Showing posts with label memory. Show all posts
Showing posts with label memory. Show all posts

Sunday, September 15, 2024

Divisible



Blessed are thee

memories

chosen to be forgotten

dissolved into distant haze.


Cherished are those

brilliant first rays

alighting the new path

of unknowns.


In the sky

and in the sea,

the clouds and waves

do not recall those passed.


Likewise, made of the same,

and never the same

You and I

remember-


Painting by Henry Scott Tuke, 'Looking out to sea' c. 1885 in Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Sunday, August 4, 2024

Blinking




Every new day-

recovered mind,

rested eyes,


pocket moments

pulled out-

placed under the tongue.


Bitter-sweet

and so savory-

a memory can be...


Distant clouds 

of dreams, residues

shade daylight hues.


But atmosphere

absorbed after

sublimation and slumber


is re-minding 

Oneself

of one's self.


At least as far

as reflections like these

appear to Be. 


Painting by James McNeill Whistler - 'Resting in Bed', c.1883-1884, via Wikimedia Commons in Public Domain. 

Sunday, May 26, 2024

Morsels of moments





We can't go back, pick up, pieces

Anymore

Than we can jump ahead 

To when we

Were nowhere

Together.


It was just right

After I left

A landing, a ledge

Caught me 

You fell past me

In a dream

Blood-stained hands


Grasping.

There was a river.

The sound conjures the divide

How it carries those times

And places

Elsewhere.

You got carried away

I took another way


Anyone's guess


To the sea, 

ultimately


Never again

One 

and the same.


Painting by David Cox -' On the Conway River, North Wales' - Google Art Project, date unknown in Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons. .

Sunday, October 22, 2023

Written in stone



All in 

One moment

I understood the

Buddha's parable about walking

with a stone in your shoe-.

I suddenly knew

It could happen to anyone

Anytime 

and after inspecting the painful

if minuscule annoyance

I found the stone

Made of calcified fragments, merely

Memories compressed and pushed out

like bone spurs sloughed off 

and re-attached to thought

Like a tumor.

Every step, someone else's shoes -

That was

Us

Now all that is left

is the loose stone

from the right shoe. 


Painting by Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919), 'Woman tying her shoe' in Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Saturday, September 7, 2019

Run-on sentences



Keep reading as if the book
were a bible-
Take it with you,
I plea-
You can fit in
a few new affirmations
now and then-
Other currency
is needed
to retain
value.

I beg you
to commit
to memory
the lines,
(psalms)
that will save you
from having to make
up endings.




Artwork credited by William Etty, in National Gallery of Art [CC0], Public Domain.

Wednesday, September 4, 2019

Three bars


ATTN: s p a n s
have shrunk.

Our opposable thumbs bent back-
ward devolving in
QWERTY
case(s).

Connections are compared to signal strength,
the invisible lines we weave like webs
entangle everyone where wifi may be free-
for all-(paying) Customers-
staying safely inside
the gridlines.

Tipping is no longer
an indication of gratitude
for the service provided by a server.

There are no more bag people.
Paper or plastic?
Paper breaks down
into change.

The chip
did not deter identity theft.
The chip finds lost pets.
Everyone wants someone else's
wallet, until one realizes
'we carry no cash'.
Everyone wants a companion,
that doesn't care how much money
they have or owe.

Listen,
everybody is-
interested
in selling
you (on)
their junk (bonds).

See,
everyone is watching
your feed,
none are buying
your story.

Freedom fighters are all
chained to their cause,
the wealthy
are anchored by money
and the drifting souls drown in a sea
of selfies, imaginary images
of the good side
alone.

A lone observer
does not participate
in-
justice
spread
faster than 4G 5G.

New message Alert!
Precedence over Presence,
interruptions are multi-
tasking opportunities.

Our memory
re-written for the best utilization
of available space.

We should be doing something
(more),
we should go,
we should have gone,
we should be
(more)
(there)-
I swear
to never regret
intentionally doing nothing
for nobody but me.
We should turn off our location and reach further
blindly feeling our way around this life
we hold in the palms of our crooked hands,
rather than simply progress
across the monkey
bars
just to reach the other side
for fun.




Image of Radio tower, Boston College c. 1920, Internet Archive Book Images [No restrictions].

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].

Friday, September 14, 2018

Blind i


Losing one's eyesight is the prelude to
insanity,
indirectly.
The words lie there, lined and
blocked,
and the Brain knows what to do,
but can no longer sharpen
the peripheral
imagery with ease.
Poor lighting perhaps
not more than denial
that it was all a blur.

