“A poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds.” -Percy Bysshe Shelley
Showing posts with label life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label life. Show all posts
Friday, December 20, 2019
Forgot to tell me
We get just One
-Go
at It,
Oh, and you get less than
10
decades
to try to get better-
Why
tell you Now
to mince words
or splice genes-
I mean,
This is Us,
the One and only
One must focus
on the Prize-
it is wise to use it
All
Now,
I suggest
you rest on those laurels
Later,
when there is Time
that does not matter
or count
Anymore or Less.
I guess
I needed
to read
This
before it slipped my
Mind
for good.
Painting by Karl Bryullov (1755-1852), 'Sventlana at fortune-telling', c. 1836 located in the Nizhny Novrogod State Art Museum in the Public Domain.
Saturday, June 8, 2019
This 1 day, death is not near
It is called a veil
or shroud
for the way it
reveals itself
to be a cover
where the light
gets in
there was space for this
exchange
of dark(ness) and light(ness)
or public and private.
Lifted into a demanding
presence
we find ourselves
lingering
in graveyards
as though this was defiant
or exertion of our will
remaining
from youth.
It is between discrete moments
when the warmth moves through
the atmosphere
sometimes sinking in
while touching us deeply.
Our memories turn to life.
Painting by Miner Kilbourne Kellogg [Public domain].
Sunday, December 16, 2018
Philanthropic to I
There was never enough time
and the anxiety pushes down
regardless of knowing that it is certain
to never be finished.
All of it.
None of it.
How long would we all go on
notching our lives in rectangular weeks,
segments and inclines, corner piles
sidling past
hurdles and ho-humming
thru the week til TGIF
and the recursive sickness of it all
as in another episode, chronic
cases of the Mondays,
if we can only make it
to payday to pay the day
we said we would.
There was no question.
We did and do.
Our lives depended on such
boxing and enumeration.
I figure
if I live to the age of eighty,
I will have a little more than two-
thousand weeks left
total.
And I realize I haven't taken a vacation
in 208 weeks, or four years,
I have accrued comatose
creative inclinations, arthritic
anticipation, or being too busy,
and paid or not
the work wants us
to not take notice of the numbers
always changing around
by only ones
and zeros.
My heart flutters in the rhythm of time
to myself, also frequently attributed to
quality of life, a pursuit of joy, or
volunteer work for the self.
Well, we all know we could never afford
to quit
counting,
adding and subtracting,
projecting and losing
the balance that remains.
Drawing by Louis Leopold Boilly, 'Studies of Hands' Unknown date, located in the Metropolitan Museum of Art [CC0].
Saturday, November 10, 2018
Two sol's
There is an ordinary old man,
I'm certain you must have seen him,
he walks the coastline casually
every morning
just before sunrise.
He wears a safari hat
which hangs on his back
in case he runs late
and the sun beats him home.
He seems retired.
There is a scruffy old man,
you must have noticed him
walking along the coast highway
every evening,
just before the sun sets down
the light for the night.
He wears different clothes
but has not groomed himself
in decades. I wonder
if he sleeps
or is grateful for rest.
Painting by Ester Almqvist, 'The Sawmill, December sun' c. 1914 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
Sunday, November 4, 2018
cardinal points
Death
Being
as Natural
as Life
Why
we made
murder a Sin
and Nudity
a profanity
(poverty a crime
wealth a blessing)
All just
because we are afraid
of Reality
Inevitably
I-denity
we live with
Exposure
made up
with our raw materials
ore
data
and information
easily eroded and likely
to give way
someday, in a word
too large to lie
eyes upon,
too precise to name
with exactitude and
Finality
just As
finis origine pendet.
Artist unknown, c. 1650, Master of the Vanitas Texts [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
Wednesday, October 24, 2018
Timethrift
How do we squander our breath
by counting to ten
or three?
I noticed a boys crown
his head was down
facing his lap, holding a short pencil.
Clearly, he was not writing,
By the way the pencil moved
in random places across the page;
middle, top right, bottom center.
Of course, everyone wanted to see,
even the old lady sitting next to him
who kept adjusting her hair,
her blouse, her scarf
acting uninterested.
He could smell her short
breath, I could see
her check the time.
A waste of time.
Drawing straws.
I was reading,
there was nothing to show
not a figure or shape to be seen
from the words I inhaled,
no crumbs from my feast,
no incensed smoke crept out
of sealed chambers.
I was high-hovering, as clouds do.
I never noticed
how many pages had turned,
how close I was to the end
nor had I kept record
of the miles traveled along
the lines it took
to get in between
here and now.
Painting by Charles Joseph Grips, 'Waiting for a Loved One' c. 1894 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
Friday, March 30, 2018
Line by line
Life unfolds this way,
the face now resembles our grey matter
what is inside comes out.
The clouds will unravel again,
you can hear the wind
moving them along.
I am done
telling others to listen.
I am done
telling others to listen.
Paper, then. My life. Drawn to fire.
