Homo-stasis

Let me be beautiful-
but not so much so that it makes me
ugly to others.

Let me know more
than everyone else,
but not so much
that I am to blame
(for everything).

Let me be plugged in
but not all the time,
because it weakens the
battery.

Let me love water
but not so much
I drown myself
for want of it.

Let me take in all
the air,
more than enough
to hold inside.

Let me read every word
that means something
to someone,
let me hear
all the wisdom
that may be
profound.

Let me love.
Let me live.
Let me love life
but not so much
I fear death
for the love of
wanting it.


Painting by Matthias Stom [CC0], 'Old Woman Praying' c. 1630's-40's in Public Domain.

Moving her lips

Distracted by a flicker, brutishly I burrowed

under the thickset arboreal pathway, forward through,

not needing a Virgil

Whereby, I found myself subdued and lowered

my angel body, knelt upon the gathering scrag,

with knees upon the well curb, my two soles

Watching my back, I feel the frosty shade

Safer now, I may close my shamed eyes

And I know why others have come too.

I reach right into my hip pocket,

making a tiny discomfit chime,

half-expecting the birds to flap.

I take out the three pennies

used for the i-Ching,

fingering the Nineteen eighty-four first,

it sits in the color of old adobe

streaked in rain grime.

I toss it into the blackness that is not

Empty nor dry

and I wait, waiting, listening, breathing,

hearing nothing...

The next one picks up the red in the sun and

glows facing its prospect of good conduct-

Two thousand and one

sided History, the honest man does not smile

I let it go as impersonal,

It falls quickly

I lean in

this time

and I don’t hear it hit

gulping back it was swallowed hole.

I never wished.

The last one left, I save for a

second thought, more

about splashless wishes

for Change.


Painting by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Close your eyes and blow

Close your eyes and blow

Your wish is my command
The voice would
Beam.
Thy Will Be Done-
would be added
for reassurance and
-brace yourself-here is where
CHANCE (in mighty fine print)
stands
smalland(wedged)
b/w Now and When
what you want(ed)
blows up
to the surface, swerving
amongst chandelier blades
whipping cream
making a breeze
Come and Go around again,
Like karmatic vengance which has
been like you, doing like that
never this now
never this same alike (and again)
selfsame
as wishing thy will
Be come
some one
over there
who Will want
every thing you have
right Now-
for wishes, all ways
(taken for)

granted.

Image by Marjory Collins of Dionne quintuplets, 1940 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.