snoitcelfeR:Reflections

We call them reflections

because they work like mirrors,

you see,

they can only be understood backward.

*ECNALUBMA*

For your safety these images too-

are closer than they appear.

We also call reflections memories,

because we are re-minded again

of something old we want new again.

The intoxication from nostalgia

so comforting-like an addiction

forgetting-

the last time…

Memory is reflective,

returning its light to insight,

when one remembers to stop and think-

if this has happened before,

mirroring another time, you saw, you see

reflecting upon,

the memory of the old you.

Composed 4/21/15.
Image of painting by Frank Markham Skipworth [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons, 1911 'The Mirror'.

The Truth About Poetry

To communicate, adept ones opt for speech or song;
spoken or written we agree that words can be wrong
but do their best at getting something off one's chest

and to fulfill this need for sharing, suppose poetry does it best
a lost language, an ancient art, as broken as it often seems
those potent fragments are more real than our dreams

Poetry is a proper form for composing Truth
and admittedly can be too long in the tooth
some of which is vague, blurry or abstract

But intend to recreate not fabricate fact
with daring ultra-sensory potentiality
limited only by your own sensual reality

Getting engaged is up to the reader willingly
one must be blindfolded but curiously led
down the aisle with what this has Poet said

remembering ahead this language is not dead
and you've already come this far without
getting lost, needing a map, having a doubt

about if what this Poet says is True
some words are inadequate, unable to translate,
or are simply made anew, and now able to state

Truth in words the carry their own weight
without making a sound when found and state
in a respectful dialect that may resound and resonate

in some way, a tingle or lingering thought when done
with a poem, a song lyric, jingle or rhyme,
it has spoken-not wasted your precious Time

a new language in you awoken
at least I hope you will see, and Trust in me,
to discover how pure Poetry Truly can be.





Image By Jusepe de Ribera (Spain, Valencia, Játiva, active Italy, Naples, 1591-1652) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons, from LACMA, 'The Poet' 1620-1621-etching. 

Stone Cold Sky

There's so much pressure on the

                                          baby's breathe blue sky.

To have all the answers-Everybody always looking up

                                           asking you Why?

How should You know, as if a cloud should care-

                                            wisps a front your steely blue glare.

Expecting a sign to calm our moody blues.

There are no strings attached, no installed lines,

                                              cables, or speaker phone...

Do we even know anyone is Home?

Hope floats, and bubbles burst like wish filled balloons;

In your hospitality, you incinerate for fun.

This weightless reasoning; a burden undone

Looking up sounds good-one cannot deny,

                                              and if I were to take a shot, I'd try.

How you'd answer I can fathom not-yet this one immense thing

                                              burning aglow inside-I'd like to know

if you could just throw me a line or show-

how long do I keep holding on

                                              to your alabaster air?

Image of painting by John Martin [Public domain], "Eve of the Deluge", 1840 via Wikimedia Commons.

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.