Weather Fact or Friction

Thunderstorms can generate wind that is capable of developing additional thunderstorms up to 100 miles away.
Ants carry greater weight upon the fate of the planet than all of the elephants.
There is only one cheetah, genetically. They are all copycats.
All tortoiseshell cats are female.
A tortoise is a turtle, but a turtle is not a tortoise.
All mammals have hair, including marine mammals.
If a butterfly lands on you, like a kiss it has a lingering effect.
Kissing is a form of devouring one another.
Eating your words causes indigestion.
Our narrow color spectrum is a coded labeling system,
nevermind the claims of reds or whites or
fermentation of green and browns,
we eagerly ingest our poisons like medicines. Only death is harmless.
So many are starving but none are taking a place at the table or saying
a word of Grace.
Anyway,
Escape and Utopia are not the equivalents of Apathy and Atlantis.
Artificial Intelligence demonstrates that competence can be performed without comprehension.
When we tried playing God, saving the Earth, selling one-way tickets to Heaven and the Moon,
Time traveling, age rewinding, and portraying ourselves to be all-powerful we found ourselves-weak to resist, irresistible, gullible, and addicted to more than just the levers and
Controls.
Not knowing Best, but collecting alternate facts and delegating the feelings
of incompetence to all Others, we have been told two Truths and a Lie.
Fires spread in the mess-hall, millions of cooks vacated the kitchen, all of their pants aflame,
an acrid vapor left in the wake of Epochs echoing on wax-filled ears.
From the top-down, the ice spreads, plates are stacked and we are still spinning.
The soul never stays in one spot. Heat, like religion, is always seeking converts.
We are all preoccupied, we were born busy and off-balance, running to stay up-
Right.
Our big three-pound brains burn 33o calories per day.
The brain does not recover the same way other muscles do.
Magic is the ten days it takes for a flesh wound to heal. The Big Bang is still happening.
Hindsight is too far behind current, foresight is double vision doubled, the current is always moving, perspective is in every angle, adjective.
It was short and sweet.



Artwork by Edward Penfield (1866-1925), Calendar cover c. 1896 in Public Domain. 

Sign language

Early,
I learned to yell with horses,
assert my stubborn will with weight
and quiet hands-
neigh.

Nay-
I remember not getting anywhere
faster than a cheetah, as
likewise, the robin flees before the race
we all jump the gun-alert and
early.

A wild child-yet unbroke
and the mustang duo, run like there is no
Lands End-
Let us pretend too,
hills only roll gently
circling round the plain...

Flowers sway and manes fly,
entangling tendrils and thrills-
with that type of wind
that blows her name-Gale
fast and hard.

I have found where thunder settles
down and grazes.

And did I ride bareback-
harness-less-Yes.
I confess,
I stole many horses
with my bare hands
rhetorically.

A bit and bridle, only
belong here,
reined in poetry
as this is memory
Now
ad Again.

I think of signs,
like lightening
and stalled horses
and understand
plain screams,
and freedom.


Photo By National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. Katie Theule, photographer [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Tying rainbows on Mt. Moody

Up there-
rolling in cumulus
open fields,
tumbling down with
empyrean echoes-
they sniffled
there
and heaved a last great sigh
before resting
as simply shaded shapes
or hanging
thunder clouds.
Where
they lay
their puffy heads atop
the solemn iron mountains,
they reflect
your steely glance in silver volumes
of sharp light.
And slice right through
grey matter
with gentle insistence
by ninth degrees.
Up there
the birds begin to
propose,
always asking
hopefully...
They then spun
a soothing song
across beryled acoustics
waving conductive wands.

That is where
the avians weave bows
in the rain,
seeking to tame
those tangled tresses
inherently
cast over cold
granite shoulders
where shale shawls
lie stoic
dark and morose
under the mercurial masonry,
They are
always adding color,
muffled and soft
unflappably
making rainbows
with nothing but stone and air
up there.

"I try to think about rainbows when it gets bad,  

You have to think about something to keep from going mad." 

-Gwen Stefani (In My Head, No Doubt)

Image of Mount Rainer in Washington state, US, By US National Park Service (http://www.nps.gov/media/photo/gallery.htm) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Flash flood

On the day of Epiphany

the sky floated dirty grey sponges,

called storm clouds by some

which wrench and wring overhead

my tin box called a truck

for the second after-

noon, awaiting the bell, it begins to flood.

El Niño, they all point, name, and blame-

not the children though, who don't know

him yet and squeal at the thunder in de-

light-ning, claps all around.

An ominous sound to

a sitting truck, quaking the floorboards rumble,

but I am grounded, in technical terms.

Rivers run along the roads,

gurgling gutters are choking

on the leaves and it is okay,

I had nothing to say today,

anyway. Listening to the lights

blur and sob, struck dark as night

at two-until a conflicting flash, a

sneaking streak, the epiphany speaks,

Time is not everything.

The wind is whipping

laterally, bending palms

like cracking knuckles

lumber joints that prefer

dancing with Saint Ana and yet

a seasonal storm is all winter needs

to feel right

on Time...

