Retreat

 

As in

gift again.

We all like treats.

Pavlov proved this with his puppies.

What's more? More treats. 

And more treats, please.

Gluttony leaves no room 

for the famished to breathe,

too much of it all and and and

Consumed consumers consuming

treats that others had or wanted 

to have and to hold,

to stack behind the curtain wall

amass

nothing 

easily taken away.

The animal obeys

his carnal needs

and remembers.

The human collects

his dull desires

and forgets

we have already had it

All. 

Painting by Arthur Heyer (1872-1931), 'Bulldog sound asleep' c. before 1931 in Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

The w(h)ole thing

When we say something is porous, it is a description of the holes
that allow other matters to fill the spaces between,
also known as absorption.
And this process ends when the porous body becomes full
of itself.
When we say, "poor us", we mean what we don't have,
as in desiring something to fill the void.
When look closely for the smallest common denominator,
we would find scores of pores all across our largest organ,
we would be referring to the spaces between
us and the world. Da Vinci knew there were no dividing lines.
When this skin tightens and turns to gooseflesh,
it is an act of repulsion or rapture.
We open our mouths and nothing escapes,
this is a microcosm of the black hole.

Standing atop the threshold, I open the door and I wonder
if I am letting the hot air out or welcoming
the cool air inside? How is relativity related to reality?
Loosely. Do virtues exist in the virtual world?
Is our privacy other peoples business, like common stock,
traded for common knowledge.
Have you been to the Public Domain?

Time is money expressed in regular intervals,
like breath, hard to catch with our heads at this altitude.
In theory, if we can't count it, can we make it count
without real numbers? It all adds up

to unfathomable astronomical units.

What was needed was more space,
but how to go about collecting more nothing
and where would we keep it...
Something was missing,
we knew this much.


Painting by Ernest Slingeneyer, 'The art collector' 1881 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Currency calculator

I worry when we need milk 

and wonder where the daily bread will come from.

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, 

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 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. 

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,

and I could not take my eyes off the sky
while riding home.

It said everything.

And utterly cloudless,
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.

Like small talk, no granular attention is paid.
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

like fire and ice,
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.