My grandfather had Alzheimer's,
I used to think it was called 'Old Timers'.
My grandmother got glaucoma,
we don't know when it started,
nevertheless
we never saw each other's point of view.
Makes me wonder which is worse...
I think up and makeup
for fading memories, visions,
and finally, recall, I remember
what I came here to say-I now see
Time erases All



Image credit By Internet Archive Book Images [No restrictions], via Wikimedia Commons.

Friday, August 31, 2018

Marker


It occurs to me that a threshold
is essential for crossing over

leaving one place, entering another.

A transference or transcendence
if done intentionally

the past stays outside.

It occurs to me rather suddenly,
despite making plans and beds,

tucking corners and ducking blows,

this was all about some body, 
a place to rest

and what to do with what remains.

I have reconsidered 
that it may be the most selfless thing

to be buried in a plot, or swallowed by a sinkhole, 
instead of scattered

to sea, disbursed widely

without
a mark(er), a fold or ripple,

a place
where others can go
to meet with Memory.

This is the last thing I can do

for those whom I held the door for,
for those that may be missing and seeking

my presence-

No body
needed more than a place to rest. 



Painting By John Singer Sargent [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons, 'Open Doorway, Morroco, c 1879.


Saturday, February 10, 2018

The storm has come to pass


We didn't have any pictures, she told me.
My mother said the only thing we had from him
was the toy chest he made that we kept inside my closet,
the one I used to climb in.

I'd hide in the darkness, inside the closet, inside the chest-
and I tried to believe, maybe it was all about him.

My mother has many pictures from when I was little
of my step-father's rock-and-roll band. He played guitar.
And in those old photos, there in the middle of the bass drum,
where the pillow for practice goes,
you see there is a little curled up body,

unmistakably my own.
Even long after I've long outgrown these small spaces,
I can remember feeling this heartbeat
like my own-

And I recognized, it was not about him either.
There were pictures.
She lied-plain and simply-I found-
I liked to hide
myself too.

And I can still distinctly recall feeling the floods
of darkness and thunder washing over me,
but there were no pictures of this I could find.

My mother would remind me,
not of myself.

Blonde and radiant, back then
she was more like the sun,
and likewise, one learns
too much exposure can lead to cancer.

It is the smell of rain that takes me back, the storm
that delivers these dank reminiscences,
dropping memory all over me
wet and vivid, here and now.

And under this heavily cloaked night, the sky hangs
starless and preoccupied with pushing clouds around,
building up pressure and waving flags,
whereby I cannot help but find that I share
a stark resemblance
to thin air.




Photo By Adolf Zika (Adolf Zika´s archive) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

Thursday, October 26, 2017

Sensual segments


The lotion in the squeeze tube
intended
to protect this crumpled 
and creased rice paper skin,
carries a strong scent, evocative
of all the horses I once knew.

The big baby boy finally comes along,
appearing one month old
already.

Somedays, like other times,
Her voice soothes
but most often it seethes
something in me.

Crap-
that coyote in a boat scared me!
the visitor exclaims-
pointing to a small hanging sculpture
Of a baby fox sleeping soundly in a hammock.

I knew it, but did not say anything
This time
it would be easier this way...

The numbers man heard poetry
at night.
It scared him. 
This time
he stood too close
to the source.
Contagion is terrifying.

Warm spreading in back of the head,
happens with Prozac
and Jazz musicians,
I have been told.
It may spread further
than just here.

As we were like this
One time
found in familiar fragments

of others, 
clarity comes to the assembly
in single file lines. 





Image credit By Clyde Waddell, American GI's at a bookstall in Calcutta, 1945' in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Photographic Memory

There was evidence.
Documents that document what was evident then,
for now.
The documents were both rare
and fragile.

Some small rectangles, windows of film
frothing with substance, like acids and bases
jaundiced or molded and shriveled.
At times only the negatives
remained. No resemblance.

It is hard to see the value of any one.
when every person is packing clouds
with images.
Transitive types still holographic despite
imaginary inks and multiversions,
a.k.a. avatars, space holders, facetime-streaming
proof-until Poof!

What memory?
There is no evidence.

We were not there. 



Image of Martin Shaw, 1929 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Wednesday, September 6, 2017

Shadow lands


Consulting the calendar
to measure the finite edges of days,
proper rectangular weeks,
Lifetimes.

Using a ruler, I measure
the distance between
solar cycles inside
circles spin squared up,
and churn stuck in corners 
and lurk in boxes,

Leaving us to use the same angles
Over
And over,
Holidays make tangents, or triangles,

Between meaning and moment

This second
Memory, like haze that fills with light
remember the fog backlit in sun, rolling
over it,
The wind, the wave, the change,
The ends,
whites and blues
begin blending new for someone

We one knew upon a time. 


