Bad hair day

He just came to bed.
The clock is wrong.
I am late
for nothing
so I get up before the alarm
and there is a notification
waiting for me
about a suspicious charge
to approve via Texting Y or N.
The internet is not working,
the wifi dissipated
my money evaporated.

My new husband
drinks, thirsting for his further demise.
My daughter starved herself
famished for failure.
My son avoided the real world
where the day breaks
optimism down into an icy rain
while the wind is whipping up
a bad batch
of loose and split ends.




Painting by Edgar Degas (1834-1917), 'Nackte beim Kämmen' in Public Domain. 

Out of darkness grows

It feels like rain
in the bones.
It is as though
I have known
the subtle differences
of hours
from reading water lines
and by translating the stain
visibly left behind
similar to thunderheads.

Another dawn lightens over me
and after so many
thin and pointed
Winter moons have waned,
it becomes easier to reminisce
in this Time
alone and perishable.

Soon enough,
daybreaks the serene brow
into blended spectrums
dampened down seeds are sown
deeply enfolded into the crust
and the anticipation of flowers
made nothing but sense
of Beauty.



Painting by Jean-Francois Portaels(1818-1895), 'Spring' c. 1879 in Public Domain. 

Our glasses (hourglasses)

I read in front of them.
I was reading anyway.
They never read.
Even behind my back.

I waited to be sure.
I was never sure
I waited too long.

Liars, thieves, and cheaters
are three of a kind.
I had them all
in hand,
and made a row of bushes
with the tangled vines
for Privacy.

Alone with ourselves
imposes ego as though
we should learn
from mistakes.

The golden rule
is soft, diamonds are forever
handed down
and the rain, perpetually
planting seeds.

The fine print, or return policy
for such a random act
sounds like wind strangled
in narrow channels
but is your paper receipt.

I figured it out
wrong but somehow came to
the correct conclusion
all the same.

There is a kind of
influence, with open palms
that holds no harm
to heat but crystallizes
in salt.

As far as
we can see,
All is in front of us,
there was no plain day
that would be lived this way.



Painting by John Dickson Batten, 'The garden of Adonis' c. 1887 in [Public domain].

The Queen ties her rainbows from the ball

I entered the living room on Sunday in the late afternoon
with a basket of soiled laundry and on the floor lay the Queen,
sprawled out in a melancholy pool,
lyrics from her lips left hanging there aloft.

Drained and slightly dazed, she did not notice she had been singing,
her face was painted with dark minerals. Naturally,
she was shocked to see me, her pupils opened even more,
And her cheeks became velvety.

A little surprised to see her this disheveled way,
I asked if she was expecting rain-
teasing her mud faced tribal marks.
She said her body hurt, seriously, she had been dancing all night.
She did not want to break out.
With her toes pointed in my direction, resemblance spreads
like cold air. I am just stretching, she adds,
reaching out and away even more.

Interrupting us came a gentle tap-rapping at the door.
And after so many months of the same still frugal
air, the door began to swell inside its crust.
With a mustered force, she pried open the door,
as if held against her and boldly before her came an unexpected visitor,
A hint of something she mist, it had started to drizzle
and then it began to waterfall.
Her secret words had been heard, the clouds gathered to listen in.
We watched and welcomed this change of skies and days,
hearts and pace, pools of passing light and piles of cotton,
rectangles without edges, these divine Sundays,
spent simply
content in the castle with rain rolling around.
Another week cycles through and she has grown from Princess to Queen.
After all these loads I have carried, I  dutifully reflect the greys I've gathered,
the sun shifts and she thunders through
her bedroom, the walls tremble.
Busy casting rainbows by skipping stones,
she practices powers with her crystal eyes,
rocks, refracting pain into pleasure
from her chest full of gold

knowing she now controls the weather.








Painting by Xavier Mellery, 'The Artists Daughter' c. 1882 in the Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Roar

Solid beads bounce off my body,
each of their masses colliding with my shell
and I am sore, sensitive from the pelting,
gasping with my gills barely open
a slit.

Upwards I face and solid streams form rolling
down my brow and bridges.
I feel drowning is the same enveloping
as the light or darkness inside
my pores.

Buoyancy is all I have
left to show
I am still
occupying
space.

