Voluminous

I long to be

a book upon

that shelf,

an erect 

spine

gazing quietly

Outward

The kind of book

with extra 

creamy

blank pages

after

So we can continue

the story

a little past

The End...

Photograph info: 

Public Library- the work of Leyton Public Library Service, Church Lane, Leytonstone, London, England, UK, September 1944
Two young female library assistants rearrange and classify books at Leytonstone Public Library, Church Lane

Dated: 1944

Baby rock

A daughter is the only true conversation
that never ends...

Domesticated means kept
for companionship
by necessity.

Friend-
ships sail easily in a passing breeze.

Love spins
the Earth,
holding us close
to the core
or heart
of matter

like all of these
intangible connections
that bind
our words to the spine.

Once upon a time
we were here
mattering to one another

collecting the loose fragments
that spin off
and calling them stars.


Artwork credited by NASA/JPL-Caltech / Public domain.

Intro-version

Things fall into place and we can safely say
gravity had a heavy hand,
although it is a weak force and spineless excuse
for why we stand up-
right

despite the pressure this places directly on
our crowns,
fashioned from sand and stone,
the weight resists the wait
reeling into terminal velocity
blurs and gives
in, collapses into itself,

and condensing, reducing what is necessary
by its lowest denomination

We still build and rebuild as if we knew it would
all work out this way,
and not that way we tried
to change the inevitable, like laws, universal
and blind,
like this dark energy displaced
with good will

things were determined
by the absence of things
accidentally
heavier than we could imagine.


Painting by Jules Charles Aviat (1844-1931) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Gravitas

It was never about our dumb thumbs.
It was the way we stood up
to gravity
without needing to know what we have
pushed up against, the faceless force
of resistance that throws its weight in waves
that crash out of sight and none mind this weakness
the stacking of back bones.

The clock, the book, ape our names with a smirk and a stick
shows you his ant collections, meanwhile, the snake swallows its tail.

Pounds and heartbeats resist this ethereal oppression
that taunts us to compete with what we have,
as though a winner was ever chosen,
as if hope had more than clipped wings with whimsical wants
and rings only of brass cages,

only light easily escapes our local prisons,
with motion detectors triggered we creep
like suspicion
reflection and persistence and say we are seekers

what gathers as cumulous clouds all comes
back down to dirt before clay
this way something is from nothing

the spinal column rachets and secures its connections
between inside out, an idea, a step in the right foot first
direction of brave, giants leaps of grace
loss of place

higher than vertigo knows
makes me think
there was nowhere to grow
up is out.

I doubt our thumbs
gave us a free ride.
Gravity takes no sides.




Painting by Claude Monet, Heavy Seas at Pourville (1897) in [Public domain], 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.