Smoking Rope Burns

Rope rather than guns

I said to the man

-in America anyway-

As if he asked for some alibi,

as if anyone Wanted me: Dead or Alive.

Not that

I suggested murder or hinted at a

lynch mob-no soldier trained for Tug of wars.

I have no skin in that game.

Here is the Reader

with their eyes on the trigger

pulling out meaning,

hanging there, in town squares,

the tangled mass pulls at twisted truths

by yarns and feet, knots and nots.

Suicide is never the last act.

Remember?

A rope also saves lives, he said

depending upon the need,

in his all-

American way.

Painting By Albert Baerston, Belgian painter, Ghent 1866 - Gent, 1922 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Writing it right while the house was quiet

The duplex dreamt and the tenant typed

The reader was making a book; and not

Unlike emulation, was editing generously.

The building in the barrio with a tiny yellow light.

Worlds were created in near silence,

and destroyed even quieter still. The writer wrestles,

with choices and stalled situations, corners 

and trap doors until stuck no more, after all was imaginary.

The darkness provided the right light.

The writer made galaxies with aether.

Contrast and focus, like noise easier to see

when the dimness has long nestled in.

And the scrivener muffles scribbles, while snores and strokes 

of keys alleviate worries, working while the rest slept.

The word wizard cast spells, swept up by sunrise. 

The writer reads what the reader rights, a better ending after all.

*This poem was inspired by the famous Wallace Stevens poem, The House was quiet and the world was calm, featured (also a recorded reading) on the Poetry Foundation website.

Painting by Rembrandt [Public domain], 'A Hermit Reading (c. 1630) via Wikimedia Commons.

@Odds, Evenso

What is it called when you know someone
upon eyes connecting directly with another
and you know they are seeing your naked soul
by the expression reflected back and both are admiring
the other
more than the self that is or could be
in side

by serendipity we seek
more than my or by our self
that makes one more than
alone-
that makes
connections by proximity
and grounds the charge between that face
and this spirit, these hands and that touch
and those that keep us enigmatic and static-
charged indivisibly

For see
exactly whom we ought to be-
come
& let go
of percipience
and wonder-
ment, for a time.

What is it considered when you have not traveled far and w i d e
but have sped through paper pages and flew limitless miles,
by red-eye, crossed enemy lines,
considered long and hard about first hand
experiences such as touching the spine that tingles,
or the same finger prints
as others
stained invisibly
soiled likewise, trespassed and told with ownership by good deed

If we need to know
to spread the word, a story, a life like ours is still
being-born-
threaded and indebted, (as I was)
just passing through when you weren't here
-yet
a note is always left for those who look
be-
low
the sure face.

Like metaphor
or mystery-

What happens when everything turns brown and holds onto its water weight
as proud as the iron anchor,
to linger a little before
breaking down
spread thin enough to cover the whole
sky
adding rain for self-reflection on white noise days
when echoes are licked up and reds are too strong
for floating in greyscale
when shades are all we needed
for answers acidic enough

for shelter
for honor
for comfort
for speech-less ways we see, never meant
the same again
precisely as it were.




Painting By English: Christen Dalsgaard (1824-10-30/1907-02-11) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

You again

Why would you be
looking here
when you should be
looking
somewhere else

There you go again
anywhere
but furthermore
and curiosity does not
have nine chances
to land on a point
where you find
yourself
here
again

Still
stop wasting another line
It will always be here
nevermore
than at its worst
a waste of-
a treasure of-
private epiphany
helium to some.

Anyway, today is the day
you stop.
And now
it is an insult
to see you watching these words
fly away-
don't check-
yet-
they lie
unrecognizable by eyes
other than yours

How you can see
not all the words are empty-
but half full-
of themselves,
it is beyond further explanation.
You know what I would say.




Image By Internet Archive Book Images, described as Life of James McNeill [No restrictions], via Wikimedia Commons.

A novel nosh

Hungry for something good to read,
(a never ending need)
my nose went sniffing over the shelves
seeking something scrumptious-
after my last four hundred page meal
I simply wanted maybe
a metaphor more,
another piece of poetic prose
to satisfy my insatiable nose
for narrative
(like food, how I live).

So I crack open a new
book of morsels,
after reading the back ingredients
briefly-advertising its
nutritional value.
I put my fingertip in it
and get more than a lyrical lick
or a great idea for a story-
this one is tough to chew
on, a grisly allegory
about a girl and a black flower
but the middle is missing...

Then the next one I choose
is about a fantastical mythical 
rabid Time eater-
then I learn it is really about
an avid reader.
Like a bad nut, the taste
can only be replaced
by something yummy and fabulist,
like a sweet and savory fable...

So I grab a good old classic
about some animals on a farm
and take a seat at the kitchen table-
not quite considered a fairy tale
but unprocessed and easier to digest
than that hormone injected one
with the wicked white whale.



Image of painting by Jehan Georges Vibert, The committee on moral books, 1866 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.