Found art

Another day rolls by
                             and I
along with it
                             incubate.

I try
to focus
on a
single
spoke
           in the blur of spin
one catches
                    light,
and squeezes
it
into
sound
            high above
the audible range
            one carries a note,
and belts out
                      lashing with it,
create, wait, create, wait, create, wait
                      bare-backed
swinging both ways,

naturally
and only
                     through the gait
                     known distinctly
as your
body
and work
as an address.
                     
A watch swings alongside
reminding me of the beat.

It is time to hibernate.

I count the cat's eyes
           staggered and lining up
in the middle of the street
until the glare
broke
into poetic little pieces
like litter.





Artwork by Robert Delaunay [Public domain], 'The Tower and the Wheel' c. 1912-1913, located in the Museum of Modern Art.

Blue faces of things

On that very day,
in another Place,
it was more than
a later hour-

the heavy things
balancing on edges
would finally come down
creating a gentle breeze
over Here

and the nose would pick-up
and strong sense of Elsewhere,
only meaning
there was Poetry
being read in corners.

From the lips,
this music dips between
inkling and imagination
like a murmuration,
how things gather in ceremony

for harmony's sake.
And yet,
all the anonymity allowed
a tiny voice
to move through
this heavy Time,

passing on the thought of
levitation and how it was
never up to us
to do anything about the
thinning air out There.




Painting by Harriet Backer (1845-1932), c. 1883, in Public Domain.

Listing ships

Had I been listless,

Done. Nothing To Do

for lack of wood pulp, or would

and pulp,

for want not to float upon 

facades, skirt on edges, to not

feel the marginalia and rip rap

hit the sides,

holding back

the body,

there would still be 

an attachment to enough rope

to go around.

Without implementation,

rudders, or other such

contraptions

to head our aim, ply and slog,

drifting

is all that is done right.

To go on 

observing instead of 

commanding, holding 

on to the rails

with fingertips and first

knuckles only, lightly

the self adjusts

trading winds

until all seems leveled

up, like glass or calm

glimmers that dance,

smoothly this rock

glides underneath 

carrying its own weight

violent and jealous

of the flotilla holding up-

right for a fragment of time.

There was nothing left

To Do. 

Painting by J. M. W. Turner, 'Rough sea with wreckage' (c.1840-45) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Fluent in Word Play

A really good poem smells like a newly printed book to me.
Buying the book doesn't mean you own it. Ingesting is not understanding.
Being really good at doing nothing important does not make it important or good.
Money is made-from paper and metal only, the (inte)rest is in your mind.
Homes are made of metal, plaster and wood-sometimes glass.
Ideas are like soap bubbles, even after they pop they leave a residue.
Just because we may be contacted by cell phone at any time,
it does not require our immediate consent to be touched
-at any time.
Being able to tolerate the rutted steps and familiar roads of nostalgia and slanted memory,
is a flexing of ones Love muscles.
When tossed freely, Patience is a boomerang.
Assholes only make it as far as they can see.
Angels exist to remind us, that we too can be seen thru.
Emotions and weather pass.
Cynicism is simply hope masked with fear.
No worries, I should have the next epiphany by noon.
Literally, how many ways can we say what we mean without meaning something else?
Off the grid does not mean we are unplottable.
The climax always involves us.
If we are entertained, there is no time wasted.
Boredom is the opposite of Happiness, both are vagabond.
Endurance happens over a duration.
Climate change was always a thing,
should we be calling it something else like
Whether weather or whether or not weather records exist?
We were all born liars. We all learned how to walk by falling down, repeatedly.
There is no Privacy in Russia, there is no future tense in Germany,
Americans have coined the Economy, liberally donating interest-free anxiety to All.
There are trees to fall, there is pulp to be extracted, ink to stain our white sheets
and plenty of glue to put it all back together again.
Metaphors are bridges, some burn, and many more
build a new path we could never cross without.
Book burning could have been an act of spontaneous combustion
by poetic ignition.
The smell of burning wood is comforting, despite its dangerous proximity
under our nose.



Painting by Thomas Hart Benton, 'People of Chilmark' 1920 in [Public domain].

Fake news

Poetry is dead
The news went unannounced
the morning after
nothing significant happened
overnight, like the falling
of a star
none had ever heard
of.

All extermination outside
control is an infinitesimal iota
or inkling of discontentedness.

People are anxious and sad-
ly digressing.

These people around us,
called Friends,
dwell in a hive,
it is known to be
unsafe to stick one's arm
or neck out-
side.

