What's More (Haiku)

Nadir-ly nothing

lies-among the ruins

utter solitude.

Image by Charles Soulier [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons, taken May, 1871: Soulier's photograph shows the charred remains of the once lavish audience hall of the Council of State in the Palais d'Orsay, a building begun by Napoleon I, completed in 1840 under King Louis-Philippe, and burned by the Communards on May 23, 1871. In the last years of the nineteenth century, these ruins were replaced by a new railway station, the Gare d'Orsay, which, in turn, was transformed in the 1980s into the Musée d'Orsay, the French national museum for art made between 1848 and 1914.

Skipping on the Surface

It is obvious where matter changes
its collective being lies
somewhere on top, outside of itself
so we can see it, making it matter

At face level, on even ground
I brace my stance at the waters edge
smooth wafer stone in flesh palm
before hurling it-out there

I pause to picture its path, knowing
the ripples go nowhere but below
I can see closely the other shore
this is how I touch it from here

Someone else is always over there
and they say the same thing, mirroring my
in between, where the details gurgle
over boulders blocking fish roads

Some words don't sink
linger at their own reflection
and babble along, afloat
without direction or depth

The stone wrapped in hand
remembers its destiny, making
3 giant leaps before being cast
to the Other side

visibly mattering
just beneath the surface
smoothly skipping over
in stoic silence.



Image By SAMIN (Own work) [Public domain] of Armand River, via Wikimedia Commons.

10 Things I Never Do (Today)

The 10 things I NEVER do (today) include:
                                              Clock-in-OR
                                              Clock-out-is that two?
                                              Wear nylons-
                                               Paint my lips-
                                               Say 'Yessir' or commute, anywhere, ever
around about noon
halfway through                    I stop listening, change the channel,
                                              fine tune the static ring
in the melody of midday melancholy
nothing important is this bright
no reason to wait until its safe
to come out, face it, say it, bleed out-Out with it!
Sleep tight,
at midnight
as the schedule shows
                                            I sleep lucidly dreaming.
                                            I dream the life of a poet.
                                            I live in the lucid poets dream.

*This poem was composed as a response to the poem by Ted Berrigan, 10 Things I Do Every Day.
Composed 11/12/15.
Image by William-Adolphe Bouguereau, The Earrings, 1891. [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

                                       

I'll Be Frank with You

Strangers we are
and always have been
on other shores, lifetimes away
archived thankfully for someday
like this opening in my schedule.

I've done some looking in
to you, and wonder where you are
really from, I mean I get where you are
coming from, of the Hara, the place?
Or is it the Shiva or Scarlett's Hara?

I was taken in by many and none
the lineage leads to nowhere
but a sweet little eden, a valley lush
trees wearing afro dos, creeks trilling
through the dell-it clearly chose me
as you can tell.

I thought of a poem I wrote before
we had lunch yesterday, about a poet
who paints with words on white,
like still life, making space
more appealing. I forgot
to mention how much I enjoyed
Guadalajara, the pictures of Ashes Buried,
your instruction manual too, Mr. O'Hara.

Of course this was all before
page 163
of Secondary Colors
just past Orange
that banana split second-mutilated
dislocated from living just like that
taken away at 3-
on a beach! And what's more?!
It was not mine...
O the Horror!
These letters are just too much for me...

Pacifically.Stationed.
(this was long too early, I needed something like you there)

This poem was inspired by the poet Frank O'Hara and his poem specifically, Why I am not a painter.

Image by Sanford Robinson Gifford (1823-1880) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons,  painting described as Fire Island Beach, NY.

After You, I insist

If we conclude

that the cart can pull the horse-

would we arrive

before our name?

Say we saw the shells

showing

the chicken hatched 

his plans

first

How many baskets will we need

to not shatter

the image we

reflect into existence

consciously mirroring 

before me?

Just One

holding half

of the analogy

pulling the last straw

to see

who goes

first.

Image by José Ferraz de Almeida Júnior [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Objects of Extinction

Here is a place for safe keeping of wares
of which no one cares
about
or for
anymore

You see, objects must possess
utility
not the other way around
I thing...

Superfluous, miscellaneous and etceteras,
come small and tall, starting with the most
noticeable of all
It loiters and litters
on street corners,
posing as a service,
always empty: full of germs
a fishbowl sometimes
where will Superman change?

On such urban safari
look with caution for painted ladies,
who shoot straight from the rosehip
Mark's men, and the Law, a Band
of bureaucratic brothers
and Brothels bumping,
candles burning the midnight
body oil, spraying caution to the wind

the freight car goes by interrupting
notching our mechanical life on rails
the weight we take, mobile homes
and gypsies on tour

The cash we don't carry, the phones we don't answer,
the answering machine will get it
page me if it's important, 911
I'm looking for a music video
on TV, not the radio, with a dial
Zero for the operator, Information?
What now?

Caught on tape,
Scotch?
velcro, pump-ups
knee-highs and high rises
choked ankles with pegged pants
rags brand new, faux fur, and real feathers
the cats meow, the hum of things unseen

in our wireless world
always on
radio waves attacking the video star
we hear nothing
too busy wherever we are
on GPS
tagged
checking in
and signing out.

ECho, Echo, echo, cho, o
Are we in here too?

Image By Conrad Poirier [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Ye Olde Curiosity Shoppe

To write!

Marking and mucking it up

not ambidextrously

although it may read thusly

manually, this is searching

I write.

I feel the ink flow

I make it come out so

dark and round

bilingually between

print and cursive

encrypted, now I write

more in pen, coded cursives

and dismissives, symbols 

instructions only I know

making living language breathe

O how I want,

from my pens' tip to your sweet lips

How so sweet do I know?

I taste the words first.

I write

sometimes it gets loose and away 

from me, high and inside

-if I can grab it

and show you-

if I can find it

I can write

until nobody reads cursive

Ye olde quill

becomes nill

turning to teletype

telepathy script better have Edit

Well, 

I will write 

still

cradling, holding, pulling, drawing out the words

needing to bleed it out

in tendrils

of untranslatable text

while thinking of what to write next...

Image By "Tichnor Quality Views," Reg. U. S. Pat. Off. Made Only by Tichnor Bros., Inc., Boston, Mass. [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.