Magnets

True to form

February astounds

How the stars and planets 

        align

For the sky 

       moods

Atmosphere as in

Invisible rules.

Where one pauses

suddenly and 

Often to notice 

The unseeables and

         unmentionables

Or as quiet and mystical

as the snow 

          topping the distant 

Ranges

And dissolving

Time

         Marches on. 

Painting by Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902), 'A Storm in the Rockies' c. 1866 in Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Inanimate

Weeping willows

shoulder to shoulder,

mid-century Victorians

lean upon one another.

Wired webs woven atop

Holy wood poles high above

jumbo jets roar toward a stop-

on the runway not far off

in the distance

skyscrapers pierce 

the solid grey sky

Nothing minds my glance.

Nothing moves

unless moved

by something outside 

Itself. 

Image credit: 803 WHITAKER STREET, DETAIL OF PORCH, NORTHEAST CORNER - Savannah Victorian Historic District, Bounded by Gwinnett, East Broad, West Broad Street and Anderson Lane, Savannah, Chatham County, GA, in Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons. 

Ask the Sky Why

To lie
on your back
defeated
and speak your pieces
vehemently
as rain
at the ever listening sky

You know
this broad shoulder
of horizon
can take more
than your loaded gun
and spinning
chambers
as if a game
of Russian Roulette
would elicit a thunderous
STOP!

Threats empty
as a cloudless sapphire
catching light
and glaring
in its reflection
of you.

Life at this angle
in this volume
comes back
to us
in the same way
we know
every word has been heard
before you opened your mouth
and took
it all
in
as unnoticed
breath.



Painting by Francis Job Short (1857-1945), 'Sea and Sky at Seaford' in Public domain.

I am-phibian

A line in the sky
caught my eye

the barbed hook
of crescent moon

took no time
pulling my chin up

and out
of my element

and taking my breath
outside
the warm body

weightless
I can only wait
for lightness
to break

through
a comforting zone

at terminal velocity
relevant
only to the speed of
dreams and nightmares

piercing through
this illusion

of you
waking up
or falling down
but always catching

a peek
under the surface.



Painting by Lionel Walden, 'Twilight, Evening Star and Crescent Moon' c. 1925 in Public domain.

May Grey II

After so many May days
that curtain the skies with a fine marine haze
only breaking up under the heat of midday
donning a robe of satin blue wash
without any white spots
there was nothing more to be done

On other thick
midweek days, the same sky
holds up
a solid grey smoke screen
sprinkling into something
like too much timelessness.

Today the sky tosses
shadows and demands
attention with
thick padded clouds which
loom and tromp and roam and all
seem to know each of our names
and where we live precisely
by our current shape.

This high wind
has brought a wash of relief,
like warm atmosphere
even while
things were still moving
I felt still...

and kept getting my focus
pulled into the deep sky
and mesmerized
by the outlines,
the shifting journeys of these
mammoths
made of magnetic mist
I am drawn
into.

The harder I focus
and try to hold these empty gatherings
in my mind, tracing as they were racing
past, suddenly,
as if met with resistance,
and shyly they all slow
to an amble
and stall directly overhead.

And all that seems given
in the world
for closer observation
is made up
of grey matter
upon further reflection
I think the cloud sees me blue
while it seems white.





Painting by John Constable (1776-1837), c. 1821 in Public domain.

On the cusp

Setting one's sails
toward a life
and geography

we have long sought
becomes legacy

Maybe on Mondays
the horizon is too far away
to project any other color
but grey.

Anchoring ourselves
against the skylight
to the hours of shrinking shadows
where we are finding
bending light
a production
there was stillness to be
stolen, every now and then
dangling

the arc of our residence
may only be seen from great distances

and the greatest home
feels like there is nowhere else
to go.




Painting by Elioth Gruner, 'Fristy Sunrise', c. 1917 [Public domain].

Montaña

I have never seen
a mountain
I did not like
until now.

I had never before seen
a mountain
you could fall in love with
whose body hovered over yours
like an angel, whose shape outlined
the carnal tone
and muster its mass
against the sky with ease.

I found myself
at the base.
Cowering in the shadows,
meeting the mountain
I thought I had been dwelling atop
for the first time
seeing level
as plain as today. 





Photograph credit: Ansel Adams [Public domain], Glacier National Park Montana c. 1941-42 via Wikimedia Commons.

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.

Fond

Pink of dawn,
the rosy day
positioned itself
precisely between
love and light.

As day breaks into
warm undulating prisms
through angular concentration,
you may find
yellow
swirls through blue,

Let it grow

as Indigo
will remain underneath
and eternally holding stars in a place
we have said is filled
with dark matter
but it felt lighter
to some
and held-

ever so gently.

Painting by Alfred Heaton Cooper, c. 1905, titled "Dawn, Coniston" in [Public domain].

