Recipe

I used to write about food.
After that night
we had that first
big below-the-belt fight
and you challenged me
to make it-
writing,
a submission.

I took the shriveled passion-fruit
and placed them on the kitchen table.
Admiring the small brown cluster
with the tip of my pen
I finely drew out
a likeness
that read-
pink, tender, more seeds than pulp
and nearly dry
inside.

I made something
delicious and tart.

Anyway,
that is how and where the disease
began simmering,
one organ after another
changing tune in time.
It was then-remember-
I renamed
myself, mostly taking away
nourishment,
and then adding a healthy dose
of humility
garnished with a twist of fate.

The paper folded,
and I was told
you may have to wing it
from here.

It is wise to always start
by pre-heating the oven
and a word of warning,
it often makes too much
so I suggest
mixing in small batches,
or halving...

Love,
you will like making this
too-
Ease back in,
cook until the juices run clear,
take small frequent bites,
use salt for wounds sparingly,
smell before tasting,
don't look at the date,
trust your senses,
and know-
most ingredients
may be substituted
in a pinch.

Although
practice makes no promises,
it only becomes sustenance
if you can make it
again and again.







Painting by Peter Jacob Horemans (1700-1776), Still life c. 1774 in Public domain.

(w)hole sentences

This practice 
does not make perfection
but a percentage
lingers with something special.

There are notes everywhere
like atoms of crumpled 
origami sound making the shape
of scribble.

Misaligned,
a cacophony
anyone can blow or bang, shout and wail,
I am trying to make some music
but I cannot flesh out
the transition.

I was always fondest of shoes,
Like endings.

I wonder, while I look at all the
scattered pieces, 
amble across the landscape
of my desk like deer pathways
is why I cannot seem to finish...


Artwork by Hans Holbein (1497-1543), 'Studies of the hands of Erasmus of Rotterdam' in [Public domain].

Scripted

Found some handwriting
it took forever to decipher
as my own,

with large open loops
and smooth sweeping strokes
outside the lines,
I read
plain as day, black on white,
set as granite

between these boulders
where I have been pinned
and slowly
squeezed into thinking
I must fit
failing
to recognize
how shallow
my breath had become
how tiny and whispered
my words were,

I take in less and less
of what is essential to live.

I do not recognize the freedom
of thought,
for a moment
things shifted,
weight-
and I saw myself
scratched out.



Image credited by 'Theory and Practice of handwriting' c. 1894 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].

Implementation

This pen writhes
hisses and spits
poison darts
from the bow of my fingertips.

I wrestle and choke
it down
on an empty
page
the feeling bleeds through
the collected pulp
smearing the white sheet.

Against bone,
the pressure to cave in
begins
at the first period.

Etching the paper
so that complete erasure
is not an option. I strangle
the words, Go On,
in the process.




Artwork credited by Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, 17th-19th century [Public domain].

Watch your Tome

I am holding it.

It has soft deckled edges
as I desired.

And it is small enough
with a hard protective shell
to fit in a woman's purse,
even if women are wearing
updated backpacks
to make them look
younger,
I suppose,
judging by the cover.

The cover is just an entry point,
if interested.

I hold its
girth and heft
knowing it is more than mine.

In crimson foil shapes,
I recognize the letters lining up
down the spine
as my own.

It moves me
to turn the page
while cradling this
creation and holding it
to life.

I can smell it
as though it were my own
perfume, never the same
sinking in
to different skin.

I am holding
these things
accountable,
tangible,
reliably
resulting
in heavy thoughts
with soft deckled edges.


Painting by Master of the Mansi Magdalen [Public domain].

A new day (refurbished)

Meeting with the sunrise again,
alone,
time strikes me as the lone
witness to this.

The mirrors are everywhere,
blinding.

I wrote it all down
to get it out of my head,
to silence the voice,
to make it go away,
and then it was there
in front of me,
like the horizon
line,
too terrifying to retell
today.

Better to watch
the light change.



Photo credited by Fancibaer [CC0], Morning Sunrise, 1/2013, in Public Domain. 

Evidently

Reporting without empathy makes architectural field guides for photo collectors

As album and lyricality that reflects memories in places via accidental captures,

Not limited to focus head on or red eye, not what was hiding under green-eyed

History, flash or glare,

Was the background, dropped, crooked, tiny, partial.

And parts where the edges sever our attention in sharp lines,

Bordering on continental jagged tears.

Only here-footsteps-show-Not ahead of our time,

Not dated, or inscribed

In any hand of another traveler.

Repeatedly, things recur, we call facts,

Likelihoods, charts, and possibilities as solid as paper rocks and

Finger scissors. 

