Pinned down

 

...perception is us

not manifest

destiny or dream

boards and images

attached.

Artwork by Anonymous Unknown author, 18th century, in Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

I see you

Standing outside

Myself

lately, recognizing

point of view

can only be one at a time

I'm in shock, some suggest, surreal, soberly,

listening too much watching

another image 

Of I-not noticing

She is seen. 

Startling

fear of beginnings

bearing endings 

there can be no time

to reflect. 

Painting by Grigory Soroka, 'Reflection in the mirror'c. 1850 in Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Continuities

Please consider this
an invitation for you
to take a small step
with me
here

into a warm pool
of self-reflection
with its coincidences
and resemblances
to the things we
can touch
that may also touch us back

for the same reason
or terrify
by
sheer proximity of skin.

It feels blurry when fully
immersed
here
because this liquid is so much
thicker than blood,

immortal and color-less
in order
to not conceal its particulates
as deposited into your banks
of experience.

It all comes together
like light,
gravity, family and an image,
for a moment.

This shape
water takes
the pathways
as they mimic the way of wind
taking the open path
along, long, way around
an obstacle that doubled
itself as a ladder.

Without braces and right angles,
there are no straight lines or perfect circles
to be found or measured
here.

We may picture
perfection but cannot describe
or swallow it without losing
our senses
of things.

In between
breaks of concentration
the glass spiders
but it is held together
in its frame

since there was no place
to remain
the same
as the way we found.

Let us both observe
how much further,
the way you have held yourself back,
the way you left yourself
so easily open to suggestions
such as novelties as in
the word and first-mover
who made us-

stand up
while the mirror-image stayed
observant and seated
in place.

See,
that was not you
there
sinking in,
drinking in, thinking in
collected bodies capable
of lucid dreaming
without ever remembering
if we should have
broken the surface.




Photo credited by Jon Sullivan, 'Ashes on the Reflecting Pool' dated February 2013. 

An Art a part

On PBS the show "Civilization(s)" or some such name,
chronicals the human
                                 
                                 amongst humanity.

In a sense, the dawn of man
thru the hours
to the twilight of Idols.

                                         The
                                  form of self
                            fashioned by and from
                   some self-wanting to express
                                self by making
                                  another self.

Michelangelo famously pardoned his images
(from exile on the mountain),
like Capone on Alcatraz (the Rock)

-sharpness being no more requisite of tooling
than persistence in method(ology).

I doubt they knew
                     who was waiting on the other side. The face emerges
masked in fine dust.
It is a face of surprise
that does not expect
the stranger standing
                                 before Him.

The idea came to me-I did not go to it
                                 and yet
the unexpected visitor
leads the way
                                 by blocking the wrong path-
ways, giving way
to avalanches and mudslides and this (re)arrangement
was an expression                               of liberation
                                from the body.

Water will
evaporate eventually,
the granite
breaks
down
its crystal components.

The two cannot compare

Maker and Made.



 Painting by Lovis Corinth, c. 1904 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Explain yourself

The words were all too long,
became easily tangled and how I kept
pulling at what I thought was an end,
pulling, pulling, pulling, and
thereby taking too much
out of me
the body became barren.

What was understood as a major shift
of power, in direction or by time constraints,
was the anticipated and alternating current
as in that way
opposition acts by force.
Listen, it was my fate,
or decision
to do or not to do.

Small acts, even one
may be a miracle,
after all
this, one thought, one
surviving-

the risks were all there, caution was
issued too. Accuse, dismiss and relish
the sound of ones voice,
and how it comes out, represents
the avatar or holographic image
taken at the ideal angle
or time.

We were all Free
to walk around and not utter a word,
or like me, never give thoughts away with
dignity,
to light, to mind, to mouth, to hand
and inevitably, words were dying.
The Words
were writhing and gasping for shape,
despite the hand that rushed
along-

Definitions, unlike synonyms
carry want and need, unable to
extract and dilute the difference
between
I am and I was.


Painting By Yamashita Shintarō (29 August 1881 to 11 April 1966) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Clean sheets

The poem stared back
at the two pleading eyes

saying nothing
about white or black

nor was any indication given
as to where a poet

should set up thoughts
for the night

with rigging and taut lines
for a reader to traverse across

in high winds
and find their own

-balance-

if the stanza is strong enough
to support mass tourism

and photography.

If you look long enough
or blur your eyes

an Image develops,
what comes through

was over-exposed, covered
with a starch of pareidolia

it was still safe enough
to be considered
shelter.






Painting by Désiré François Laugée [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Visit with a vampire

Open and wide, not quite terrified,

cobalt and steel too delicate to coin those piercing eyes.

She knows secrets-not yours of course.

She feels fear-for someone.

It seems the light falls softer after all these years,

or forgiveness just called up from the understudy.

These days, I find myself liking the girl with the smallest lips,

more and more,

precise instead of narrow, these days

she has changed, but those wisps of lips remain

barely red and sealed.

Most days she irritates me-lividly.

Those same two snapped purse lips in pink

never bold enough to communicate, much less 

accentuate or attract attention, pathetic and meek.

All of the time I am reminded they are enough

to say too much, and though never again,

I say again, and again I will pause-at my reflection. 

Photo By Unknown (Life time)-First Selfie? 
The original uploader was Tsukiakari at English Wikipedia. [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Fragmentary figures

crystal eyes

Dis guys

thin and Lethe

soak and sponge

pour us

poor us

more

moor

aqua vita

vita nuova

amor fati

mere our

mirror

image 

Imagine

Imagine

image

mirror

mere our

amor fati

vita nuova

moor

more

poor us

pour us

soak and sponge

thin and Lethe

Dis guys

crystal eyes.

Image of painting by Paul Klee [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons, Crystal Gradation, 1921.

Versmilitude

I have 3,463 reasons
to hate me
as seen through the spectacled
looking glass
learning pupils of others eyes
believing in
All truth be told

From inside the fishbowl
a ripple effect goes nowhere
waves of distortion
roll by in wakes
blown out of proportion

To see is to know
What you Do shows
I suppose
better than what you Are...
barely there
thin as a rail
hardly frail
by contrast
and that pale glow
(if you would like to know)
ghostly ashen skin
is not so thin.

Deemed some dame or debutante
with nothing to flaunt
talent, imbalance,
withstanding-
Despite the empathetic understanding
I squeezed into the mold
(as I was told)
now my metallic blood runs steely cold.

I tremble
at your thoughts of me
and the terrible what nots you see
that I cannot spot
any resemblances.

A two-way mirror
absorbs one reflection
shattering a reality
piercing in severe observation
a practice in futility
noticing the nothings
lacking depth perception
merely a dimension of what
you thought you saw
was me
was you too.



Image Guillaume Bodinier [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. (Confession c. 1826).