Image By OSU Special Collections & Archives : Commons (When trees and shadows make art) [No restrictions], via Wikimedia Commons.

Wednesday, July 26, 2017

Passes thru


The train rolling through town
sends in its signal 
                   with the intermittent whistle which warns
of something more than arrival, delivery or destination,
crimson, or even hot steal.
It smelt of cinnamon and sueded leather,
Bark and skin, the warm coat.

Two young men, 
                         friends since childhood, 
Skype and catch-up on nothing new.
They live close to each other, 
                         only one hears the train first.
The little girl that left the boy 
                         in the woods to get lost herself
was kind enough
to think of bread for later so she could come back
to him, but he was hungry and took care
                         of himself.
She cries about choices to another boy.
She was the wolf that howls at the passing train, sirens song,
a puppy in a dogs coat.

Tracks made for trains are best for drawing lines, 
                        demonstrating the forging of space
between then and now,
                                    here and there
one nose
smells first
and hides in his skin.

The other clearly hears
the passing scream left behind
on warm steal lines
                        without a second glance
he knew there will be another
                         soon enough to catch up.
He takes off his coat.  
No longer in a hurry 
he thinks in all directions,
and decides to walk
without destination.




Photo credit by Carol M. Highsmith [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Friday, May 12, 2017

Write hot, edit cold


None of it was good enough.

So you see, here, admittedly,
I understand the fire, a self-starter,
it makes decent fuel
the words work better than well.

It means I too- must end this way,
plain as day, Cremation
and yet
Fire scares me honestly.

It may be a miserable moment,
the next page, the new leaf, the blank slate-

Wait-never mind-what was said-dead-again.

Each time it becomes easier to name the wrong noun,
confound even myself, crosswords no longer help.

In other words
I shall not say,
See me
and I will match you.
I am simply sulphuring,
reeking with green steam.

Saturated, and I am too porous for this
laughing at my whole self,
the incompetence I relied upon 
and moments reborn
into better than imaginable-Memory.

Pretty-
All ways worth the weight in white.

Angels giggle at these simmering sounds
mistaken for a narrow fellow in the grass
making coils warm,

it was all the write words
fuming in the sun
without a bone to burn or pick
the ice ages will do the rest.  



Painting By McCord, George Herbert, 1848-1909 (artist); L. Prang & Co. (publisher) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Saturday, March 11, 2017

Fits of all-timers disease


You must find it in Here

and protect it when you do.
Fight for it, for now,
if that feels right.

Do not let it wander off...

That should have been enough to know
all we needed
something special left for us-

most certainly we will know it when we see it.

Perhaps other things came first, easier and
stood taller,
in your face,
consuming precious attention, a natural resource
short in so many ways
making us feel we need more,
we feel need and have to have,
what we think we need for others.

Listen, that forgetting feeling,
somethings are slipping,
the way guilt works its oily way
inside to undo forward motion,
or recognized

as the inability to see
likeness anymore
it was lying there
when we passed

over the top,
afraid of depth, holding our breath and
acclimating ourselves,
we forgot what we came in Here for...


Painting by Félix Vallotton [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Monday, March 6, 2017

Signal

Blue screen drama fiend
what have you become?

Turn it off or someone will,
you won't remember

but you won't remember
given enough space.

The smell doesn't count, the color couldn't care to stay
it was "This-ness" and by the feebleness of narrow hands,
grasping

Did we ever listen while thinking of something
better we could say...

This was not electric; magnetism is not magical.
Sparks happen. Predictably we promised.
Revolution and Industry-
you'll forget what these did to we.

Don't look up, what is done is done, thy will
and guilt gone!
(on Sunday)
See? Forgotten verboten. Fuzzy. Atonement.

The power we ceased to possess,
Eternally, not youth but
goes by Memory,
like calories and ergs,
also

measured by the byte.





Painting by Ilya Repin [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Monday, February 13, 2017

Omni-presence


I have seen those. They do not impress me. Showing off and it makes me want to look away.

This one sticks out, it is different that is why. It is special isn’t it super, ultra, mega, stupendous?

Indeed, like these, none of me. Look now, how nonchalantly they pass through, as though neverthere…

smooth or slimy, a greased wheel on a slippery slope all ways gets through or goes down.

I swear this was much much bigger last time. Different. There were reasons and stones. 
Last time,
I left residue and sticks in a mound.  It has been too long to see where these ended up.  This is why babies have no memory. The train still goes through. 

