Taken for Granite

Whereby

a  storm comes ambling aloft

which builds upon itself and

You are there to 

Witness the change

in atmosphere

Almost a reconsideration of

Truth, as it pours down 

Over body and soul.

One becomes

Baffled by the way

Sound carries or

Falls

depending upon

the time of day or night while

those spinning hours

make a hum under

Thoughts that echo

Passing through

this chambered grey space. 

We are 

Well,

enveloped 

under this veil

Trapped in body and mind

the heartbeat is 

Small comfort

Persistent as gravity

the weight we hold

Ourselves

up against wind and wave

Enduring the 

Resilience

Even while

strewn about

We become

overflowing, dispersing

Violently sometimes

Breaking down into bits, drops and 

Grains-

Eroding to dust

before settling

Eventually

becoming a mountain

Once again. 

Painting by Marianne North (1830-1890) - View near Tijuca, Brazil, Granite Boulders in the Foreground - MN821 - Marianne North Gallery, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew via Wikimedia Commons in Public Domain. 

What was the question?

Time, like money, isn't tangible 

Neither is love, truth and what

is real-

made up, rounded off, different

for you and I-

what is real...

And yet, some

times

are frozen or elapse slow

and many too fast to enjoy

Enough-

What about dusk-sunset 

or dawn, or the times

I look at the clock and it's the same

Times-day and night.

Well, what about a pastime or a memory,

Truth be told from one 

person in a place with

Nothing-

is real

for you-for anyone...

Do blessings count?

Photo of Woman at spinning wheel in Studeno na Blokah, Slovenia taken August 1962 in Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons. 

Any other way

Forget and forgive

Not the other way

Forward

Better to apologize

than ask for

Permission

Make sense

Of a million censors

One raises 

Voices

But acts alone.

There was a time 

of day

that just felt right

Now

is a different Time.

The sun sets

the sun rises

all the Same.

Image of Artwork credited by (Scan by NYPL), 'Sunrise or Sunset on Lake Champlain, NY' in Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Grey area

The grey painted cement 

redundant and radiating

through my body

the days suns rays-

Still, at dusk

clouds conceal

any prism possible

from what could home

from new horizons

by night-

fall.

I retreat into

cool slate clean sheets.

Alone,

I make warmth

of close space

to release 

the solid Time. 

Painting by Johan Christian Dahl(1788-1857), 'Clouds over the Palace Tower at Dresden' c. 1825 in Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Time drop

This morning

behind charred clouds

the moon sank 

as if weighted by 

its alabaster center

yet holding

light,

becoming full

bodied between

plumes of thick night.

Time brings on vertigo.

The past smells of soot,

the smoke dissipates 

as soon as it appears

now 

the ashes of what was once

solid

touch smears what has 

dis-appeared.

Imagining the days to come

are dreams,

the haze and glow of a child 

in wonder,

hoping for a pony

afraid of the horse

it will be-come. 

Now, like water the falls

in sprinkles

touching my cheeks,

the temperature adjusts

to the soul, a heart

that is cold can hold

now,

clinging to ice

that melts into the ever

present stream

of being 

here. 

Painting by Wilhelm Ferdinand Xylander, c. 1884 in Skagens Museum, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

dis-content

a moment dis-missed

then and then again

trees fell like bodies

this time dis-appears

as if ours to waste.

Artwork by José Nin y Tudó (1840-1908), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Sundialing

Under the darkness
I wait for daylight
and it slowly drains
all energies made
over-this-night.

I find myself
empty and long
for the warm light
to wane
or die
back down
knowing this
way we live is insane
and making it not so different
from this sentence.

The years blend by lumens
and erase all traces
of anticipation
for another
night
to escape
for day to come,
for the light that never
dawned upon me...

unrisen and incapable
of my occasional
need to know
what a future holds
without hands.


Painting by 'German Master' unknown, Still Life with skull, sundial, wax jack' c. 1620 in Public Domain. 