Neither milk nor honey were effective
remedies
for the human condition
of bread and blood and jealousy and revenge.

Fact check: adding prescriptions won't remove you-
unless taken as instructed.

Poetry is often, by Anonymous.

All gossip is fast food.

There were reports of random rhymes and recently
too much illicit alliteration which went awry from
strict poetics, dismissed originality, refused mint-
ability and silently went about matching cases
where poetry became art and art made life
(more) poetic.

And yet it was always so,
documented.

Footnote: the value of 1,000 words has decreased significantly.
All photos have become 'Public Property'.

Religion has been resurrected for persecution.
Nothing is sacred.
Nobody is scared.
All coincidence is evidence of Magic.
And maybe
it was miraculous
and newsworthy,
Poetry was written
encoded into our genetics,
like the language
found on the tip of our tongues.

It feels good to roll your R's.



Painting by Francis Luis Mora, 'Morning News', c.1912 in San Diego Museum of Art in Public Domain.

Spring palette

Some nights such as these

in Spring

the crispest ones forebode

dramatic scenes and

will only be appeased

with warm words, the genteel kind

unlike those dark corridors linking

hollow rooms to alternate realities

and how easily

we may be misplaced inside,

one sees clearly-

Poetry possessed the palace,

the chorus charmed themselves

considering changes

are made in continuity,
contemplating,

harmonium found itself

outside sound and dancing

in full color in the deepest
dark.

Painting by Henri Le Sidaner, 'Small table in evening dusk' c. 1921 [Public domain].

dead end

Like Darwin's finches,
would we know why our beaks are shaped this way?

Poetry, like mathematical sentences,
cage the pigeon, momentarily truth can be contained
in theorem.

History was written to expel,
revise, adapt and to forget the way it happened
in order to make story from time with a line.

A plot never seems to develop
or hold
what was expected.

I do repeat myself,
I say things I often don't recognize
as mine, I smell fear in my atmosphere
and wish flight was my choice.


Artist Jacques Callot (1592-1635) 'Traveler' early 17th century, in Public Domain. 

Out-sourcing AI

Of all the books
I have yet to read
There will never be one in the stack
About feelings.

I am a woman. I get these.

F equals M, where F are feelings
And M is motive, unless F equals female,
And M is male, then the former is
Greater than, by approximation.

Genius is not for men alone.

Of all the bizarre curiosities before us,
The greatest Being
Metaphor,
We still don’t know what it is for,
Why we stretch and try not to bounce
trying not to tear truth
from tendon.

It is our tendency to compare that
Distinguishes us, leaving insecurities
like these
all the more prone
To poetry.

The most challenging equations are simply
unsolvable
by a rational mind,
they are Resolved by process,
dissolved by filtration and expulsion,
whereby insight gains a greater perspective
than the outline,
unlike container.

Silence is simply choosing not to say.

That volume,
we hear,
is the best reference
to cite.

There was nothing more to see
that was considered
Tragedy,
so I read
Science or programming.



Photograph by Eli DeFaria elidefaria [CC0].

Miss Demeanor

Rather than
Not being good at
Anything,
I mistakenly over-
heard
People reading
The writing
I left on the walls
And instead of calling
It graffiti

They said it was
Good, they called it
Poetry, they read my
Name
and it became an
Accusation.

 Painting by Pompeo Molmenti (1819-1894) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Insufferable

Poems do not feel
anything
Yet they are something that says
with words feel me
If only
there was another poetic way
to speak
to emotion
(in order)
to capture, to convey
What was meant
to be left unsaid
                           Silence
                           is full of
                                  This
                           pulsation
                           felt as a compulsion
                           to give way
                           to gravity
For no sound
reason.



Painting by Wada Eisaku, c. 1926 in the Pola Museum of Art [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

The mouth heals fast

Tongue is too fat
to speak-
not because I bit it,
when I should have
known thy musclar
self-well-enough-
when I should have
known well enough
to shut up.
It is still swelling-
pride protrudes itself,
a warning-

NEVER
put that in a poem.

And Do Not Step on the grass
while seeds sit on top, germinating
like a poem. Too much
disruption
dislodges
any potential root
formation.

It is best not to flex with words
or assign metaphor more meaning
than conceivable
or suffer the stretch.

Here the open gash pushes
the inside out-
hypersensitive to air, this is where
salt heals,
and the best solution
showed its work,
long-hand,
ones carried
over the columned
poem.