All those the people carrying dead burdens
on their cracking lips.
on their cracking lips.
They burned books
into their memories and cauterized the wounds
into their memories and cauterized the wounds
with chanting and invocations
shaped to sound like smoke rings
they read the signs.
As with people and colors
they gather but do not become,
one another,
as with clouds, the heaviest fall
and we say we needed rain.
they gather but do not become,
one another,
as with clouds, the heaviest fall
and we say we needed rain.
In these conditions
the symbols bleed together
and it is red
Open.
Painting by Emile Claus, c. 1898, 'Ampelio, old fisherman of Bordighera', in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
Open.
Painting by Emile Claus, c. 1898, 'Ampelio, old fisherman of Bordighera', in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
Tuesday, February 27, 2018
Thor's day
Lightning likes it when we reach up to touch the sky.
And, grounded as we are
lucky in keeping our electricity contained
and kept a safe distance from the epicenter or eye
Painting by MÃ¥rten Eskil Winge (1825-1896), 'Thor's Battle' in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
It is miraculous we survive, sometimes, like a flash-
in the way that it is so unexpected, sudden
and unbelievable-until it occurs to you.
Miraculum, as in the object of wonder.
It happened to me on a Thursday in February,
just past the noon hour.
I was punched in the chest-
windswept out with words-choking on this
wonder-full revelation.
Desperately I tried to grasp my breath
midair and stuff it back in where it stings
and has been so hollow
and in wrestling with this
it may have sounded like crying or rain.
But the dam lids overflowed
and I struggled to compose a normal sound
while my son grabs a beverage from the fridge behind me,
I exhale-steadily
as if blowing out a wish.
It was a video I was supposed to watch, assigned, as in destiny.
The woman spoke of her life, nothing like mine.
Then she spoke of suicide and asked why, why, why-
she was not asking for forgiveness.
She traded her story with a Buddhist,
the words he chose to frame her parable were:
"You chose Them", I coughed, she repeated, “you Chose them.”
The accusation blinding, hence the tears we blinked back.
It changes Here.
Where things are twisted
around &
you break the descending karmic chain
and begin Free fall.
and begin Free fall.
This is when my heart plummeted like lead into my pelvis,
my rib cage closed, and I gasped one last deep breath
before being born once again
on a Thursday in February.
“This is the miracle that happens every tie to those who really love: the more they give, the more they possess.”
-Rainer Maria Rilke
“Everybody holds the possibility of a miracle.”
-Elizabeth David
“I’ve never seen a greater monster or miracle than myself.”
-Michel de Maontaigne
Painting by MÃ¥rten Eskil Winge (1825-1896), 'Thor's Battle' in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
Wednesday, February 21, 2018
Currency calculator
I worry when we need milk
and wonder where the daily bread will come from.
Too many survive famine.
Too many survive famine.
Child support is over a week late.
The Department holds the money it collects from others,
on behalf of others, extra days,
The Department holds the money it collects from others,
on behalf of others, extra days,
in an interest-bearing account.
The Department makes more money
that way, it adds up in
arrears and years that cannot be spent
growing and splitting heirs.
The Department makes more money
that way, it adds up in
arrears and years that cannot be spent
growing and splitting heirs.
The college decisions are coming in.
We all wonder where this will take us.
We need to pick a meal plan. She will not starve,
she hopes-
they better have good coffee.
she hopes-
they better have good coffee.
While driving to take the truck in for an unknown repair,
the sky held up its coolest winter blue,
the air was crisp like minted dollars,
the air was crisp like minted dollars,
and I could not take my eyes off the sky
while riding home.
while riding home.
It said everything.
And utterly cloudless,
when I spy a shuttlecock of white, like a flash, in contrast to the blues,
when I spy a shuttlecock of white, like a flash, in contrast to the blues,
I watched this meteoric figure against the broad daylight
falling, fading, falling,
and finally, disappearing into the sky,
it all sunk in.
falling, fading, falling,
and finally, disappearing into the sky,
it all sunk in.
Like small talk, no granular attention is paid.
Burned up. I am broke anyway.
Burned up. I am broke anyway.
Just like today. This week, I am weaker
than gravity.
Lighter with empty pockets and incinerating
into nothing,
but solid air pumping in and out of the chest
than gravity.
Lighter with empty pockets and incinerating
into nothing,
but solid air pumping in and out of the chest
like fire and ice,
all the elements are there and it is enough
all the elements are there and it is enough
for a poem.
Photo credit By Clivelindsay at English Wikipedia, 'Comet McNaught with moon setting over the sea' [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
Sunday, December 3, 2017
What is:Mine
Ashen sky, late hour
we embers smolder low red
settled in the coal.
Painting by Frank Bramley, 'A Hopeless Dawn' 1888 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
Thursday, October 26, 2017
Bare Essentialism
When we speak of
Ars Moriendi
You and I are finally getting somewhere,
beautiful.
When the Poet dies-finally-
The poem is freed.
The libertine line advances
meaning, perspective.
