Showing posts with label time. Show all posts
Showing posts with label time. Show all posts

Saturday, October 20, 2018

Smith, Black


Forged into the metallic morning horizon
Arose churning sediments
forming monoliths,
Silhouettes of possibilities 
stood starkly
As bodies take shapes
And outline the impenetrable yet 
more immovable.

Composed as we come
with letters into elementary symbols
or the other way around,
it dawns
upon us
this light shall dissipate our dreams

Awash in rust
with our veins of copper 
which could not compare 
to the sand that we use to measure 
Time
all that 
sharply resembled
a blade of grass
nourished only with melted dew. 




Painting by Winslow Homer, 'Early morning after a storm', c. 1900-03 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Wednesday, October 10, 2018

Latently


Just yesterday I noticed
somewhere else
the present moment, and all the past
for that matter,
always held the future
simultaneously
rolling it in palm
and under tongue.

These multiverses,
Baoding balls,
hum like crystal lips
and harmony comes out
making the individual notes
indivisible.

Presently,
today, Wednesday,
all rolls along in a blur,
small talk keeps time
separated from the thing itself
and it can only be tasted or felt
one side at a time
just like listening.

Today,
I read a little poem
about transformation
or metamorphosis,
it seems we have always known
these things take time.

Then again, I half expected it
to move too fast.
Sometimes shapeshifts
were mere projections
of light.




Painting by Nelson A. Primus (1842-1916) 'The Fortune Teller' c. 1898 SCAD Museum of Art [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Wednesday, September 12, 2018

Time's up



The two women acted tough,
forgetting their lady-like roles,
trying to win a popularity contest
without a prize,
and as petty little ladies often do,
they threw a-round the word "Best"
like a dodgeball.
But women can jump in heels,
can see behind and see through
costumes.
Make-up is removable.
****************************

The gentleman was gifted but
he knew the charges were coming,
soon. He would owe more than he had.
Hands on the trigger.
His desk is packed up in a box
that sits dutifully like a dog
by his dull loafers. Emails erased,
trash emptied, a final scan a-round
a corner window office
formerly occupied by a-round peg
seeming to be a dull square. Any body
could hold his chair. Professional,
calculating and an all a-round good guy
with a giant fear of the female,
her articulation, his worst case
just dis-missed due to conflicting
interests in gender roles and their
unjust entitlement or oppression-
he wouldn't say.
*************************

The young boss man is full of vim,
vigor, rigor and righteousness.
Bless his greedy hands clutching the reins
of his tall steed. He tramples the herd,
whipping them into his desired geometry.
Only now he found,
there was nobody a-round to
blame for missed fortunes, for the gaping
holes, balls rolling, for getting in his way.
Elders eyed another path,
an alternate pace, a safe place to
participate without giving away
experience.
*******************

The company decided to set the price
as high as the bar
could be raised,
so the product always hovered
just out of reach.
The company did not discount
the value of free advertising,
disregarding all costs.
****************

The free world leader
traded his hefty income
for a chance to control
the immeasurable,
to push the ethereal agenda,
to take a title already under copy-
right, to hear himself proclaim,
denounce, hear his own voice
and believe the words
were enough to fill empty bellies
not just heads.
The leader chases his tail
and demands we follow a-long
the lines
what comes a-round
goes on to repeat itself,
itself, the same as
his 'huge' following.
***********

Insurance, like promises
does not provide tangible compensation
unless a claim has been made
on total losses.
We must be living
to learn.
The finest print
excludes all the
preceding liabilities.
******

A reaction is a result,
the equivalent of
a resolution.
***

The movement
already occurred.
**

We just witnessed-
A passive act.
*






Sunday, September 9, 2018

All Five's


Magnetic minute
reconnected to the time
of track, I am back.




Image credit by National Archives and Records Administration of William Duncan c. 1916-17 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Friday, April 20, 2018

In other wor(l)ds


A new day called my name in the mouth of the mockingbird.
In the bullseye of the black widows web,
light is caught in crystal sections
as it tends to happen-sometimes
we don’t hear these things or fail to notice
where chimes and footsteps flail in midair

we were suspended there.

