Ex-isle

This world 

is not for breath

for feelings

also come and go.

As hard and light as 

Push and pull

Go.

Busy hands and 

bees-electricity, alter-

nating currents, the unseen

Never again 

Now

Where were we-

Many moons ago

and always one moon

stoic satellite

Spinning our own orbit

one side-sunlit

Not saying

darkness always becomes

Her-

Or shall I?

Painting by Robert Henri 'The Reader in the Forest' c. 1918 via Wikimedia Commons and Google Art Project, in Public Domain. 

Home

This name does not belong

to me-

This body will do

For mobility of the restless soul

Escape from all

This

killing ourselves

Sweet poisons of security

in a sense

Never enough

To fill the seams

To fit to the letter

To tie loose ends

Try to forget

Let go

without remembering

What it was

The name of something

That kept us.

Painting by 'Winslow Homer, 'The Green Hill' c. 1878, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons in Public Domain. 

E. Pifanny

I was more in

Love with the 

Place than the man.

-I thought-

Humans are complex,

Addicted ones are

Predictable.

I think-

If you are not given

More than you think you can handle-

then how would you know-

How much more

You could...

I figured,

Turning a blind eye

makes you 

Feel more than

hind (in)sight like fore-

shadowing.

I realized,

Loss enhances the value of 

What you have, irreplaceable or

simple, nameable, and not.

Holding on to 

Nothing is free

falling-

Until 

I knew-

Everything

Lands

Home again

Like a name you've never heard, but

Think you know or a place

You've never been and find 

Yourself in

Love.

Painting by William Orpen (1878-1931), 'The Eastern Gown' c. 1906 in Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Never mind

There was something important
I was supposed to be doing
with my life
right now
instead
I look for
a purpose
and find myself
in your gaze
living the way we once did
one more time
it felt different despite how
intimately we held onto
memories
of the way some feelings
make us forget
ourselves.



Painting by Boris Grigoriev (1886-1939), 'Woman in a green dress' c. 1926 / Public domain.

Philanthropic to I

There was never enough time
and the anxiety pushes down
regardless of knowing that it is certain
to never be finished.

All of it.
None of it.

How long would we all go on
notching our lives in rectangular weeks,
segments and inclines, corner piles
sidling past
hurdles and ho-humming
thru the week til TGIF
and the recursive sickness of it all
as in another episode, chronic
cases of the Mondays,
if we can only make it
to payday to pay the day
we said we would.

There was no question.
We did and do.
Our lives depended on such
boxing and enumeration.

I figure
if I live to the age of eighty,
I will have a little more than two-
thousand weeks left
total.

And I realize I haven't taken a vacation
in 208 weeks, or four years,
I have accrued comatose
creative inclinations, arthritic
anticipation, or being too busy,
and paid or not
the work wants us
to not take notice of the numbers
always changing around
by only ones
and zeros.

My heart flutters in the rhythm of time
to myself, also frequently attributed to
quality of life, a pursuit of joy, or
volunteer work for the self.

Well, we all know we could never afford
to quit
counting,
adding and subtracting,
projecting and losing
the balance that remains.





Drawing by Louis Leopold Boilly, 'Studies of Hands' Unknown date, located in the Metropolitan Museum of Art [CC0].

In-dividuality

These few
need to be near me.
Draw themselves into the fold in-
creasing the density of space it-
self-personal bubble, but
flat out refuse to be
touched
There. Too in-
timate to be considered
delicately. Anywhere
these bubbles abut,
list and lean in-
to one another, there is
a bursting of the seams.



Painting by Peder Severin Krøyer, c. 1881 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Binding bed

Sought intimate spaces

for self-

lost private places

for nurturing health.

Grew weary with waning

insistence,

wilted and arid, the stem

aches with thirst

the worst exposure

to lunar light

this side of mourning

the death of circus dreams.

It seems the sun disperses

its golden dust

according to an architecture

of ideal.

Beholden to the barriers molded

by hand-

curses stand as they must, in spite of us

for a time.

As last

sunsets free

the stars, placing winking faces

astronomical units apart

and fixed on never being

yours or mine.

“Our tendency to build walls is useful only to provide a starting point for self-definition, walls that contain the bed in which we are born, in which we dream, we breed and we die; but outside the walls lies Siddhartha;s realization that all human beings grow old, all are prone to nightmare and disease, and all must ultimately come to the same implacable end. Books endlessly repeat that one same story.” (“The Library at Night” by Alberto Manguel p. 229)

Artwork by Evelyn De Morgan, 'The Prisoner' c. 1908 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Do, Rey, Me, My, I

I admit-

I hate poems that start with "I",

which means I also hate this poem.

I mean, there is no "i" in "poem".

There is though, in "poesis" and "meta-

morphosis", just one

I mean, the making of one into many

more I's and i's.

