The voice of Carmen Saliare

Plant the words as seeds in me
or show where they go,
plot me, my empty well,
pour into me
I know how to grow.
I am listening with my body,
stretching my energy out
heat seeking rain driving clouds
another way, the unexpected conditions
are idyllic...
The thousands of times I've dug deep
soiled and toe knuckles white
barely holding on to your vortex-
pinned, I lay limp, naked and fruitful
before you
go, awaiting your thunderous appeal
to higher senses, save the lightening
for those needing epiphanies.

Plant me the identity 

too vacuous and strange
to encourage, to make, to plan
words with acumen and divergence-
Yours, Condemned.


Image By Dlls publicdomaindedication.com (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Chorus(only)

From birth to death; Life

the volume fades, the record

reaches its' last groove. 

Image of Voyager Golden Record, The Sounds of the Earth, launched with the Voyager Probe on September 5,1977, by By NASA/JPL [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Copyright infringement (Tanka for everything)

-rain pulsing ripples

on puddles, the spider web

demonstrating the

answers to the Theory of

Everything patent.

3 Wise Monkeys Sitting in a Tree

See No Evil:

It is because the

owl bears witness

to the night

we know

who to blame.

Hear No Evil:

The butterfly is human life

quietly condensed into flutters

idly watched

sniffing roses.

Speak No Evil:

On a cloudless turquoise day

the sky has nothing

(better)

to say.

Image by Popular Science Monthly Vol. 14, 1892, via Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain.

Symphonies of straw

A pin
A needle
      in a haystack
A drop
       in a bucket
A leaf
       on a tree
falls
         falling
                      fell
leaves
           leaving
                        left
with a thunder-
ing roar
A tree
            bends and peels
shaking and quaking
             in its earthy bed
shedding leafy sheets
              turning the page
the orchestra tunes
              its instruments for Autumn.


Image by By Rosendahl [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Support group

They do not have your heart in their mind.

They try to make you feel uncomfortable in your skin.

They throw off your gait, trip your pace, trying to get ahead of you.

They point, they name, they poke and filet.

They see you in their way.

They say to fare is too fair for you, they say you’re okay-for a stepping stool.

They take steps out of their way to point you in the wrong direction.

They are the unreliable narrator; they are the antagonists of Serendipity.

They can’t hear you over the crowd in their head. All in their Fanclub look the same.
They can’t see you in their reflection.

They seek beauty in resemblances; they do not see the artistry in the anomaly.

They make the marinade of maliciousness you soak up, you are tenderized by lies.

They will never stop trying to make you stop trying.
They won't admit they'd wish you'd quit.

Image of painting by Edvard Munch [Public domain], 1907-Jealousy via Wikimedia Commons.

Oct-1-en-3-one (The smell of blood)

You know the taste of your own blood-
You remember you are made mortal-
You reminisce, ruminate in your recipe-
Notes you only know.................................
Those little letters in a vial;
coded coagulation's in combinations
of more than A O B and sometimes Y,
negatives and positives make a clot...........
...a conspiracy of hematology....................
the platelets are empty and white say
Editors of assemblage, connoisseurs of flow...
-Professors of Anatomy-
Who stick it to you, bleed you out, dry to the bone,
just as they always have, herding en mass-
Ewe, the sacrificial lamb.................................

Blood banks built on quicksand
distributing to the needy.

Even today, the cast off sprays the same;
luminol illuminating outcasts-
no doubt, not good enough
to save a life, strategic
in a pinch, a gash gushing................................
anemia, academia-
non-hemocyanin, un-blue-
contaminated, un-oxygenated, discarded
in the slush pile.................................................
There will always be more
able bodies, anti-bodies, veins to tap,
an aortic (Au(ction) gold mine..........................
We are blood letting machines-
We give and take life in sips-
We can taste (Fe(ar) our iron-
Will drained-
We work up to sap-
slowly................................................................
only to give it away for free
Keeping the leeches alive.

Most pungent when fresh, bread and newspapers drop in value proportional to their scent of newness.

Image By No 1 Army Film & Photographic Unit, Chetwyn (Sgt) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.