I proceed to contemplate the unwinding of
allotted time, in all its shrinkage and compression
I stuff what I can in my pockets
and balance my left foot precariously
upon the nearest dark cloud that appears
solid enough to leverage my being upon
while I levitate upon
accumulation.

At least, in this way,
the sacrifices won't seem so removed and far
fetched, as stars for life cluster with emission,
timing is everything
and nothing.
The silence can become crippling with
such volume of errant data,
unsynchronised heart beatings
in unison making static lines blur.

Meanwhile, the earth rolls inside of its shell
as if there were nothing to see here
in Turtle Town.
No lingering, loitering, savoring, reminiscing,
embellishing-
making no more mention of
names of things.

The best of it is yet to be made our own.
I take in the wind, I take notes
as I go
this way-paraphrased-what is said sounds familiar
as if we have heard it all before this way
our re-membership lapsed into disparate sounds
it sounded like a name.



Photo By Claudio Giovenzana (Claudio Giovenzana www.longwalk.it) [CC BY-SA 3.0 or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons.

Tuesday, April 3, 2018

Bulbous


The earth slows down
just enough to focus on a handle
as if made for us,
made for touching and gauging
the sum of all things
with the unbearable lightness of possessing nothing
earnestly.
Time flies, hope levitates, spines flex in-
tensely repulsing gravity
just to keep up-
right
after the fact, I heard back home
the mighty oaks had toppled on perfect-
ly calm days,
the redwoods, however, stood their ground.
Meanwhile,
down here, the passiflora
already swallowed the fence
and now nibbles away at the eave.
On this evening
the colors come too quick to name.
It was
the tulips
we were expecting
to Spring,
the wait was too much to hold still.
Over centuries,
it has been discovered
our heads have become rounder.
When I look harder
it seems like
Venus' belt is shrinking.




Painting by Franz Werner Tamm [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Wednesday, March 7, 2018

S(h)ervant


I have served between eight and twenty-five 
thousand meals for my family,
I make coffee for them more than once per day,
equating to tens of thousands of perky hot pots.
I have given away my last dollar countless times,
I have shared the best bite, held my breath,
I have waited eternities all the while diluting myself,
watering patience back to life in the long afternoon heat. Thirsted for a moment.
I have dried tears, kissed scrapes, wiped milk, picked up,
and cheered up others, all while crawling on my hands and knees.

Does it count?
How many socks have I matched or single-handedly lost?
How many squares of cloth have I folded in nice ninety-degree angles?
How many circles have I Venn in?
How many bubbles have I burst?
How many sides have I taken
down only to expose what was hollow inside?

I have said the three words 'I love you'
and they have not all come back around 
on any one or two
ellipse-this is
proof of expansion or an open Universe, 
no place like Home.

My hands are callused, my feet are blistered and tender,
my eyes are faded and brittle, my skin gets heavier day by day,
and my hair glistens faintly like brass,
my cartilage collapses and all my salt sloughs off.

What is left to make of this? 

I have forgetten how freedom is one-sided and furthermore I have failed 
to recall my name when I am most lost, 
when I am too busy, when the last course
is done, when the words, 'my pleasure' meant motive,
when advantage was a taken
and Time 
was given.

What will be said about what is done?
I put this here, so someday they may say,
Her sentence had served her well. 




Painting by Jules Lefebvre, 'Servant' c. 1880 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Wednesday, February 14, 2018

Minute Beans


Your time is money.
This account-Your Life, Net Worth
spent counting minutes

Until it never
earned any interest-ing
ways to get rich quick.

Capitalism
liquid mold, carbon copies
mint makers go broke

count on your changes
to add value. Return Re-
ceipt not required.


Friday, January 5, 2018

Passages


Time
takes the toll,
giving change for our large bills
and admits passage 
but offers no return policy.

Make Time to Meditate.
Who makes time? I have an order. 
Empty. Thoughts.
Does one miss arguing with oneself
until none win?

