Beyond Reason

Tell me please,

if you have seen,

what lies between the magnet

and the object of its pursuit?

It's a pull, yes. Explainable;

quite easily, right-?

But can you touch the chord;

pull it like a string, strum it, interrupt it?

Of course.

But where is it from-

beyond attraction...

So, gravity has the same modus operandi.

As nondiscriminatory, as flexible, per se, so one says.

It's a Law of Physics too-one can be sure.

While we break it every day, obsessed by

Air Anarchy, in our endless tries to defy

flights of fancy, let’s do levitation, zero gee.

Not explaining the monkey on our shoulders,

elephants squatting on chests, legs like lead,

and arms that mysteriously float

after being constrained, contained, compressed-

beyond extraction…

Okay, now what is that smell, and why, or how does it work?

The innate swoon of a baby’s head,

making a maternal perfume; loves incense;

coconut oil melting in the sun, beads rest on sandy shards,

smoky wood in campfire rings, popping on a summer's night,

warm cinnamon...

The crook of your neck, just behind your left ear lobe

crackly new books,

squeaky clean skin-

beyond satisfaction…

I won't bother asking, from where or what,

is this thing, so refuted by scholars, called intuition-

since it is beyond my simple human erudition-

but is scientifically, senselessly, purely poetic,

beyond literal abstraction…

Image of painting (oil) by Jacob Philipp Hackert, 'Fisher Family at nighttime campfire with turbulent sea', 1778. [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

The Garden Warden

Just as we are the Writers

of our Life story,

Puppeteers of Plot,

we play God

in our Gardens.

Sowing seeds to grow our Eden,

stitched in asphalt cracks,

heathens weight perched on hunched backs.

Fairy dust seeds and pixie weeds plume in bloom,

sprinkled and spread, they lay in bed.

Sapping up the cool cement sky,

dripping with indenture,

incensed by concentration.

Gathering the steely clouds breath

in our ewer, we pour out Life in buckets.

Trapping it in our pitchers,

bringing to light a chrysalis

of our Creation.

Digging our trenches

deep, embedding nourishment

-dam river goes where it dam well-

-renavigate –re-irrigate-

plans, tends, pre-supposes,

suspends with droughtful neglect

still waiting, doing Time.

Corn rows abundantly lined.

Out-fitted, out-witted, de-pitted,

ripening in repercussion,

footed in this fallow sphere-

the Fall plummets from labored limb.

Free to stay, there's no other way.

Room to grow into what it's meant to be,

making shade under the Kismet Tree.

Trapped in its own grave,

the dirty deed is done.

Parching in the sun, it thirsts for more

juicy fruits of forgetfulness.

Tethered, the sapling stretches,

it can see the garden Gate, choked,

wrapped in thorny barbed vines.

And beyond the green grass glimmers,

beckoning in sinful diamond dew.

The only sentence the Kismet Tree knew,

“Life without parole”,

but still pretends

there's a different End.

Image By OSU Special Collections & Archives : Commons [see page for license], via Wikimedia Commons.

Take a load off

Outside splintering in the bright noon-day sun, the Adirondack poses like a chameleon of trees.
Always ready to go, framed cool by short hollow pipes that season summer with sprinkles of sand.
Spineless attempts by bench and stool to comfort with limbless hugs-barely a leg to stand on.
Past its hay-day from Grandpa's barn, Oak is forever, it creaks keeping time with its own metronome.
Slumped and spilling white airy grains, the shapeless blob sulks in deflated utility-empty wind bag.
Portable, broken in, not too hard, or cold-the best seat in the house (says the cat), my lap in whichever chair I choose...



Image of painting by Alfred de Dreux (1810-1860)'Pug Dog in Armchair' [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

An act of breathing

meditating lady

calmly cross-legged

thinking nothing

intentional unmentionable

quiet riot

creeps beneath

wily smiles

holding denials

blissful kisses

near misses

Eros arrow

strung out

flying fishes

Bitter bites

strangled air

choking up

thick ness

never was

for ever.

