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].

No gift receipt

Give me
a dry wood chair sitting in the filtered summer sun...
Give me
a dry chair in the summer sun and a thin book of dense poetry to peruse...
Give me
a dry chair in the summer sun with some poetry to read and my blue cat upon my lap,
smiling.
Give me
a wood chair in the filtered sunlight with some sweet poetry and a fat happy cat along with a fuzzy soft peach sweating sugar at hand...
Give me
a warm chair in a little shade, some sweet words and a light breeze, along with a little purring, sticky lips from stone fruits, and the tiny taps of beak smacking mocking birds...
Give me
a chair in the sun, sweet poetry to sink my teeth into, a comfortable cat and a bleeding pen that simply translates all the birds' words,
then I am spoiled
in a shower of gifts,
sated and barefoot in the Bermuda.



Painting by Béla Iványi-Grünwald, 'Lady sitting in the arbor' (1903) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Trees before forest

Long ago,

I relished, savoring that golden hour

In which people so often flock to the sea

Eyes set on the dipping radiant sun

And me now

Caught completely off-guard, unarmed,

By the bright gold glint reflecting upon

The beige page I cradle,

This glare that makes me lose

Place, interest, grip

in, on, or about anything

but this propositioning, this pen

and a poem

waiting for me

to see it there.


Painting by Tom Thomson [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Chit for chat

Who are you talking to? or what are you talking about?

Nobody. Everything.

If 'Nobody', then aren't you communicating to no one about Nothing? 

Why waste your precious time? 

It occupies-my (precious) mind-some-times.

Who has Time for all that? reading? writing? listening? to 'Nobody'...

What else is time for?

Work. Some Thing. 

So, writing, and reading and listening-these are all                leisurely-un-activities

-easy would you say? not Work.

Yes. Of course. Everyone knows this. No.

How does Everyone know? Did somebody tell you this?

No, Nobody. I just heard it somewhere. Everything productive is work. Work is a productive thing.

That works...for some...productions or some things. I read that nobody listens anymore,

you have proven everybody wrong. Unless I am wrong.

You are right. 

Painting by Károly Ferenczy, Engaged in a conversation (1912) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

A as in Atlantis

With these eyes,

i thee read, these lines, repeating after me,

Love thyself first mover-

Touching is not happy after ever.

All we wanted was with in us, All ready

an honor about Time.

Cherishing those kaleidoscope views 

as the clouds grew and threw shadows for depth,

making perfect patterns that reflect you 

and eye am more voluminous than any body of work

with more baritone than you can 

Here,

horizontally.

Deeper than i can sea.

Image By Scan by NYPL [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

The distance attention spans

Who reads anything

anymore Long-ish, I wish

for the short answer.

Painting By Félix Armand Heullant (1834–1905) (Düsseldorfer Auktionshaus) [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.

The Confession of an Obsession

Since a poem is a perfect place

             in which to hide a secret

it just so happens to be the case

             that nobody's found it yet

A place in which to utter

             a covert illicit little truth

as discreet as melted butter

             not to be uncouth

but it's later than due time

              to admit to one and all

I am guilty of a crime

              I will confess without stall

I'm enrapt in a torrid love affair

some juicy details I will share

The smell I cannot resist

which may have led to this tryst

I constantly search and obsess

it is a purely pathetic weakness

that saps me dry

but I will always try

Amassing more and more

until I find what I'm looking for

This infatuated relationship

                is a one way street

while there is companionship

                we will never actually meet

I dream of cuddling in bed

                under covers where a little light

is pointing to where I just read

                 and could go on all night

Igniting my mind

                 into a frenzied passion

an addiction of this kind

                 one should try to ration

Time and devotion

with the notion

that you'll never have enough

room for more stuff

if you keep acquiring books

yet still one obsessively looks

since solutions are often found

on pages that are bound

lasciviously labeled as Fiction

which is just a categorical diction

My endless reading is a search

                     to find how much one can know

a library perhaps is my church

                      stretching one's brain to grow

but a book can also be called a spell

                      some are innocent and some evil

by the cover you cannot tell

                       the influence is one's own will

caving under printed pressure

                       but as long as you enjoy the ride

or maybe find a buried treasure

                        I will no longer try to hide

This minor flaw in my character

Just ask the narrator

Where in my own life story

Tells not for glory

But to assert aloud

that I am proud

to admit I am a bibliophile

and my 'To Read' pile

is at least a mile

it should take me a while

to read them all

so I really shouldn't fall

for another book sale

until I finish my latest epic tale.

Image By Burnett, Alexander. [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons