Eminent Domain

Be cause
we have hands,
we take things with us,
carry our burden bags around
and tote our tiny things
call them tailor-made
and hope they are flattering.

Be cause
this land we said was ours
dirt we move around
while space remains unsettled
humanity as a clod has agreed,
since we cannot yet steal stars
all is all
of ours.

Be cause
eminence is an amalgamation
man-made and molded.
Be cause
domain has been appropriated
not by Volume.
We are empty
and entertained
with things
we thought
were matter.

Be cause
we do not have
nothing.
Be cause
dark matter
expands exponentially
Love is the only thing
light enough
to keep.




Image By Internet Archive Book Images [No restrictions], Light and Life Woman, via Wikimedia Commons.

Lesson 1: Nature and the Soupman

Travel back to your first lesson
taught by Mother Nature.
When you learned
your parents were not the only
nor the best
teachers
about life.

We went camping,
my parents, their friends, Hercules-the dog.
We'd go to the Russian River
where there were no campsites-
you sight your spot and camp-
if you like.

They would drink and fish,
and drink like fish,
and more-it was the eighties.
Their friend, 

a man called Kevin Soupman
was fishing near me
when he caught a rainbow
trout.

He held it across both his hands,
it was shiny, slimy and squirmy-

the things kids like.
Moments later,
he said he had something for me.
He told me to hold out the palm
of my hand.
I did, eagerly.

In it,
he placed a crimson pebble.
It rolled a moment
as I tried to see it more closely
then it settled in the evening sun-
(un)still

throbbing and beating its inner drum.
Thus,

Nature and the Soupman
taught me
all I needed to know
about heartlessness.


Image By Ken Hammond / USDACornischong at lb.wikipedia [Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Things were going along swell
rolling back and forth,
forth and back...
All is stimulating, titillating, and conversating
smoothly sailing the syllabic sea,
until suddenly-
I am slapped across the face (!)
with an open backhand,
knuckled under the weight of the word-
As though fired from an ex-husband,
who knows me better than me-
says he. Like a master I've never served,
who insists on digging up old dilemmas
from dank old trunks,
prying through and poking around
for the finest, sharpest, loftiest bone to pick.
Tossing ancient history at me like china darts
through fragile names like
-Racism and Sexism-
pointed accusations
hurled only by
an immaculate him,
who wants to deflect, deter, stall, divert, and exert
his preeminent preferences of him-
self-
less
threats to masculinity.
Never to be
for-
given
for-
peace
sake.



Image of Betty Ford's travel trunk, By n/a (Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Whose in the way of whom

What does it matter

if water may hollow stone,

it also melts ice,

and is able to absorb

its likeness

to become more of itself.

Who can blame the wind 

for putting pressure

on structures we've built

opposing its whims,

where we erect our wants;

which is why we tremble.

Unlike the stone

that is grounded

lays low, erodes slowly

and goes nowhere fast.

Water I care

emote a dust in the wind?

Amidst stone cold silence,

I heard the wind whisper

and the water splattered back.

This poem was inspired by the poem Wind, Water, Stone by Octavio Paz.

Photo credit By Sequeira, Paul, Photographer (NARA record: 8464471) (U.S. National Archives and Records Administration) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. Description: Homeowners lined a lake beach with cars in order to prevent erosion threatening their dwelling residences. 

Silly Chilly

Write hot?
I think not.
I should be composing in the cool air.
I should be writing in the frigidaire.
I just can't figure out how to fit quite yet-
but I bet
my ideas would last longer
my prose may sound stronger
it would increase my freshness-
although, no one has tested this.

But I have been told
when you work in the cold
it increases the racing speed
of the firing synapses I need.

The icebox stocks
are actually quite empty-
some left-over spaghetti,
some moldy cheese and condiments
some things growing antioxidants...
(ahh, the minimal groceries
of writers salaries)
While it is conceivable,
working in there still doesn't seem feasible.
Does anyone writing from an igloo
know if this is true?



Image By jean-lucien guillaume (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Remember it so

By now,
neurologists all know
we lie
and believe what
is so
vivid enough to make
it so-
in our alternate reality,
what we call memory.

Who was there to witness
it so-
they can testify the truth
as it happened by view
they say-
it is,
so we believe it.

Duality seems determined
by a parallelogram sent
from another timeline
started forever ago,
we think we know
it so-
Infinite possibilities
project our stories,
our memories,
our-one time-
gone another way.

So tell it all ways, build
it so
intricate and elaborate, that
it is
simply the best story
only you know
by now.




Image of painting by John White Alexander [No restrictions or Public domain], Memories (1903) via Wikimedia Commons.

Fear Fiends

If every single one of us
stopped right Now-
pointing aim and angle-
no longer letting out the line
tightening the drag
on those baiting fear
would schools be safe?

If every personhood
could forget they ever saw terror
we could forget its name and
claim for attention and mention.

If we remained strangers
violence would be candy
that decays our good taste.

If all of our hands were clean
we could touch without harm,
and move without touch
yet the lines are long
and gloved with grime.

If we knew how to weild love
without fear of rejection
violence would be in vain.

This stress has made a bloody mess
of bones to pick and bodies to bury.
We have come weak with atrophy
choosing wealth over value,
terrified by the tought of loss.

The fear we put here
as bearers of terrors
we make
hearts ache.


Image By Popular Publications (Scanned cover of pulp magazine) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.