Painting by Jules Breton [Public domain], 'The wounded Seagull' 1878 via Wikimedia Commons.

Sound Reason

Poetry cannot

Preach and Listen 

simultaneously make or destroy

sense nor sense-ability.

Rock music and video games 

are responsible for all evils

not to mention

Others who don't do things

like we do.

Literature no longer poses a threat.

People don't read. 

People can spell but are inept

grammaticians. 

A poem can 

fair enough

hear and here itself becomes an echo,

like music, to sing along, to say,

open to all, an invitation

to taste.

The poet breaks line 

and all paper currency

down

so the pocket sings

wildly.

Relax, nobody is listening.




Due to the limitations of early cameras, this is the only known image of American orator Robert G. Ingersoll before an audience. Taken May, 1894 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

A murmuration of bodies

It is not all about the long (form) poem,
or the short (form) poem that

captivates the reader to go on,
but form, oh form! It must be solid-set-and square-

there it is identifiable in space,
man-woman-yin-yang,
it must lie there

flat and
come around the full circle of Oh, I see,

and be intriguing, as eyes tend to be drawn
to bare bellies showing

the sex

it becomes impossible to look away, rude
to rend attention from the white scene that unfolds
sheets,

we tend to go too far in our search for likeness

in passing, we come upon the sight of a crash-
rollover and rubbernecking, our prying eyes seek
identification (relationship) of bodies,
make and model,
fault and genre
or scheme
or theme
(the way we drive).

The way
we seek familiarity in reflective surfaces projected
outward from flat atoms that cling together making a solid
point

reflective and with water
like cement, belly flops
that sting and leave a body red
scared us straight.

I see me

Cadence reminded the reader that the
human body and its homeo-static form,
feels it is not wise to slip into
a semi-permeability-stage-phase-
that would be weakness,
or prose

in words of erosion which sink quite naturally,
predictably.
Under pressure diamonds are made
by poets sitting on ideas
awaiting the train of thought,
engineering the license to use lines
at unsafe speeds

with glaring lights, blaring horn

blowing by

en route thru

to

the scene.

                   The limp body becomes
                                                     ejected
                   and stains the concrete
                   longer than rubber-
streaks.

Anybody can learn to drive
a point
Home
(some are more [w]reckless than others)
and the point Being
only the poet knows where they are going (if they do)
it doesn't help.
                       Detours and congestion both seem inevitable.
There is no way around
the good poem.

It just lies
there
(as in Found)
or flies away
on an impulse, taking the words with him wherever he goes,
traveling light
never arrives.





Image of starlings in flight at sunset taken February 2006, By Tommy Hansen.B.A.C. at da.wikipedia [Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons.

STEM cells

Being a woman, it took a lot of courage

The kind that clenches your abdomen

Like menstruation,

And then it was only once, not monthly. 

I once asked a cosmologist

about his poetic tendencies, I thought I caught

a glimmer, it was in fact, a pungent reaction.

The mere concept was rejected as any preposterous old electron

Would be out of line. Needless to say, the hypothesis was

Brushed off like the free radical

I was standing there, circling him

And trying to get in-closer.

I was the chicken laying an egg,

Peeking inside his paradox.

In hindsight, it was foolish,

Asking an astrophysicist, a theoretical one, anyway

About his propensity with words, metaphorically,

In lieu of his numerical potency,

Silly me, little lady.

Considering I am entitled to (k)no(w) facts,

In my female tone, I displayed

A type of  indiscretion, often a woman’s way

Of adding verbs to scientific theory.  

Photo credited to National Photo Company; c. 1919, Restored by Adam Cuerden [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Passages

Time

takes the toll,

giving change for our large bills

and admits passage 

but offers no return policy.

Make Time to Meditate.

Who makes time? I have an order. 

Empty. Thoughts.

Does one miss arguing with oneself

until none win?

The walls are over-crowded with imagery.

It was me-I put the elephant in the room 

who is 

holding a candle on a cloud, 

his shadow is only flat. 

Tell me again-

What is mine is ours-

With these words-

Let no thing

remain behind but a poem

After thought 

and plane shadows on clock faces. 

If looking-She went crazy

Rarely left alone

for obvious reasons,

when given more than

a minute in solitude

She would start a poem

or worse-

(See)

Dependable as ever

they required her presence

while there was still time

together-no stability

stays the same

(after all)

And dutiful too,

as anyone could be,

she served herself last, cleaned up

after others

with a smile [happy]

And far away gaze,

busy going nowhere

(and getting there)

The blame belonged

not to poetry

alone

(finally.)