Morals are not the main characters,
plot is where we were going,
a scene made, is setting,
is a container, set and broken down,
a frame to hold all the pieces
to gather in one assemblage
and enable anyone to walk around.
Implicating exclusion by category, genre,
red and not read,
unbounded through decohesion,
letting leaves fly-
Well
we must determine-
To finish or decompose.
After all This
Art is all that remains after speech,
after thought, in memoriam,
the pictures point and the words paint
only where there is
Life.
We recognize these reflections
and find them beautiful.
Painting by William Orpen, Reflection in mirror c. 1917 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
Thursday, June 8, 2017
Give & Take
strikes me as superfluous
Beauty.
Look around;
Light, colors, temperature,
and patterns too ornate
to recreate by free hand. Living proof.
I take it in too deep, bury stars under dust
And as ugly as I try
a mote may hope
to grow out of it.
Illustration from Patrick Moore's Watcher of the Stars in 16th century[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
Illustration from Patrick Moore's Watcher of the Stars in 16th century[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
Tuesday, August 16, 2016
Pro-Me-The-Us
Smoldering is the only thing I can do for me.
The pungent sulphur of hurt flesh
waits to be sucked in.
The mind wanders as the only means of escape.
Don't bother counting loses like sheep.
All that matters
rebuilds itself in scar and calcium.
Atomically interested in erector sets,
likeness, hinged on proteins
means this attraction
is greater than one.
The smoke signal I sent
lays low, lingers spinning rings faintly
into heat haze.
I have become consumed in the carbon blaze.
Energy spent as a violent commodity, Life.
Yet by now the fire is finally dying
and yet sparks may remain if latent,
nameless and noxious,
potentially smothered by this body.
None will re-ember
the dank smell
of arson
on your soul.
Although
just about
anyone will warm their hands
over hot coals.
Painting by Hubert Maurer, c. 18th century [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
Thursday, February 25, 2016
Stairwell
Heavy were my legs
and blistered were my souls
as I climbed
dropping stones and sweat
as I went.
An ascent, the carrot grew
sweetly downward
in your striking light
I rose to the events
put in my path.
Sequentially steeper
pushing me down
the air thins
and blood chills
glimpses in steam.
Packed and thrown
the key, precious ego sinks
reaping its slaughtered pleasures
deflowered by appetite
famished and sated.
Starvation and salvation
the lighter the load
only to reach
destiny's plateau
wilted and near weary.
Well, I didn't know
as good as it gets
is nowhere near Yet
Grace has wings
on Time she flies
passively Bye.
Image by Caspar David Friedrich [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons, Owl on grave c. 1836.
Friday, July 31, 2015
From Wails to the Shuddering Sea
When I wonder
do we first think
we Are
welcome to the world?
From the abyss
of a watery womb
we hear
outside
of Us
we know
when words fail
we wail
upon arrival
into blinding light
from maternal night
Immobile and trapped
in our scaly shells
worn by the tides
we call Time
we wither
from glass to grain
too small to complain
anymore
utter
nonsense
We forget
Shards and slices
pieces of Us
that cut to the race
humanity
drops of sea
expire We
at the finish line
of memory
shuddering
blindly
in our final victory
drowned
in revelry.
Image By Koga Harue, Koga Harue, 1929 (died in 1933) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
Saturday, March 14, 2015
Girls go to Mars
I need not see to believe-
this presence of Ganymede.
We were led to learn,
our blue planet Earth-
was alone soaking in saltwater.
But you showed yourself-
Ganymede.
I rose early too, like those stargazers,
eager to see what they wanted us to believe
was a Blood Moon-
but she was just blushing,
rosy from her fullness.
Like Eos at Dawn,
there you were again,
in the company of dead poets,
attending the school of contemplation.
Rising first, in rings around dreams,
taking lullaby swings, at gravity-
Who thinks nobody is looking-
thirsting for Truth.
Fixing the future, diving into their divinity,
stuck swimming in the stars;
unable to reconcile, to beguile or even manage
a simple smile to reconcile but choose denial,
Ganymede.
this presence of Ganymede.
We were led to learn,
our blue planet Earth-
was alone soaking in saltwater.
But you showed yourself-
Ganymede.
I rose early too, like those stargazers,
eager to see what they wanted us to believe
was a Blood Moon-
but she was just blushing,
rosy from her fullness.
Like Eos at Dawn,
there you were again,
in the company of dead poets,
attending the school of contemplation.
Rising first, in rings around dreams,
taking lullaby swings, at gravity-
Who thinks nobody is looking-
thirsting for Truth.
Fixing the future, diving into their divinity,
stuck swimming in the stars;
unable to reconcile, to beguile or even manage
a simple smile to reconcile but choose denial,
Ganymede.
This galactic, Earth-shattering news about Jupiter
Intro-speculative chattering, simply makes me feel stupider
Composed 3/14/15.
Image By NASA/JPL (Ganymede's Trailing Hemisphere) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
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