It is not as if I care

about bravely baring the skin or showing some soul,

a sweet tooth for eye candy, and me, me, me...

Besides your self 

what is important to the eye is not the you

others see, really. Not fooling anyone in that mask.

I know you smile when others look at you,

but fail to see your eyes,

really,

I see you mocking me, and I do too,

since it was never about you

only I and I hated it. 

 Photo of Norma Talmadge (c. 1919) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Pass the looking glass

Face your fears,
is always more than
a dare,
underlying there is
the resurgence and recurrence
brought back by time and tide

Heavy in the air
inoculable preoccupation
to reflect
the return
a long lost relative redness
in the cheeks,
the submarine crystal eyes,
tiny peeks in a clouded
mirror

and there stares
back the terror of truth,
thicker than mist
draining all the same
Vain
by surface shine
in a spectacle
she sees a blind slave
whose never seen herself
anything but brave.

Painting By Tarbell, Edmund Charles (1862 - 1938) – Artist (American) Details of artist on Google Art Project [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Me, me, me, me

Is it fair to wonder
when I can be the me
I see,
when I think of who
I want to be-
come from where I stand
now-
it looks far as never
and if I am ever as close
as I am now,
I wonder if I will notice
the fair resemblance
to my former self-
or will I wish
to go on
wondering who
the next me will be?



Image of painting by Léon Perrault, c. 1868 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

The arche-lights of animus

You are blocking the light-
beams moon your ego in full array,
it fully eclipses the suns blaze
in plane view, blinding you
of any depth perception,
resulting in
vert-
ego.

Lights out, volume up, listen in...

Do you hear the way you sound?

A megaphone is an overkill,
where whispers in-
discernable are cumulative thunder,
a warning-
note to self-
to mute the background
static by detaching
or unplugging the
speaker.
The back feed amplifier
of the anima in us.
Shadows are holding your place
(in) apoge-e
go!


Image of painting by William Merritt Chase [Public domain or CC0], via Wikimedia Commons.

Was that always there?

Nobody notices

nor should they

focus on other

space in this

case by case

generations go on

with or out of 

resemblance

can't compare

whats yours 

alone and shown

to no one

but those 

who notice.

Image of painting Pietro Rotari [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Amore di sé

Atop the purple pale predawn sky
stirred my spirit to unrest
Arose to white worlds winking
afar and apart were we
but heavenly orbs lined up
in a row
Tho all alone at this timid time
watched, I was, enrapt in
warm thirsty waves of want
and shapeless yearning to be-
come drown in the love sent to
me in lights that others call
empty space.


Image by By Alice Boughton, Dawn (1909) (Camera Work, No 26, 1909) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

A lone danger

The more I am
alone
the more time
I am alone,
alone, a-lone
a lone
one
I am
late, so late, elated, and finally full,
joyful, full of over-brimming bliss
an energy to explore, a desire to dive down
deeper and intimately drown in my senses,
swallowing all self whole.
I smile at leaving a gaping hole
where the eye
is spotted, leaving it beheaded and indebted
for the fruitful loss of self, rare in its abundance
we never say we like me this way today...
We re-cognitize, recognize our righteousness
doesn't come without cue
We have been wrong
pre-occupied
so long, a good bye, even now
I tremble,
still
a lone
euphoric
one,
only, once-ly
lately
lonely
wanting more
of less.



Image of painting by Paolo Veronese, Muse with a Lyre (c.1561), [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

One Eyed Human-I-ty

I didn't do it,

it was not me.

I only take credit when

I see opportunity.

I slept, I wept,

I don't know what came over me.

I acted as anyone would,

I reacted, in the situation, as

I should.

I got an epiphany, and then

I got sick.

I had an opportunity, but-

I had a cold.

I warmed to the idea,

I was on fire-before-

I was in denial.

I took a chance, I stole a glance,

I found truth.

I healed and I grew.

I thought

I knew-

None of these things

I really do. 

Image By J. Parker Read Jr. Productions / Associated Producers, I Am Guilty [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons (1921).

A Release from Sext

In the afternoon
I hate myself most
garishly, as all
nerves frayed
with split ends, all noise
nails rubbing slate
I'm tired (of myself).

By then-Between us
at least, there is space
room to know that
it is not the nadir
obstructed with sunny optimism
what Others see, outside of me.

In silence, I seek serenity
I try-I appropriate-I displace
I operate-surgically, extracting-
a locality no longer near.
I sense us coming together,
a second in passing.
I pretend not to recognize
myself anymore.

When the skylights dim
my movements are lighter;
feathered words, pillowed prepositions,
untether thoughts,
the contrast crispens.
Finally,tension snapped-symmetry shatters,
I am now freed from my toxic unity.


Image by Hans Andersen Brendekilde [Public domain], A wooded path in Autumn (1902) via Wikimedia Commons.