Stalactites reach for the mineral world
they once had.
Days went and came
passing thru me
like water.

There was nothing new
to sea here,
save
the rumbling and reforming
beneath the surface.



Photograph credited by 'Oregon Sea Lion Cave' Ljmajer [Public domain].

The world in a puddle

Shiny onyx paved streets that shine 

like oil

kaleidoscope reflections of topaz gems

yellow lamplights tossed from windows

makes me warm

inside.

Lullaby metronomes count water

droplets, clepsydra down the side of the house,

this eave, my gutter

fills, pours this bass beads across paving stones

reminiscent of a game of puddle hop-scotch

I count the treble, 

it answers the hydraulophone

inside me.

That musty smoke that lingers like dye

in the sky, leaking out of rooftop chimneys,

house pipes blow and issue

a rescue signal, 

for those inside.

Countless poets have captured this in smaller 

rain barrels commonly called buckets.

We lost some along the way,

which accounts for the change in overall volume,

by composition, ice is also vaporous. 

Drops do both ways.

Nobody cared,

these were not the ideal conditions for thirst 

or poetry,

water was everywhere, like supply versus demand

as far as they could see, 

there was no end

to verses. 

Image credit By English: thesandiegomuseumofartcollection (Flickr) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Two a.m.

I wake up early-
earlier than usual.
And I assume it must have been the moon
disturbing my sleep, with its intrusive and
garish moonlight on high
and the ghoulish nightmares
all rising to the surface.

When it finally rains, I am comforted
by the cloud cover,
which will luckily tuck me in tonight
and I should sleep tighter, making for more
muted sleeping conditions
with this welcome addition of white noise
atop clean white sheets.

It pours. It hails. It is dark.
And I wake-too early-
still-wondering
why this sinking icy feeling holds me here,
alert and anchored.
Awake. A constant pull, resistance and an
uprising washes over me, cold chains snap
forcing me violently to the surface,
gasping for air.

My two eyes try to adjust
to the bright white light,
where windows make mirrors
dark pupils shrink in the glare.
And I see, plainly,
it is too early to tell...



Painting by Johan Jongkind c. 1872 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

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.

Sunrise

And then it sprinkled

not enough to wake any

momentary bliss

housing

Walls of light

Standing planes and panes

Like prisms akimbo to light

Have held me rapt here

With skin in the game

Comfort be confound in coy

Contrasted by temperate untouchables

Hot like colors

Never seen lightning linger long

Enough to picture

Over iron mountains, topped mesas,

Yet you can smell the rain too, can’t you?

Miles away, the ions spin colliding

Into calm air-

Fixed for change.

We were warned,

Senselessly.



Painting by Jasper Francis Cropsey, Catskill Mountain house, 1855 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Aeration

The spiders all scatter when the rock is pulled up,

worms wiggle 
desperate foreigners in terrestrial elms.

Well, it made me think of what they had been doing

before being caught off guard.

It hails this summer,

so they scream and say-All Parades Postponed-

& then the others look at their calendars and cross out

& cry looking up to the sky pointing green stems in vein.

Kites and clouds occupy the canopies,

caught in the whisk of wayward cycles
and lofty expectations, 

it is only pressure applied in decibels of thunder.

White petals all tremble, rose and lilly blush

at the smoky voice chanting in Gregorian tones,

a language lost to Time and wilt,

where these new colors cannot comprehend

so much red earth and black sand-

& then whispers round
like spider legs,

Trailing off, 
earthworms evacuate

I, Aye, eye

mist the warning

but held my breath. 


Image credit By Royal Air Force official photographer, Hensser H (Mr) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

The metronome leads home

Ah-wakening

Water drip-drops from the roof-top

onto the plastic lid of the empty blue recycle bin

It is not raining-anymore.

While lying there, transported,

the drops dripping were tick tocks

of the clock overhead in my grandfathers den

As I lie there, my hearts mouths the waters

falling

back in sleep, absorbed in one wet second

There is no difference between

Now and Then

Some things are worth repeating

time and time again;

rain, reminiscing in rain again

Sleep

And

Ah wakening. 

Painting by Nicolas Régnier (1588/1591–1667) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Grainy Drops

The rain makes it better.