Image taken 1938, 'Fedorov at the North Pole' in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

X-plosion(s)

This is not what I intended to say.
Nor is this how I meant to convey this multi-
layered
meaning-making
sense of sense.
I set out, propositioned with pen in hand,
I aimed the ink at the receptive white page
to say this
one thing
and the damn poem veers left, starts
skidding out of control,
hits something solid,
rolls over
Itself
and only comes to an abrupt semi stop-
where interia is held in
mid-air,
over their heads,
emits an ominous scent,
and makes men
flee for fear of losing
oneself

A paltry passenger without my own;
controls, levers, pedals, wheels, dials, gauges,
buttons to push,
signs or signals to lead and follow,
I am
Left with this
loss of direction
I resign to not fight the fear
of dead ends.
Scribbling and scrambling
I get out while I can.


Image credit By Anonymous [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Stone's throw

When the words dislodged
and came hailing down,
as an avalanche seeking the comforting
earth below
in free fall, the lege, a paragraph
or precipice gives itself away,

all the dense granite words,
could never be shale, not fall apart
nor could any illumination find light
after the full weight suddenly shifted,
to be mined. It was only words that the
mountains rose to meet at
The End.




Painting by Carl Schuch [Public domain], 'Mountain stream with boulders' (c.1888) via Wikimedia Commons.

Finely printed news

The woman with the thin narrow hands
trimmed and nude nails,
received the good news
And here she was
spent
and broke.
She was tired and should have slept,
instead, she nearly died
with the pen in between her fingers
and raw knuckles.
Even this was half expected,
she thought the words were enough
but they did not touch her in a good way.



Drawing credit by Ernest Blaikley (1916) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

I was framed

Words wouldn't come
so I went with paint,
but the body was too thick
and the primaries screamed
even when kept apart

Those threads I cannot read
through
the prepositions and problems
drama and canvas scenes

in media res, centripetal
room at the edges
so bubbles don't pop
as tempting as black is

Purple pretends perception
like lines of sight
the same lines that bind
up brains and I's
omnisciently we see,
underneath it was red,

with light
become plane as day,
in a literal sense.



Arttwork By Michael Sevier (illustrator) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

A loud thought

We

are the only creatures

that are meta

Supposedly

as in Assumption

Anthropologically

or making

Anthropocenes

and calling it

as though It is

Fragmented-

they said

I was

Funny,

that is my poetry showing

if you have a sense of humor

or comical elbow

you know

jabs are blunt

This specific species

doesn’t understand

All 

parts as a whole

some were mystified

and thought the Art clever-

Others never

see the holes

by volume of alibis

Let’s confess,

if it bleeds it needs

Compression

another way to say

another need-

                      to say.


Painting by John Michael Wright [Public domain], Portrait of a Lady (17th century) via Wikimedia Commons.

Write hot, edit cold

None of it was good enough.

So you see, here, admittedly,

I understand the fire, a self-starter,
it makes decent fuel

the words work better than well.

It means I too- must end this way,

plain as day, Cremation

and yet

Fire scares me honestly.

It may be a miserable moment,

the next page, the new leaf, the blank slate-

Wait-never mind-what was said-dead-again.

Each time it becomes easier to name the wrong noun,

confound even myself, crosswords no longer help.

In other words

I shall not say,

See me

and I will match you.

I am simply sulphuring,

reeking with green steam.

Saturated, and I am too porous for this

laughing at my whole self,

the incompetence I relied upon 

and moments reborn

into better than imaginable-Memory.

Pretty-

All ways worth the weight in white.

Angels giggle at these simmering sounds

mistaken for a narrow fellow in the grass

making coils warm,

it was all the write words

fuming in the sun

without a bone to burn or pick

the ice ages will do the rest.  



Painting By McCord, George Herbert, 1848-1909 (artist); L. Prang & Co. (publisher) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Characters

One time

We liked stories, truth be told.

Stories about us, about our stories...

And there were so many stories still to be told

in every narrow nook and at the basin of every crevice

Lie motive inside metallic locks, under Persian rugs, in-

between sheetrock walls-

And above all

shapeshifting cumulous clouds-

faces.

There were too many to notice such

sweeping similarities so we let them be

Different, like wings.

One time these stories

entertained us with fancy, charmed us

in emulating everyday escapades.

We recognized someone’s doomed desires

before the ending, catching on, 

like memory and water,

taking its sweet time

reflecting.

One time

We told stories to each other

of the way it was, of the way it will be-

Presenting only the preferred possibilities,

such as happy endings for the good guy or our hero's.

