Asylum

Two-too
Clean and sterile-
eyes-
cataract and contract,
sting with bitter solutions.

Brain washed, scrubbed free
of build-up, calcification of old deposits-
there grows lye.

In the right conditions,
isolation is cleansing
by promise of reward,
acidic seconds feel like
first wounds and kisses.

In doctrinated, what grows
in sand and silt,
by narrow slit or gill
does any thing survive?

I listen as hard as I can strain
the tiny hairs,
metal and maddening stone,
there is no voice or moan outside.

Whispers cannot be made
out or in complete
thoughts shift weight,
in a pendulum.
Hearts of palms, beastly as apes
beat their fanned fronds
in the autumn air.

An oasis sits and steams
with life, preserved in pits
outside these pillowed walls

pane-less as this space is.



Artwork by Austin Osman Spare [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. 

A Lee alee

The moan returned, and it always came at precisely the wrong time. 

In these conditions, concentration pulls away and tapered focus spreads

its photons in flooding streams of white thought.

The wind knows this and is relentless, always. Careless 

to human needs for calm and order, real food and clean water, it blows- 

every which away.

The rising whine coming in all corners should have reminded us, nothing

is sealed completely. Same never remains cremated-

change or would be by the same name. Ashes. Should anyone notice. 

It is justified, to claim not to hear, to feel no steam rise, to believe 

this arrangement is permanent or static. Hope is clean energy.

Electricity is not a friend.

Dear me. It could never end. A break, a breath, and shriek, 

its thick harmonic resonance extending its reach in waves. 

The breeze dances its heart out down in the valley. 

It will twirl itself out haphazardly and we will see 

no steps in the routine. This storm was not predicted. 

Every light word goes out the window. 

The pain sank through.

Painting by Jerônimo José Telles Júnior [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Vapors and Vice

The hole in the ozone is still there.

Scientists are scratching their heads,

growing again.

It never changed our view anyway.

We caught no breeze, the barometer hovered

as it had, the particulars were all accounted for.

This is us, inside

a paneless window that doesn’t divide

out and in and even

if we were told an escape hatch had been made

none would climb up and peak,

resisting gravity

for a chance at Vertigo.

We have proven with balloons and bubbles

so much depends upon a human to wield his barrow,

display his collections,

vend his hot wares and drop his cool coins

in finite jest.

Planes and boats, both heavier than conscience

will float, but we must hold our breath.

Balls drop the same, roughly we round up

all the probabilities

and project our tiny lights towards metaphors of

eternally, outside of the time.

Separating by degree

and elevation, those that climb the walls

and those that sink their souls

in the sand, focused on forever

slipping away,

while worried about the whole.


This image or media file contains material based on a work of a National Park Service employee, created as part of that person's official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, such work is in the public domain.

A lady makes lace

A fistful from elsewhere

Punches back in brass-ware-bare-

knuckles wedged in the apex of this-
body

cage thatched walls, splintering straws

called shelter and In-side to pro-tect this

(hide).

Half dives of full lung, skimming the top ten percent

and heart labors with lead levers, knobbiness is us put out

subwoofer, speaks her dropping a guillotine beat tapped
feet.

Shine, reflective knowing rust by blood

does not make it more occidental
or evident.

Voluminous was in front of us.
Luminous. Seethe and simmering. Conduct thyself.

It meant we were alchemy in the ancient light and cubed to

feeling how close we must be-coming-a but-ajar-
collided with vaporous transitions in space-not
now.

Inevitable and deaf,
truths collide and cling on crystalline charities,
pyramids and Euclid's. 

Insoluble, diluted, inconsolable.

I heave recycled the air, carbon copies fuse for our survival

fitting with such suffocation as we wear with elephantine
authority sans sin-cerity on extended vocation, retied without
social security
which

never Was
you are welcome.



Painting by J. Alden Weir [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

inner child

My body disrupts this empty room.

Thoughts are just whispers

but move matters around.

Inside voices, 

no need to interrupt

by asking

Nobody was home.

Woman at the Piano (1889, oil on wood panel, 26.0 x 13.1 cm) by Tom Roberts (1856–1931).

The painting is in the collection of the Art Gallery of South Australia.

Keeping it Inside Out (There)

Between you and I
secrets
Yes
You've seen parts
none cared
for, but me.

You see,
remember that time
you knew
I was lying
or the time
you knew truth
was hiding right there
and both times
you thought,
why not?

Or of a poet-
that needs words
that hold places for
secrets
that are not known
but shown
anyway...
In between
poetry shared
somewhere
someone
else may
someday
care
and keep
secrets 
with me.




Image by Julia Margaret Cameron [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Spin

According to the variables,
the rules were elongated.
Black time flowed fast
on an interrupted smooth plane.
There were too many similar pieces
in play and the moved spaces
never progressed wayward
along the spherical borderline
overlapping soul and self,
Venn inside, categorically
trapped, unable to trace the way
to break the line that labels, rates
and places apart flat out
otherness, the other coin side
limited by a the double dimension
of peopled perception, angle of the arc
along the rim of the never ending
line that flows back into itself.
It's your turn to spin.