers used Chandra to discover a new ultraluminous X-ray source, or ULX. These objects give off more X-rays than most binary systems, in which a companion star orbits the remains of a collapsed star. These collapsed stars form either a dense core called a neutron star or a black hole. The extra X-ray emission suggests ULXs contain black holes that might be much more massive than the ones found elsewhere in our galaxy.

A paper describing these results will appear in the May 10, 2012, issue of The Astrophysical Journal.

All that you cannot Here

The moment had arrived.
The time was Now.
Eyes squeeze closed,
the trigger was pulled,
the knife broke flesh,
the man awoke in a sweat.
The young woman paces, patting her baby's back,
the baby hurts, nobody knows why.
The homeless one eats steaming bread in the alley smiling,
the dog barks rapidly in anxious fear,
the tiny kitten shivers, hungry and heavy
the car impacts the tree, the glass rains,
the deer scatter,
the mountain lion yawns and stretches out,
the owl daydreams.
The fish choke on fumes,
the bees swarm the carcass,
the malaria army invades the ghost town.
The business man carries confidence in his briefcase, clearly leaking vodka,
the roof leaks into buckets of song.
The sky clears in deaf innately.
The mist makes prisms disband.
The humpbacks pick up the chorus,
the child in pigtails plucks a wild daisy,
the birds steal bloody berries.
The King holds the little prince's hand,
the boy buffs a rock on his shirt for his slingshot,
the hikers reach the mountaintop before the echo,
the historic house collapses,
the family laughs to tears,
the old woman shivers, closing the blinds on her last day.
The man and woman embrace each other.
Eyes fall closed tightly loving
all ways and for ever,
Now,
a quiescence,
a soundlessness found,
any given Time
we are Here to list in.




Image by Anders Zorn, The Embrace c. 1882-83 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

A Sense of Commonality

Curious creatures
born with some sense
an uncommon menagerie

Included in these features
are those special moments
reminded by a stimuli-of the sensory

It's all quite clear-unless it blurs
the gift of gab is worth 2 cents
but for you, my friend, this is free

To taste sour grapes
to hear bitter words
to touch a note
or smell a rat
...feeling beautiful

When something smells fishy
our red flags are raised
whispering intuition

a bit o' Irish Banshee
a taste for success unphased
in a buzzing world of commotion

To know is to see
these senses rapture and amaze
an idea is just a nonsense notion

A pure heart will set you free
thoughts will make you crazed
lost in perpetual motion

seeking truth
hiding from reality
throwing caution to the wind
letting ourselves go
and letting ourselves go...

Let's try to be sensible
subdue this striking sensation
lost in sensitive reflection

Senses good and terrible
heightened by emotion
give us invisible detection (upon closer inspection)

When one is weak the other is able
to take charge and overrun
coming to conclusions

Are there really just these five
to remind us we're alive?
There seems much more we can derive

What about a sense of style?
The tact of a genuine smile
An air of calm, nothing for denial
a sense of humor or beguile
uncommon senses are undeniably worthwhile.


Image By Annie Swynnerton (http://sladept.com/artist/swynnerton) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. "Sense of sight" 1898.