(See, after all [happy], and getting there, finally)

Painting By Michael Sweerts (Flemish, 1618 - 1664) artist (Flemish) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Six Reasons to Never Try Poetry

They call them mockingbirds, some are nightingales, a few may be owls or ravens,

but all are really pretending to be the pursuers

while they are in fact the ideal prey.

All are moths-

of which there are more than 160,000.

Drawn to their own demise, despite the heat, they repeat the fire dance,

a Danse Macabre in verse.

In all fairness, one should be warned-

1. You will never be good. Or done. Or get there. Never, nevermore. It will always be wrong, could be better, you should have never tried, a waste of your time, a sacrifice for nothing. If you want to feel a sense of completion or accomplishment, this is not the way. You will never be able to make it go away. Get a drawer, carry a pen, try to forget. 

2. You have only copied others far better than you-who copied those that were far better than they. 

All the words that are strewn about and unsorted,

the ones you polished up and put together and

something spectacular, or smooth, or morbid,

were not yours to put your name on. 

You were not the first person

to make your bed.

3. Warning: Also-they All die beautiful, decrepit and anonymous, poor and misunderstood. They pass away, they are evoked and manipulated, worshiped for saying one thing-over and over-apropos to those who know how timeless interpretations remains. They keep their keys. They take thier fortunes with them. The published, finished, are boarded up, condemned-to looting, pillaging and squatting.

The moth never learns from others smoke. The moth must devour the leaves and petals from poets of other seasons if it is to survive famished and cleansed by morning dew. 

Some say violets capture a certain raw nature, many others pine over roses, and there are those of silk, that bare no resemblance to prose, without punctuation or stamen. 

4. The night is shared by good and bad voices, loudest to those who listen.

5. Color is not necessary for presenting a beautiful display. Light and heat are most attractive when removed.

6. A moth is a critical link in the food chain. 

Fake eyes, ink stains, shadow, ash and dirt colored, clicks and sonar are extra like lyricality. Both predator and prey are symbiotic as reader and writer, both flock to the light despite the smoke and despite the act of dying every night. 

Painting By Michel Bouillon, Vanitas c. 1668 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Putting poetry to the pasta test

The poems that stick-

are the ones that

when hurled against a wall

make not a sound,

some advise letting them float-

as a way of settling.

The poems that penetrate

and get beneath the skin by

3^rd degree composition, 
tend to scar, pink and raised, 
until another poem

goes deeper.

The poems that sing

are Free

like all the rest

seek harmony, adhesives

and sharp lines

that stick out. 

Painting by William Merritt Chase [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Danger zone

I got to thinking-
maybe we were doing it wrong-
facing fears-meaning
why not let the demons in-
hell, welcome them hordes and all,
feed them well, find out what they want
from us,
so when they leave
it is-
for good.

What if what soaks in our pourous mem-
brains, is what we ooze out-
that is All,
like Nothing is ours,
or New,
we just reiterate or refute,
repeat or recreate, take credit
and run with it like a baton-
on fire,
And the longer I live,
the more I've seen,
heard, worn, thought, been there before-
it seems All
stolen-
moments-that is.

Furthermore,
does one dare to consider entering
such dangerous zones as the solid realms
of love or death, one and the same,
before one has tasted
it on their own lips?

No. Not in poetry. It would be tasteless.
Alas,
beautiful things
are most draining.


Photo credit By:Henry Peach Robinson [CC0], c. 1860 via Wikimedia Commons.

Translate-or not

This other language I speak 

-none understand 

outside my elfin ears. 

As if I mumble incessantly, compulsively,

as if I am fumbling my thoughts with stone words.

As if I were

seeking to release crystal clear meaning

from in-side the hollow geode.

If it looks like a rock…

Those wild words were all dear to me, 

took muster to say in such a way as to blur the 

sharp edges, land softly, sometimes it settled

in, others not.

The consonants were the hardest parts, 

the little lilt only the muttering of a passing bird,

waving its wings overheads.

Emulating butterfly kisses, lips

blown away

with all my meaning-

missed-dismissed.

As though the goal was only to tell you

something-

to commune-

icate, instigate, dictate-show and tell

about, something I have lying around.

Yet, I make no sound

like feathers.

Since I can no longer speak

in pure poetry. 

Artwork By Hills, Laura Coombs, 1859-1952 (artist); L. Prang & Co. (publisher) (Flickr: Flower Fairy) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.