Basket case

What comes

After all?

So much

stacked

unbeknownst

we carry on

Or perhaps

Was it

Grace?

And then-

How much a

handbasket

Will hold

over so many 

seasons,

weather worn

by hand. 

Painting by Winslow Homer 'Girl Carrying a Basket' c. 1882 in National Gallery of Art, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Time drop

This morning

behind charred clouds

the moon sank 

as if weighted by 

its alabaster center

yet holding

light,

becoming full

bodied between

plumes of thick night.

Time brings on vertigo.

The past smells of soot,

the smoke dissipates 

as soon as it appears

now 

the ashes of what was once

solid

touch smears what has 

dis-appeared.

Imagining the days to come

are dreams,

the haze and glow of a child 

in wonder,

hoping for a pony

afraid of the horse

it will be-come. 

Now, like water the falls

in sprinkles

touching my cheeks,

the temperature adjusts

to the soul, a heart

that is cold can hold

now,

clinging to ice

that melts into the ever

present stream

of being 

here. 

Painting by Wilhelm Ferdinand Xylander, c. 1884 in Skagens Museum, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Voluminous

I long to be

a book upon

that shelf,

an erect 

spine

gazing quietly

Outward

The kind of book

with extra 

creamy

blank pages

after

So we can continue

the story

a little past

The End...

Photograph info: 

Public Library- the work of Leyton Public Library Service, Church Lane, Leytonstone, London, England, UK, September 1944
Two young female library assistants rearrange and classify books at Leytonstone Public Library, Church Lane

Dated: 1944

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].

Sitting and spinning

Never,

having sat in this precise spot before Now

I know

others have sat just so Never before. 

Painting by Pál Szinyei Merse [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Direction

The pod pulls past

super slow

And in one way

the future is seen

in a second

Under notions of nightsky temerity

when moon rises and shines

and stars fall and flame out

The past twinkles

inset overhead

A fine line

between the living

and the dying

dissipates

when we look too long...

Image credit By C.R. O'Dell (Vanderbilt University) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Stacking boxes

We seem to be on the right track.

Some words contains things.

We are confident that the black box

contains all the answers or the y’s-anyway

we need to know

Don't be chicken, unscramble the egg 

before the givens and ganders include

more than two lame ducks and an ugly goose.

Sharp edges, right angles, cubism

is no plaything

for block stacking children.

This black box we found is the thing

to eye-so-late

and define –objectively-we made enclosures

and watched the walls hit home.

The black box must have its corners

where all information clusters 

in tapering space...

The black hole, faucet or vacuum tube

where All

information is contained past and future

flow freely-

both true and not chosen

come together 

only to matter.

Blending by chance, choice, or

opportunity, effect, and someone said

Noise not blur...

Now, this is all there ever was,

Now, with reduced facts, take

atoms, quarks into questionable chunks

of say 100 neurons or 3 seconds-

A moment may be lost-watching-looking

For it. You are it. You cannot feel yourself spin?

I read a note for you

Inside the black box

It says where it is from-

                              there is no gift receipt. 



Painting by Adolph Tidemand [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Photo-graphic memory

Obsessed with photo graphs and charts,
we point our longest sideways glance right
away
and shoot for the best, hitting hope
happens square in the chest,
stars also aim for the numbers.

Numbness by position,
this poison saps our steady grip,
an aching up the arm from the aorta.

In this contraction,
we miss the moment around the image,
the time between sight and capture
or full appearance formed
in our human haste

Roughly,
to see and to show how it should look
from our island view,
by entitling
what was then as now.

The pictures portrayed only figures,
we made out images
believing in lines like these
holding black and were definitive
made by an arrangement or
juxtapositioning.

Framed in theoretical suspension
of time to believe in what we see
as all white.



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

Momentous

There is a fleeting sense
I wish to trap it here-
or is it better to say-
bleed it out
to see it in red
so I can relive
a better way to say
write the past,
in the wrong tense
to feel the heal happen.
If I could make it warm
to softly relay innocence
it would become welcome,
doors could open...
But just then-that is when,
I knew in passing,
there's only so much
words may do.






Image of painting by Attributed to Valentin de Boulogne [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. 

Times tourniquet

Last week
I had it all
under control.

Last month
I was excited
about the Future.

Last year
I couldn't wait
to be where I am
Today
yet
I cannot say
it right.

Tomorrow will Be
too much
all over again
and then
another
Year
I fear
of ending up
right
Here.

Image of painting by Hans Holbein the Younger (1497/1498–1543) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.