The light from stars

The sun had yet to rise
Still; inevitably it occurs
to us
it will never be the same
when we embrace this day
that tries to run away
from us

Not to notice

A sky
contains hope
levitating
as atmosphere,
permeable to light and
always open
to being caught
unaware
but ready

like the eyes
that see from here. 


Painting by Paul Klee, ;Horizon, Zenith and Atmosphere' c. 1925 in Public Domain [CC0].

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.

With the worms

Shaking off his jacket
spotted with purple dots of dew,
he unfurls his wings
and dashes off
to a new perch
higher up.

In the insistent rising sun
my head and shoulders form
an opposition,
casting shadows on
soft golden blades
rooted underfoot.

Stirring begins from the ground
where settled matters to-day
such as History and alternative pathways,
are made with each step one leg takes
at a time
to make movement or progression
of orbit

in order
to get there
only to see the selfsame shrinking
without feathers, but by a hair
and blunted nose not pointed beak.

This is sharp steel light
severing the warm body
from the sound mind.

A murmuration demonstrates
the reason
for gathering
our resources
but taking them
lightly.





Painting by Léon Bazille Perrault, 'The Bird Charmer' 1873 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Venus visits

Lying here

In darkness,

That is never heavy enough,

I lift the leaden pen

Towards tissue paper sheets,

The scratching sometimes helps-

But it doesn’t get to it

There is no focus

Under this solar eclipse.

I mark this occasion,

With singed retinas,

A scar to never forget

The sight-

It was just the words

That found me weak and feebly forgetting

My lines and knots,

Loops and circularity, entanglement and

Coincidence,

Felt as a brush of the lash, a butterfly effect

Of heavenly bodies.


Drawing By From public domain book, Solar eclipse, Corona 1870 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Draining the tank

Forced to shut it down,

I could blame the mind

and its tangents, divergents,

detours and erratic rays-

It was required, however,

silence inside,

the volume became unbearable

under the waiting 

behind healing.

Glances stolen by cocked arrows shot

straight from shoulder blades,

and daggers drawn across the word

arched with pain in glass sand, 

esses like snakes smolder

And some vacancy was needed, 

a clear horizon line-

some bleach, for feelings.

Yes, White-

now

Angels swallow song-

birds, as I sing along sharply

re-citing

the poetry written in the sky.

Artwork By James Yunge-Bateman, c. 1943 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

ante meridiem

The first crows of day take flight,

Gliding across the cool metal morning sheet

Confidence rises cool and aloof,

Early raw and pink dissipates like sunrise,

awakening forges

Here to face another view of this again,

All anew and alloyed with quill. 

Photo By Hillebrand Steve, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Public domain images website) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Firmament (Hi-Q)

Why always the sky?
Does your hair move in the wind?
Breath is not just mine.


Image credit by Brian W. Schaller (Own work), Windy Day Great Sand Dunes in Colorado (U.S.A.) [FAL], via Wikimedia Commons.

Where art thou?

People ask me where I've been and I am mystified.

I mean, I don't know if they mean recently-

or ever-

neither of which is that fascinating-

          which is completely untrue.

Nobody ever asks me this.

I have recently considered how Primo Levi said the glaciers melting 

in green varicose veins 

          could not be described.

He reminds me of Pluto in nebulous ways,

after all, he said it actually tasted like sky.

I guess we have all tried to touch rainbows, 

     and I think most of us prefer shiny things,

not semi-transparent or deflecting items such as prisms

     or  iridescence. 

Honestly, I am still trapped, 

so tell is all I can do. 

It takes determination, geometry 

to hold on to other crystals like granite,

becoming solidified, and structurally sound for a time

bond even, but really just passing through. 

This is how too, 

          rivers are reminiscent of veins 

                         and the passing of blood,

like what is liquid or solid 

               and divides me by you. 

Painting By J.E.H. MacDonald (1873/1932) [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

 

Under pressure

That summer evening
the sky was pink and raw
and your eyes were streaked in red.

We could feel the cool air
rush between us,
in day and under night.

There were monsoons churning just miles away,
we could feel these winds too.

Sounds became amplified
in dusk and static cling.
You could hear quite clearly this ring,
some say halo
spreading above.

Colors holding onto some blended harmony,
a lilac or plum, some and none.

When we look up, you say away
our trajectory changes its synchronicity,
which was never the same as settling.

We knew the heat wave would break
as much as the cold spell would snap
the last straw, but we watched the change
wash over us.

We know, but forget constantly.

At times like these,
warm rain reminds us
endurance and presence
are more than enough.


Painting by Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732-1836) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Morning brew

The curtains tickle cool and
I get the impression crisply,
while I can, spots all separate,
the symphony tunes each section,
from deep purple set on dusty rose
to ashen greys settled on lazy lilac
unfolding the old periwinkle sheet
low-lit and pink pill speckled
as though white was never needed
in dawn's steeping sky
tweaking the tune of day
in the background.




Painting By Unknown artist – Artist [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Representation

Only artists know
the sky is never painted
wrong, everything goes.





Painting Sky StudyBy Unknown artist – Artist [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.