The walls are over-crowded with imagery.
It was me-I put the elephant in the room 
who is 
holding a candle on a cloud, 
his shadow is only flat. 

Tell me again-
What is mine is ours-
With these words-

Let no thing
remain behind but a poem
After thought 
and plane shadows on clock faces. 


Sunday, December 3, 2017

Thirteen billion miles


First, ask yourself-
is it interesting
or worth further exploration?

Truly we are Voyagers.
This generation of seekers
has reignited
a flame.

Now, put a price tag on 'Time'
or light years-
A full moment is three seconds
or pennies in hypotheses-
how much Life
you are allotted in diurnal
years of Julian speed,
minus eleven minutes
and some fragmented seconds
may be written
in a single sentence.

Told we should learn
to figure things out for ourselves,
memorize how to hibernate
for the future.
And it is wise advice
for one and all solid bodies
traveling through space
at this terminal velocity.

I wonder if gravity waves
make white noise as they ripple
or only when they crash...

Some say,
Exile is a death, a geographical terminus.
Knowing one's history is written
over, like footprints and
now traveling under someone else's shoe.

But if I have something endless
enough to keep me fully
occupied;
a tree, a rock, water, or the sky-
time does flutter a lot
like Hope.

At last,
I ask myself,
after every sentence has been read,
is this an interesting enough
equation to try
to solve?




Photo By NASA [Public domain], 'Farouk El-Baz, Ronald Evans and Robert Ovemyer via Wikimedia Commons.


NASA reported on December 1st, 2017 that the rocket thrusters on the space probe Voyager 1 responded 13 billion miles away in interstellar space.

Friday, November 10, 2017

Quicksand in the hourglass


Turned overnight into the shadow,
an ominous space easily overlooked-

devoid of light in this dire dilemma
of grasping at grains, starlit seeds of time,

accepting these days that display
traces of altered spin-
and small places
for sin.

Take out the woven-store the sheer.
Year after year, resort
the bookshelves
by ilk
and most pointed dagger,

Titles,
those names mean nothing
-Placeholders-
arm your selves
about the fire and ice, in these
extremities, inside and isolated,
the glass steams up,
the walls smolder around the skins,

and the colder they get,
the deeper they sink
into the thickest of thoughts.

Tucked in this virtuous blackness,
the rest had no peace,

and the sand moved slowly
towards what could only be hours.



Painting by Sebastiano Ricci, c. 1706 in [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.




Sunday, October 22, 2017

Grass blades and power tools


Stood up,
freed our hands
to tool, implement and imply
utility.

Thus, sentenced within predicates
held under knuckled thought,
contortionist
fingers fist in refusal to feel,
with open palms, red
and pointed tactile tips,
being blue,
leads us through rooms, people,
towns, and nightmares,
fumbling for switches

to turn in from out, left from right,
divide man from beast, past from present,
and fulfill this suspicion to see
the last site from its first sound-

With time on our hands
seconds passed.
While waiting,
we outpaced ourselves,
only to find the finish line
lying down.

The race was over
before the dog slithered under
any fence, and the walls caved in.

Too late
to place
bets.




Artwork by Walter Crane, 1909 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. an illustration for the poem The World's Age' by Charles Kingsley and the lines 'Still the race of Hero-spirits/ Pass the lamp from hand to hand;/ Age from age the Words inherits-/ 'Wife, and Child, and Fatherland.



Sunday, September 17, 2017

Maxim Poetical


Grandma said
                Always wear a bra
                -even to bed.
She said,
                Put liberal
                amounts of lotion on
                everywhere every day.

Grandpa advised
                looking up every-
                thing I did not know
how to use or say
Smile
Grandma warned,
               those are the better lines
               to make.

My heavy skin agrees
                with these
                ad(d)ages.



(This poem was inspired by Lorine Niedeckers' poem, '(A) Poet's Work')


Painting By Mohov Mihail (1819-1903) (Mohov Mihail) [Public domain, Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Monday, September 11, 2017

Every thing


It used to be about Other Things
It was always about 'other things'.

The more you think about It,
the more It thinks about more.