   The rain is falling.

The hour disperses into sky.

Does it?

Save your words-

The rain makes it better.

Smell space freeing itself...

You will see

          when the mist

                     settles   lifts

                  when the fog

it will be too bright to see directly

-until-

Due West             when the sunsets

            Pacific.

The tide takes it all in, licking and swallowing the shore

like an ice cream with crunch.

They taste the same. Put your tongue in the rain

drops.

Nothing is the matter,

only salt                    remains.

Painting by James Abbott McNeill Whistler, 'Sea and Rain' (1865) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Wont you let the wind in

No poetry-

Silence it said.

It was raining and how could we live without

The yellow porch light, that lit the drops aflame midair

sent falling matches while we inhaled its sultry cologne,

It smelled like kerosene.

Nothing should be said,

but sound jumps and throttles anyway,

hits its edges

and snaps.

Let it fly,

was another way to lay claim on wind and smoke rings.

Seasonings and salt made new flowers, steeping in the dark

deeds have been doled to uncharted territories, stay-

what else is there to see?

The words will escape me just

this day without poetry… 

Painting by Paul Cornoyer [Public domain], 'Madison Square after the rain' c. 1900 via Wikimedia Commons.

Elevation in feet

From those dark mountain valleys etching destiny

like palm lines

We conjure up rain and ropes,

tethering our dreams to vibrant green acres of horizon

radiating our perspectives of

voluminous bubbling energies under

entropic skies

over there.

If only

we had more energy,

if only

more time...

We would make it up

and over and climb higher to see

what is

over the top,

finally.

The other side

is sleep.

Painting by Winslow Homer, In the mountains, 1877, in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Absorbing Autumn

Is it morbid to smell October
under Septembers fallen leaves,
dripping eaves?

I prefer not to be buried-thank you-
but I admit, it reminds me of a familiar place,
the earth Rising
and all...

Whereas when you see the sky
Falling
all over the place and filling in
with charcoal over blue with hefty white-
for contrast-
at last,
Relief.

Is it autumnal to wonder-
would it be better to biodegrade
or evaporate?

I am happiest under rain
when the leaves are crimson.



J. M. W. Turner [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. 
"Rain, Steam and Speed - The Great Western Railway; the painting depicts an early locomotive of the Great Western Railway crossing the River Thames on Brunel's recently completed Maidenhead Railway Bridge.The painting is also credited for allowing a glimpse of the Romantic strife within Turner and his contemporaries over the issue of the technological advancement during the Industrial Revolution"

Astir (Haiku)

Before the first rain

the Poets all woke and spoke

of their sense of smell

Painting by Apollinary Vasnetsov [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Minute drops

The first train blares its horn
ripping thru the quiet town
at five:eighteen
in lieu of the alarm clock
that ran slow-
it goes to show...

Kicking up dust and sand,
it may take some time
for the eyes to adjust
to light rays
lasering the pupil
shrinks as day
cracks the ceiling
wide open.

It smells distinctly like rain
that none saw coming
since there were no puddles
to prove it.

Tho the tracks
were both still
warm to the touch,
and the mist counts
as precipitation.

It adds up over time,
and passes the miles.
Blurring the light infinitesimal
strewn across space
in broad strokes.
Time keeps losing its place
on the train of thought,
while the whistle blows
such primitive perceptions
as these right
outside the window.

Crystal beads streak
backwards behind the ears
as memories
dew
condense and transport us
while wide awake
but a little late.


Painting by J. M. W. Turner, pre 1844 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Slated invocation

Oh steely sky, you do not care

that I need rain today.

Did I miss the vote?

I don't count; I have no say

-either way-

only stoics wear grey

every day

and call it Fair. 

May-be a storms a passin'

The way the sky hangs,
on every note between birds,
pending with tension that is thunder.
A surge of need rides the backs,
rallies the clouds around,
now surrounded and we are small,
audible with weakness, loudness,
madness amplified.
And with a warm breath,
the sky relents with rain,
a sweet sigh, cleanses in resilience,
brilliance.
Miasmic mists that appear
thick with self,
but calm all along,
the bird holds its song,
while the storm subsides,
in mutual mercy of May.




Image By User:Imagaril (Own photo) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.