I heard my name called but it did not sound like mine, at first, I did not respond.  
It could have been any of us.

Now, I hear myself differently. This tunneled voice originating in the upper torso blows out something close to heartburn; milk and tears, wine and years, sweet and sardonic, work and wrest, this too will pass over me.  And I listen for harmony.   

Rainbows are too rich.

Foundations are never solid. 

Those shoes do not fit them. Watch how they walk.

Aliens, angels, guardians, demons, magi, healers, ghosts, and gods, why would omniscient Them’s-obsess with teeny humanity? Have They not learned nothing from us, taking no credit, just having a spot of fun, and making it worth their wait in astronomical units…I found out, I don’t think so

since this is Public, you look like a regular here.  
I am still new. But so glad I found you. Shall we? 
Tell me more…

about all the-while I am just observing too. Don't look 
now. 



Painting by Jan Baptist Saive (II) (1597–after 1641) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Sunday, January 22, 2017

Shrinking Heads


They used to call them shrinks in slang.

This was a term when I was little.
And couch time or psycho-
analysis, psyche-ologists, undoctors with talk shows
was all the rage this term, shrink, 
made me think of voodoo, a secret serum from
head doctors. But nowadays we have BRAIN,
and the human genome project, AI and h-3

And thankfully,
someone just told me
something is happening to the frontal cortex,
of the human being-being busy;
because busyness wrecks
real concentration.

It could be fake news, you choose.

Once upon a time,
I remember memorizing phone numbers.
I remember every license plate
on every vehicle in my name,
but those were just a labels

like shovel and couch, doctor or woman
and I dug in deeper and found it is true. All of it.
It is frightening.
This cannot be happening, it must be only temporary.
What does it matter if we forget-
this too shall pass as short term.

I don't know anymore.
Always being right
tends to make one go in tiny circles.

Fear was all the rage.
And instead of screaming Fire, or Liar,
the roof began to crumble under
the weight of the clodded up canvasing
sky gathering clumps in furious spouts
of dirty watercolor,
meant to stir us.

Iron bars,
lashing at the trees and they scream.
It Is
eerie, some never heard it coming

or understood what it said.
(SH, RBTL, SITD?)
Terminal. The terminal. Terminus.
Communication was the key.
And oration from alabaster towers of babble flow,
throwbacks, boomerangs and borrowed times,
did not fit all skeletons.
It is a combination lock anyway.

Radical is bad, gay is not happy, no mo FOMO,
do NOT wear a hoodie or hijab,
protest and appoint, Act Now, undemocratically,
incivility as seen on TV versus Reality,

no need to worry.
Temporary occupations are hiring the easily entertained
or unemployed tools, oft utilized by
tightening nuts down to nationalism,
and their infallible dependence.


I forgot why I came in here, I forgot these are all names.
I forgot all the names. I forgot my name. I forgot this was the same.
I forgot to go. I forgot my place.
Then it came to me,
only temporarily.

It should be powered down, rebooted, then defragged
down to one, for focus. Ahead, and swollen baubles or egos,
ergo,
what does it mean to grow smaller
over time, we cannot even wrap our head around
astronomical units, lightning years.
or by electro-therapy injections we become
shorter, shorting out, shrinking from commitment
to deep time.

Slang was just another name
for small.
All the time
shrinking.



Image By Paul François Arnold Cardon, Photograph of the French psychologist Pierre Janet (1859–1947) by Paul François Arnold Cardon a.k.a. Dornac (1858–1941).

Thursday, December 8, 2016

The Humble Home


Sow and germinate our Pride,
stretching our will and want to cover
what we made need-later. 
Iniquity, I admire this perfect little life 
I have made
to dwell in and upon,
check in and out as I please...

What it seems-better to me-is my reality
I forget...why did I come here, compelled-
so I step away, hide things from myself,
to discover If 
I like those memories,
Truthfully.

Like you, before me,
I see anew at half way through-
though it was forced upon me 
by reflection,
Virgil left a note saying 
the rest is up to self sufficiency
Trust me
in finite, it is not complete.
Not for me.

So proud I am, but ineffective.
Standing here before you,
not knowing why, unable to convey
all the answers in art, the way I see it-
it pleases me enough to persist, as though
amour-proper was more than acceptable. 




Painting by Sanford Robinson Gifford [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Tres (trace)

Water Today, warm raindrops glass blurs, the blurry glassy, sharp sparkles sugar. Behind Evening, it was good. Leaves all turned into shadow...