Stare long enough at any thing
and you lose all light discrimination
inside those black-hole pupils.

It has been said things couldn't be worse-
something about change, smaller
but felt the same with more things
and blame.

It was cluttered with chatter,
static, white noise, white holes
and light bounces off rubber words.

If you blink now,
it will never change.
Time wiggles out of every thing.


Painting by Thomas Wijck (c. 17th century), Alchemist in his study with a woman making lace, uploaded by Chemical Heritage Foundation [Public domain or CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

Saturday, September 9, 2017

Time upon a Once


Progress by definition
has no placement, is no place,
no locale to inhabit, no direction to aim for,
shortened sight, trendless, segmented to an incident
on a banded ray, a spot and notch,
and they still say
'walk this line', don't trip
despite all the circular patterns and
symbols you see, dashes and
overlapping and Venn
diagrams likeness and loveless
line segments that define outcasts and
all the infinite otherness of else.

The atom and Adam were the building blocks,
it was no coincidence that all heavenly bodies
are round,
potentially the more microcosmic the cell,
the larger the body can be.
Conversely, the more macrobiological
cells seem to align and connect
the more progress
feels familiar
this
Eve-
ning
thru
crystal eyes-
ation.

Progress was just
beyond the horizon
as if it were somewhere we could
sea.


Painting By Florence Vernon (Flickr) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Sunday, April 9, 2017

Photo-graphic memory


Obsessed with photo graphs and charts,
we point our longest sideways glance right
away
and shoot for the best, hitting hope
happens square in the chest,
stars also aim for the numbers.

Numbness by position,
this poison saps our steady grip,
an aching up the arm from the aorta.

In this contraction,
we miss the moment around the image,
the time between sight and capture
or full appearance formed
in our human haste

Roughly,
to see and to show how it should look
from our island view,
by entitling
what was then as now.

The pictures portrayed only figures,
we made out images
believing in lines like these
holding black and were definitive
made by an arrangement or
juxtapositioning.

Framed in theoretical suspension
of time to believe in what we see
as all white.



Image credit By Internet Archive Book Images [No restrictions], via Wikimedia Commons.

Friday, March 24, 2017

When (Hi-Q) Haiku


Is it Now? It is
Not anymore, just checking
It could be any time…




Painting (oil on board) by William Etty (1841) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Wednesday, March 15, 2017

Per: Fect Reader


Lucky
to have sparked your interest,
already, at first sight

I’d like to lift your chin,
letting my lines leach into your lips.
My fruit, my conception, bursting its peel-

Alas, I have known this thirst we share,
It was none but you, alone
more real to me, together

We both imbibed insatiably, yet emptiness 
abounds until whole words were filled 
in utterly
every open space drowned in white.

Open and sere,
I wish to saturate this dry dirt with
One of our tears
To make something you can use, of utility
To make more time

For thisness in these.

These twirled up murmurs were merely me,
reaching out with invisible waves
for your quiet, distant ear,

And just when I thought
The silence meant
I had nothing to say

To make any better-
You heard every word
Fulfilled
with this.


Painting by William McGregor Paxton (c. 1900) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Monday, March 6, 2017

The time is Late


The world had changed overnight,
overdays-
She thought
She was
Progressing until then
when all the standing people were dumbstruck,
horrified by what had happened here.
She remembered an Eastern way of saying it right,
“May you live in an interesting time”
She heard a Western man in shock say,
“I’ve seen a’lotta things, but I ain’t never seen nuthin’ like this,”
She remembered and could not understand
the meaning.
The world had changed and
Made no sense of interesting
Times under night.


Painting by Titian, Knight of Malta with a clock (1550) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Sunday, March 5, 2017

She seas you


dreamt that you brought me
a bag of sand
for my hourglass

the gold flecks sparked, alit by
the sunlight in your eyes, whereby
the ocean leaked

and the bag was empty...

certain it was you.




Painting by George Bellows (1917) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Half-dozen Mud cakes

Back to wood decks, quarter-size spiders, webs, moss  and creatures stirring in the hollow nights Back to no side-walks and skirting into th...