Depth perception

With ten thousand neurons 

in one single suction cup 

on an octopus tentacle,

could even you imagine

what it would feel like

when touching

anything-

each other-

No contact-

like eye contact.

There may be a nest 

of tangled live wires

behind the wall

behind our masks

we are currents

of electricity.

And as the eel shocks every-

thing but itself-

we have so many blind spots 

not baited eye-

spots-as fish-

Don't you wish 

chameleon when needed to be

or to know so much

feeling

with only the lightest touch...

Photo credit: 800px-Octopus_at_Kelly_Tarlton's, October 2012 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. 

The poem

Perched to pounce

on the sheet white page

Ink propels itself

infinite as adrenaline 

from fingertips

feeling for details

Not saying

what was a thought

before

Another word placed

Itself

to getting somewhere closer 

needing a 

tangible witness

to guide.

Painting by August Macke c. 1910, in Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

lying in the grass

It was just a dream, but I woke up wondering
if I will ever again meet the dapper demon...

who offers a choice to become blind forever
or deaf to only my own voice-

much like the migrating fish in the Lethe...

up or downstream doesn’t change the course.
I remembered saying that I’d rather never
see brand new green or the sad sky again-

I would just try to feel them touching me

from now on, without sight
I might believe in conductivity 
through contact,
life, this body... 

And assuredly, others will certainly appear
more clearly to me.

But the handsome hellion in the dream
misheard the choice, 

or chose otherwise on my behalf,

and my kaleidoscope eyes kept confusing 
up and down, 

feeling my feet in the bluegrass, 

facing the limelight. 

Painting by Albert Joseph Moore [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

A Gentle Hand

Not speaking for other species,
a human being shall not deny
the power of touch, tact-tility.
As in a word, requires the
relinquishing of an invasion of space
for a sense of felicity, in kind

where seeming accidental, more so
gently, intentional, affixed upon
shoulder or thigh, put so adverbial or
propositional, it is
in earnest, rightly so,
it feels heavier than
the application of pressure
or happenstance.

This need to reach out
and grasp toward
this living moment,
or clutch the vibration
that is life, date-stamped
within our fleshy fingertips.
It is compulsatory

that we soon become
etched or embossed with entitlement,
as in adept for survival and
toward those celebrating this.
It was a touching thing it was said,
to feel mankind
using his hands wisely, for once
in this way.





Painting by John William Godward [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Nonsensical

As we explore the depths of the oceans, 

seeking the ends of eternity as

conceived by space, 

mapping the matrix of the mind,

We hope 

we are making sense.

Some more sense of what may be 

behind the Divine and beyond evil.

Veiled by our vanity,

we can only hope to master

some special skills.

We are instructed, 

we are given-with grace,

five senses to use, freely.

We all know better.

Untapped potential, 

the vein, the mother lode,

these things that we seek

are lying here

not waiting 

for us to see,

not weighting

to matter.

Now, tell me about touch…

Can you feel me looking at you from

where I stand?

Can I make you cry with words, 

or laugh with only

black and white?

How do you know something has been moved?

Do not step there! Slow Down! Watch out! 

Has this voice

ever saved you before?

And pray, tell me, mind over matters

like these explosions of energies that spin wildly,

may we tame bursts by will, tempt with them with time,

temper these with new neurons

and cast off-the surplus?

Is it all too much?

A little release travels faster than light

yet always

dissipates all ways 

with so much space and water

between bodies

empyrean expanses, abysmal astrodynamics and such.

It was current

thought, 

that the thought wave and the wave of gravity,

ate projected invisibly, the unseen senselessly

Ignored-

As if maybe,

it didn't make sense, as if

'may be' meant there were more ways to feel

than five, or how do we know anything is alive? 

None believed in what they could not see.

With no matter to feel, to put a name on,

with nothing to touch us with shape or edge,

with so much space, with all the emptiness

making up all the meaning 

It is all the more touching

that we find our way by feel,

getting somewhere, 

After All.

“Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea?

Or hast thou walked in the search of the depths?

Have the gates of death ben open unto thee? 

Or hast thou seen the doors of

the shadow of death?

Hast thou perceived the breadth of the earth?

Declare if thou knowest it all.

Where is the way light dwelleth?”

(38:16-19, The book of Job via Primo Levi) 

Painting by Martin Johnson Heade [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Pheeling the Skein

Follow the strings and twisted wires,

everything and more than all that is there

is moving About;

spinning, buzzing, jumping, vibrating, rocking,

and it comforts most

anxious beasts.

Calm could come later.

Tied to chords that carry notes containing

amateur truths

capable of travel through walls and cells.

Tangles always teach by example.

How easy it is.

Free will- not worth the long lines.

Holding breath was a frugal way of sadness.

We make promises to indulge

at the ends, 
we find the nots are terminal.




Painting By Kuroda Seiki (1866-1924) [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

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.