Pouring my heart out into the rain,

watching all my words spool and eddy

washing away, skipping over school

and strangle the drain

plundering prudence

scatter the slated soggy students.

Composed 1/7/16.

Image by By Eliud Echevarria (This image is from the FEMA Photo Library.) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Cat's got my tongue

While sitting outside

on the back porch

on a summer afternoon

in my mix-matched

cushioned lawn chair

enjoying a good new book

unsure if the sun will stay

Out.

I relax,

with my feet in the bluegrass.

Though, it's not a book

that you can fly through,

each page is a mental push-up.

You know the kind, I'm sure-

a bicortextual brain strain

with flow charts that clog.

When way up in the sky,

a small Lear jet flies by,

and I sit in its path,

it growls and is too

high

to even notice little me.

My cat joins me,

with her

un-in-purr-upting company

kneading affection.

A little tawny finch lands

on the rock fountain.

He performs his

flappers dance gaily, his aria flawless,

unabashed,

cleanly and

splashfully exits stage left.

We both watch,

she cackles

and I wonder

why the little bird doesn't care

we're both right there,

staring rudely, ogling even

at its feathered tweet show.

And those angry raven parents up in the pine

are screeching at their latest son,

again.

Impatiently, they squawk, he walks up the drive-

they are fed up with him, I know

even though I don't speak crow.

And even now, at full-grown, a juvenile-

He's more than slow,

we think he was dropped on his

egg-head,

that's what I heard they said.

A helicopter hovers around above wide

oval circles, chopping up the sky

like a Chinese chef, banging cleavers.

It is looking

for something or someone specific,

that is why

it's also called an ‘eye in the sky’.

Hovering just above the electric lines

it bangs, beats, and blows too low, unpleasantly.

Calmly, my cat licks her butt,

unafraid, she knows,

this flying heap of a beast

is just a loud hunk of metal made

by mere man, outside toys.

The leaf blower next door

dies down,

settling the matter

of fences and foliage,

spreading the abundance, she perks her ear

at the trembling leaves trying to run and hide.

From Inside

the deafening sudden thick silence

a grumble,

a rumble grows…

My cat jumps up

on her pads.

Looking up-she crouches low.

In a flash I realize-

it is thunder

and I wonder,

how she could know

to be scared,

although

the crow

still stands stark still, crookedly.

After a brief flash , I decided, I will go

hide

inside.

Now my cat is buried deep

under the bed

where she fled

just as soon as the monsoon

drum rolled into town.

Now wide-eyed and with electrified hair

I think the whiskers may be overkill.

How she chooses her fear

not by what she hears

but by what it comes from…

She is not so dumb

even without a…

She has no fear for what is Man-Made-

cat's got my tongue,

in cheek,

I peak outside and reopen the book,

Index finger smugly tucked inside.

The next chapter

is on

‘Natural Selection’.

Composed 7/5/15.


Image By Andreibanc (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

The Wonder of Thunder

On the last day of June
we welcomed a summer monsoon
tourist season, they say
The warnings were out all week
but on this Tuesday
the sky was in disarray, you could say
The conflict escalated
to new heights.
How quickly
moods can change.
How dark and eerie it became
for afternoon
we heard its dreary ominous tune.

It began from afar
amassing volume like confidence
and girth like tumbleweed
resounding and thick
marching on men
Then-
something heavy dropping
we look for what
or where, as though the air
up there was a source we
have sought successfully,
like a rope swing
with a loosening knot.

Looking up as though we speak sky
we get the angry message anyway
Its speech is joined by errant spit
large droplets fly
reading the notes
playing the part
of bass through bones.

My child said she felt minor
under the orchestrated stratosphere
not in those words
more like small;
trivial and timid.
The cats have all hidden
as car alarms cry wolf.
Homey windows rattle in their jamb
echoing for
a pyrotechnical encore
Instigating more friction
rolling slowly by the speed of sound
shouts rumble, muffled rebound.

Venting steam by shouts
just hollow threats
and yet we still feel a tremble
in carnal fear
like the scaredy cats
cowering because they
under-stand-what
we cannot hear.
Followed by flashes
of ignored intuition
stuck, grounded, in opposition,
weighted with worry.

The higher we climb
on leaded ladders limbs
the heavier and
louder the clatter
as it peals back
winding up
to take a crack
and shatter the fear
in what you do hear
and not a decible more
from traveling Thor
who was just rolling by,
warning of traffic in the sky.



Image By Prashanthns (Own work) [GFDL 1.2 (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/fdl-1.2.html), CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons.

May-be a storms a passin'

The way the sky hangs,
on every note between birds,
pending with tension that is thunder.
A surge of need rides the backs,
rallies the clouds around,
now surrounded and we are small,
audible with weakness, loudness,
madness amplified.
And with a warm breath,
the sky relents with rain,
a sweet sigh, cleanses in resilience,
brilliance.
Miasmic mists that appear
thick with self,
but calm all along,
the bird holds its song,
while the storm subsides,
in mutual mercy of May.




Image By User:Imagaril (Own photo) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.