One time we wrote stories

because we could make it up, 

narrating truths seamlessly

into lovely little lives, dressed ghosts under bleached pulp with black eye liner-

awaiting a familiar revival in mirrored eyes.

The stories one time

saved us from the villains, by showing us

what they look like 

as potential suspects-

This way,

we don't step in glass

or cast more curses upon 

one fairys' long, winding tail.

Painting By George Inness (Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Habitat

At first,

I was discriminatory about it;

ripping out only the ground

cover and displaced Kentucky Bluegrass,

careful not to yank the horsetails.

Yet the rake only brushed these down-

these (knot supposed to grow there)

“weeds”.

Well, it may have been irrational, 

but I

grabbed the hoe

and took heaving jabs 

at just the top layers.

This explains the piles of dirt

just outside the front door.

Besides
all the beetles and spiders,

webs and trash, a penny here, some tinsel there,

a brake light piece, first impressions 

and never agains, all elements were there

for a dirty job.

Then,

I went in the very back
at the base of the green wall.

The bamboo reeds sway brezzily,
tall tips tangled within the canopy of

avocado trees-whose roots really reside
next door,

these dying spears bow down
over the pergola top,

stiff brown leaves like old fingers play

the poled roof as the xylophone,

and to those-
I take the “loppers”.

The green waste bin overflows before nine am.

Saturday,

an April in Spring.

The house still in sleep, the birds pass

playing with airwaves, lilting songs and

dramatic swooping screams, 

while I sweat, arch back

my back in the strong early sun
bearing down over my shoulder.

This dirty yellow hair
clings matted to my clenched jaw.

When he wakes, he says,
it was from my earth moving-

then looks around at the vast 

open spaces, an overhaul, my latest work-

a blending of dirt brown and sky blue,

I offer him a toothless smile, and some
black coffee wearily.

Admiring the pruning skills of an elephant,

he offers-“Couldn’t write?”

“I think I will go back to sweeping

the driveway,” I say.

Painting by János Thorma (1920) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Finger prints

Fingers fly across the keys as wings would

cut through cloud space,

wishing everyone was watching

this dialectical mastery in the dicing

of an apple pip up, cubed,

without drawing a drop

of blood.

Beads swell and dangle daunting disconnection

of liquid self, wrung inside out.

Friction finds itself most magnetic

just under the tips

tapped dry.

The raised ink stains the held note.

Painting by Giovanni Battista Naldini (c. 1563-65) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Ahold of things

Floating on fingers

moments away from slipping or suffocating.

It is not safe yet, meaning has not been found.

There is much sleeping left, 

I am wet behind the ears.

The head feels the body catapulting and spinning 

on this solid mud earth.

Sinking in unsound.

The ringing of the ellipse, 

the thunder touched the letters as I type,

con-forming to thought.

What solace could be made 

with such furious fingers?

Latently the violence in man will awaken.

Grasping for notes and singeing the ends 

in godspeed.

Smoke fills in for music, dancing in swirls

It disappears with the keys.



Painting By Yamashita Shintarō (29 August 1881 to 11 April 1966) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Conversion: Haiku(s) 3

To start to learn a

Poem, beginning in love

Ends inside physics.

To try to poem

Muse in music but listen

Particulate-ly.

Make something better

Hang words, draw self, a stick man

The fire needs you.

Image: Edward Steichen, 1921 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
Description from wiki: "Steichen was on holiday in Venice in 1921 at the same time as the dancer Isadora Duncan who was on her way to Greece with her dance troupe. With the promise that Steichen would be able to make motion pictures of her dancing on the Acropolis, Isadora persuaded him to accompany her. While she managed to pose for a few photographs at the Parthenon, it was with her pupil and adopted daughter Thérèse that Steichen produced this startling and remarkable image: She was a living reincarnation of a Greek nymph. Once, while photographing the Parthenon, I lost sight of her, but I could hear her. When I asked where she was, she raised her arms in answer. I swung the camera around and photographed her arms against the background of the Erechtheum. And then we went out to a part of the Acropolis behind the Parthenon, and she posed on a rock, against the sky with her Greek garments. The wind pressed the garments tight to her body, and the ends were left flapping and fluttering. They actually crackled. This gave the effect of fire -- 'Wind Fire' (Steichen, A Life in Photography, np)"

Daily Meditations (I)

Seek inside a stanza,
ducking down, let the sound bounce free.
Wish or pray for more time to meditate, like this
while shuffling with neural nets
and through flightless filtering experience,
in a sense
of meaning, meaning
conclusion, for now.
Answer, meditation, as in
time spent lingering inside a poem,
perhaps hum
when it feels right
or seems to resemble light.
Yes, Make time.


Painting by Cornelis Bisschop (17th century) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.