Time's Up

The witching hour grown heavy
with its customary anticipation,
takes its tiny minute hand
to tap gently, persistently
on my sleeping body
causing the cat to stir,
purr and stretch
Time
into manifest destinies
with whispers of sound
like padded feet
passing under doors.
Air is moving all around
us making vertigo
an entrance.

The body is moved
by the mind.
A cauldron steams and hisses
acrid blackness
and while all the other
heavily burdened bodies
are tucked deep down
in the sand,
weighted by breath
and erased by tide,
an inside voice
gives rise to words
that lie
in the subconscious
and spell
Magic
with only the thinnest lucid air.

This hour
witch made
alone
disappear
as fast as you passed through
the fear of flying Time.

Macbeth Act IV Scene I

FIRST WITCH

Round about the cauldron go;

In the poison’d entrails throw;

Toad, that under cold stone

Days and nights has thirty-one

Swelt’red venom sleeping got,

Boil thou first i’ th’ charmed pot.

THREE WITCHES

Double, double, toil and trouble;

Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.

SECOND WITCH

Fillet of a fenny snake,

In the cauldron boil and bake;

Eye of newt and toe of frog,

Wool of bat and tongue of dog,

Adder’s fork and blind-worm’s sting,

Lizard’s leg and howlet’s wing,

For a charm of pow’rful trouble,

Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

THREE WITCHES

Double, double, toil and trouble;

Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.

THIRD WITCH

Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,

Witch’s mummy, maw and gulf

Of the ravin’d salt-sea shark,

Root of hemlock digg’d i’ th’ dark,

Liver of blaspheming Jew,

Gall of goat, and slips of yew

Sliver’d in the moon’s eclipse,

Nose of Turk and Tartar’s lips,

Finger of birth-strangled babe

Ditch-deliver’d by a drab,

Make the gruel thick and slab.

Add thereto a tiger’s chawdron,

For th’ ingredience of our cau’dron.

THREE WITCHES

Double, double, toil and trouble;

Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.

SECOND WITCH

Cool it with a baboon’s blood,

Then the charm is firm and good.

Enter Hecat and the other three Witches.

HECAT

O, well done! I commend your pains,

And every one shall share i’ th’ gains.

And now about the cauldron sing,

Like elves and fairies in a ring,

Enchanting all that you put in.

Music and a song: “Black spirits, etc.”

Exit Hecat.

SECOND WITCH

By the pricking of my thumbs,

Something wicked this way comes.

Knocking.

Open, locks,

Whoever knocks!

Enter Macbeth.

MACBETH

How now, you secret, black, and midnight hags?

What is’t you do?

ALL WITCHES

A deed without a name.

MACBETH

I conjure you, by that which you profess

(How e’er you come to know it), answer me:

Though you untie the winds, and let them fight

Against the churches; though the yesty waves

Confound and swallow navigation up;

Though bladed corn be lodg’d, and trees blown down;

Though castles topple on their warders’ heads;

Though palaces and pyramids do slope

Their heads to their foundations; though the treasure

Of nature’s germains tumble all together,

Even till destruction sicken; answer me

To what I ask you.

---

MACBETH

Infected be the air whereon they ride,

And damn’d all those that trust them! I did hear

The galloping of horse. Who was’t came by?

Copyright ©2005-2019 by PlayShakespeare.com.
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Copyright ©2005-2019 by PlayShakespeare.com.
Visit http://www.playshakespeare.com/license for details.

Painting by E.R. Hughes, 'A Witch' c. 1902 in Public Domain. 

Muerto de la Noche

A solitary soul stirs
this night around
its geared dial.

Icy on the rocks,

all that matters
bends the steel air
sparks subdue any singes

While other carbon bodies
lie in their nests
heaving gentle breaths
through resting rib cages
my feathers fall out
and the kitten chases them
under the couch.

