Bells & Whistles

Ah, a gift for thee
        a token of my love
           a bit of magic by mans making
Look and see
         the face
              the hands
                    the delicate machinery
Of the precious dial that
          is alive
            it beats
                its face reads with guile
Please, carry it with you
              always keep it
                  close at heart, handy
                      it wants to feel your pulse too
A handcuff? No!
                a shackle-perhaps
                    for some its a ticker, a fuse
                         Coded lines that sign in analog tho
watch its powers,
                 you'll see, this little clicking gift, a tricky token
                            from me, will count unto eternity
                                 all the ways and each of the hours
of my love
making time
trying to be
when it was
is all
we needed
(and a piece of time for thee).



Image By Seriykotik (Own work) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons.

(wee wonder)

What can we say
in One True Sentence,
said so-the Hemingway?

What can be
eternally true-
except, accept,
What is thought
by the poet...

What can the poet
paraphrase and contain
in one line taut
itty-bitty with immensity...

What can we imagine
and utter as real
What can we feel
and express as solidified
What can we read
that has not been said
What can be True
when nothing is eternal
except, accept,
what cannot be named
love.



Image of painting by Alexander Mann (oil on canvas) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Salty seeds

Across the street tall sunflowers loiter casually
erect against the discontent grey sky
dropping back to night.

These evening hours offer no glow
save the ineffective citrus streetlamps,
whereby all black birds along the wires
wring out some final notes, an outline.

It's safe to suppose
the sun wont come out from its heavy covers
tomorrow.
It is June already.
There are no high noons
or bright summer blues.

The cat peering outside
the window with me
just opened the door and left me
for more real things
than light projected
imagery.

And as the grey becomes plum
I lay and delay entering the fold
for fear
of waking in tears
again, chest heaving and caving in
to-night.

When the sunflowers slept
standing up to thick dew
I wept
with my salty lips persed
quivering and inept.

My substance too,
tiny inside.

The promiscuous sunflowers
stand their opposing ground
as phosphorescent agents
of small seeds at eye level.

Despite this disposition,
knowing blended night-
it is tempting to drop everything.

Their swollen faces
turn away from me too
in defiance of summer sun
and still bloom in full gloom.


Painting by Claude Monet [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Blank as a sheet

The white space
was where to put the truth
It makes some
uncomfortable.
Black seems more
accommodating
since dark energy and dark matter
abounds.

Night conceals and reveals all
color theory,
holes condense, space expands
whence we
subcontracted time
to finish
painting the picture
in tones.



Image credit By English: Clarence Hudson White (1873/1925) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

The people flocked

To see a bird in a dream
I looked it up and it seems to mean
something more than freedom, more
than reading Emily Dickinson before drowsing off...
It was not until I reached this peak
that I could see
the birds or Emily fully
from above.
Born again,
by seeing trees for the first time too
we are blessed by birds and nests
the air we share, the weight we don't...

and a wee spotted wood-pecker
that taps the fence post
by the rain gauge

Or the Orioles
befriended by our two brother crows
from when the ficus finally got cut

And that Cardinal
caught by the cat,
¡olé!

Yellow-bellied fly-catchers
curious about coming insde-
demanding even!

Hummingbirds in harems at the fountains
and in your face, buzzing your body
as though they own the sweet place.

A lion's lair
with four proud but lazy cats
on the prowl
Those falcon feathers we found
must have been provoked in part
by the mockingbirds.

Homey chaste egrets
cruise the coast
high and aloof
cool and superior.

Pet parrots, emancipated avians,
piss people off, like loud immigrants
simply because they cannot understand
the squawk, making crackers into crumbs.

Couples of doves,
whose coos irk none-
because we relate to love
and at some point read Emily-
observing migration
in a dream or wide awake
from up here
it symbolizes liberty
in limbs.


Image By Jerry Segraves (en:User:Jsegraves99) (http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/byways/photos/64091) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Fence-lines

The grey fence
leans sleepishly against the morning fog
that lay dew upon the field
which will turn into pixie dust
as the plain rolls into the suns warm gaze.

Before the birds
muster a lilt to try;
the sound of swimming
between tidal flows of atmosphere
immersed, they listen to the mist.

A dappled doe blinks its black eyes
rapidly twitching its ears
seeking the source of the crunch
by the hare munching greens for breakfast,
whose nose twitches up
at the white whir of a hurried wind

chalking up the slate of new day.
A heavy scream shatters the stillness
as the birds scatter in spider cracks
folded inside, the echo
doesn't bother coming back.

What was here
always moving on.



Photograph by © Dietmar Rabich, rabich.de [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0), CC BY-SA 3.0 de (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en) or CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

Echo-interpretation

Few knew
how little we were
hoping to be noticed

Not that
they wanted more
and less to be seen
here

Some found
they never heard
(of) the likes of you
before

Some sought
outside as outcasts
too frigidly
accommodating

Some stayed
in place and inside
by the fire
alit with artistic rage

Not many
more than we
can handle
touching
poetry
without scalding
the tips

And know
none pine
for ringing cedars, pet rocks
or chop words, but quarry
here
for the echo...


Image of painting By Adolf Mosengel (1837-1885) (Dorotheum) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.