Image of painting by Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904) 'Painting Breathes Life into Sculpture, 1st v.' [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Ambient light

Are we hard-wired to be afraid of the dark

to imagine ugly things in indistinct corners

lurking and watching

light-less-ness amplifying every sound

in stereo

our world spins on wires

acrobatic static

a puppet in space

Yay! We made electricity

to conquer and fill the empty void 

with our brilliant vibrant light

enhancing our sight

penetrating every nook and cranny

slaying the black matter with our gamma rays 

with the force of direct and alternating currents

knobs, buttons, censors, trackers

we've become all thumbs

coded languages, levers, tactile sight

and its own glaring response

on the fritz is something to fear

unplugged no more, we're wireless anyway

signal shields

afraid of the dark

fear and trembling is 

to know Life all depends 

on a spark

for our mechanical animal things

and as heavenly human beings

still afraid of the darkness

inside

where the light cannot hide. 

Image of painting (oil) Joseph Wright of Derby [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons, 1769 'A Philosopher by Lamplight'.

Passport, Please?

Fellow Traveler,

I'm looking for that place 

I think you just came from There

I can smell it on your skin

just now

so close

It's that Place where Time is frozen

not cold

as in Siberia, or those Potemkin Villages

but warm 

melted in sepia

It's not the place with the Great Fountain

of Youth-I mean

I like me now, but I think I'll like me more

later, at least

when we're more than just acquaintances

There's no reason to delay the journey 

any longer

I already freed up my schedule with 

lazy white gaps

I'm ready to go

to take this Trip

finally to see with my own two eyes

I expect it will be exactly 

as I expected

when I Arrive

I'm sure you've seen pictures-

read the books-

seen the movies-

the best is due soon

It will show precisely what is there

how it looks 

at any moment in Time

that frozen moment

But I simply got Lost

I was hoping for directions to the place

with No Name

You would recognize it
by the ghosts in the wall

Where I am known and liked, 

better than myself

Can you take me there?


Image By Jebulon (Own work) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons, Forum Romanum Rome Italy.

Blades of the Trade

If Rock and Roll stars can call the guitar

an axe

I can call poetry a katana

That is a samurai sword

                             the long one

not a Haiku-

that would be a dagger,

                            or Ninja Star

Maybe you think a poem is more like a machete

you'd be right

                            if you travel to remote places-often.

It will blaze your trail

                            ignite and light

to help you see where you are headed

                            not where you are going

Poems are not maps

                            of the real world

Life is a jungle, They say

                            not Poets

A poem is a katana

Its precision cuts through anything too

not just paper cuts-surface level

but deeply-through thick, dense fibers

before they know they've been severed

beheaded but indebted

bamboo is strong and fibrous but still

just blades of grass

that only a katana can mow

It will leave a mark

                             that smarts

stings while it sings

                             lyrical with steps

that cut

to the chase

but drop seedlings of new thoughts

leaving a trail

Some poems will leave you in stitches

                             those are for practice

to soften the blow

bokens of faith

like Samurai ‘Giggles Shel Silverstein’

a mean, clean, rhyming machine

amateurs should start with these

                             and wear pads

real poems are sharp, hand-forged

of tamahagane, not a wood,

                             but steel folded

holographic hamons prism,

                             cooled liquid in ripples, the poem effect

lining the traces, tracing the tails, watching feet,

hearing our heartbeat

                             in time with the light sabers swing

there for you to read,

                             if you can see it

before it fades so fast it was never there

when you try to speak of it

you had to be there

A poem is a katana

Making contact, shattering reality

with its crystallized matrix of pearls

lined in a common goal, on the steel cold page

double edged margins, sharp side up

pre-requisite knife skills essential

but you knew what you were getting into

it was for the show, on the cutting edge

one who wields with words like using

a poem as a katana.

Image By Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons,“Retained Weapins of vigilantes".