Watching the speed of time
and loaded with momentum,
and anticipation
for the light that breaks

anything it touches,

it dawned over me,
 (after all) an awareness
that all feathers fall
at the same speed coin wishes
sink
under the weight of water-

sometimes out of sight.

The brown widow and I weave
simultaneous gossamer threads
from what we have left
of the night that never
imposes its intimate knowledge

without our consent

and an entwined desire
to witness this place
we seem to not belong
but are required to prey in
for survival.

The kitten purrs in a ball,
the humans snore, fetal in their beds,
while I draw out long lines
the nocturnal pace
themselves
into the unforgivable light.


Artwork by Vilhelm Hammershøi (1864-1916), 'Figure reading at a table at night', medium-chalk, c. 1891 in Public Domain.

Counting downward

How many times
         have I worn a watch
(consistently)
         until it stopped
being consistent
         so I stopped wearing it
?

Why try
to rely
            upon such fragile devices
(like butterfly wings)
             that beat on deaf ears
while years
go by
like hours

?

Like most of us
I check the phone
for answers
to more than
Hello?
(without a pulse
that I can count)

How fast was it All
going
by day, by night
             -impossible to tell
ourselves or the others
without a second-hand
account.



Artwork by Winslow Homer, wood engraving, 'Another Year by the old clock' c. 1870 in Public Domain.

Our glasses (hourglasses)

I read in front of them.
I was reading anyway.
They never read.
Even behind my back.

I waited to be sure.
I was never sure
I waited too long.

Liars, thieves, and cheaters
are three of a kind.
I had them all
in hand,
and made a row of bushes
with the tangled vines
for Privacy.

Alone with ourselves
imposes ego as though
we should learn
from mistakes.

The golden rule
is soft, diamonds are forever
handed down
and the rain, perpetually
planting seeds.

The fine print, or return policy
for such a random act
sounds like wind strangled
in narrow channels
but is your paper receipt.

I figured it out
wrong but somehow came to
the correct conclusion
all the same.

There is a kind of
influence, with open palms
that holds no harm
to heat but crystallizes
in salt.

As far as
we can see,
All is in front of us,
there was no plain day
that would be lived this way.



Painting by John Dickson Batten, 'The garden of Adonis' c. 1887 in [Public domain].

Blue faces of things

On that very day,
in another Place,
it was more than
a later hour-

the heavy things
balancing on edges
would finally come down
creating a gentle breeze
over Here

and the nose would pick-up
and strong sense of Elsewhere,
only meaning
there was Poetry
being read in corners.

From the lips,
this music dips between
inkling and imagination
like a murmuration,
how things gather in ceremony

for harmony's sake.
And yet,
all the anonymity allowed
a tiny voice
to move through
this heavy Time,

passing on the thought of
levitation and how it was
never up to us
to do anything about the
thinning air out There.




Painting by Harriet Backer (1845-1932), c. 1883, in Public Domain.

Solid ground

The earth is severely sere here.

The mud has alligatored,

the clay refuses to mix.

October, at the end of Fall,
the ground is cracking open
as if fault lies everywhere,
lies, blaming saints, spirits
and the howling or screaming
of wind through narrow channels
gives way to funneled expression,
dust devils and whistling

which
severs connections
and strains the crust, curling up
at the corners

The baselessness of these terra firma's
now below sea level
seem deprived of all
but the wound salt.

And while we stretch out
in our gravel beds
the ocean spreads
its legs, the rivers open slender arms and
canyons yawn, too tired to carry more
and have already
spent all
the time
in the world.

In need of nutrients and lubricants,
and seconds,
we wait for the weather to change
it's mind and stay the way it was
predicted to be by date.

Terrestrial we talk of air and water
as if we did al-
right
with fire.

We have no choice but to dig our ruts
and pace ourselves
to death.




Painting by Arthur Streeton (1867-1943), date unknown, in [Public domain].

Post

After moving
around
this much
it is fair to suspect
that it takes more than
             one year
before we feel a place
is our dwelling.

After loving
two liars
too long
it would be cruel to conclude
that white promises were
                                purely made,
or that honor does not fade
                               when exposed.

After giving away
our time
so freely,
it is common to become consumed
by generosity and lacking
                              surplus or seconds,
starvation is written on the bones
of the donor.

After writing
all of these
                   words never read,
there is learning
                    in letting them all go
and watching them
come back together
                    long after
they have sunk
in, disappearing from sight
and causing a subtle
                                  displacement
After all.




Painting by Mary Cassatt, 'Young woman in a black and green bonnet looking down', c. 1890 in [Public domain].

Currency

If taking time
or stealing a moment away
is a luxury
interest grows only with age
invested in decadence
a mass
of intangible
wealth...

There is always more work
to be done,
and not being done
is a better way-
let us never finish
before we have spent
our Time
as if it were all we had
with Us.
Image credit info: Snyder, Frank R. Flickr: Miami U. Libraries - Digital Collections [Public domain].

The hanging of a self-portrait

The man tells the same story,
since it is all he can do.
Demanding to be the center of attention,
he hordes the space under the illumination
of a sole recessed light.

Tells the same stories over and over
to all passing faces and yet
always forgets some very fine lines-

Contrasts come out, where
he smirks slightly,
unbothered by the crackling
of sky overhead, he only looks a-
Head.

Robed in velvet red,
a coat he swore he never wore,
he has positioned his
arms for the ideal pose to portray
of strength and endurance.

The distant family gazes at the portrait
Through centuries and canvases
but sees nothing captivating or similar.
The same (his)stories,
making his image stretched
and one sided.

A life made good-
despite the gilt and frame
that flaunts its ornate opinion
of self.
He was once
a handsome man,
despite the way he looked

at them.

Painting by Albrecht Dürer [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

And then...

Been dying to tell you the secret-
just like it is
Everything is in fractals-not by structure
but in grid-in-side-grid-space holders,
a map of anywhere on parchment.
Pores perhaps provide a relief-map.

Fractal as a symptom of a laser aimed at
a prism, facet or side-effect, escaping only where it burrows out from
hazy photons penetrating angles,
becoming-White. There.
Be coming color-full.
Describe what violet looks like to you?
Is it between two shades?
Tell me how to do the steps for the
choreography of light,
or memorize algorithmic sets
without giving away the Bigger picture
as fractals demonstrate, inevitably infinite.

They have kept me quiet long-
enough to forget what was wrong
to begin with.
They asked, finally, what I see-
They didn't-
know the origin of the light.

It is on.
Won't you come in-
(secret)
I have seen the missing pieces

between us-the dates do not align.

Painting By Sigmund Klempner (1867–1941) (Christie's) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

B4 PM

Before private messaging
            there were the numbers
on the clock

And those moments
were magical

when we could predict
          (make occur)
                                the future

with its interminable revelations
And knew
All Souls
past by-when it began
its first
            Revolution.

There were many times
All numbers
changed what they meant
               and how they appeared
in passing.

Artwork by John Singer Sargent [CC0] in 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].

Timethrift

How do we squander our breath
by counting to ten
or three?

I noticed a boys crown
his head was down
facing his lap, holding a short pencil.
Clearly, he was not writing,
By the way the pencil moved
in random places across the page;
middle, top right, bottom center.

Of course, everyone wanted to see,
even the old lady sitting next to him
who kept adjusting her hair,
her blouse, her scarf
acting uninterested.
He could smell her short
breath, I could see
her check the time.

A waste of time.
Drawing straws.
I was reading,
there was nothing to show
not a figure or shape to be seen
from the words I inhaled,
no crumbs from my feast,
no incensed smoke crept out
of sealed chambers.

I was high-hovering, as clouds do.
I never noticed
how many pages had turned,
how close I was to the end
nor had I kept record
of the miles traveled along
the lines it took
to get in between
here and now.

Painting by Charles Joseph Grips, 'Waiting for a Loved One' c. 1894 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.