Where art thou?

People ask me where I've been and I am mystified.

I mean, I don't know if they mean recently-

or ever-

neither of which is that fascinating-

          which is completely untrue.

Nobody ever asks me this.

I have recently considered how Primo Levi said the glaciers melting 

in green varicose veins 

          could not be described.

He reminds me of Pluto in nebulous ways,

after all, he said it actually tasted like sky.

I guess we have all tried to touch rainbows, 

     and I think most of us prefer shiny things,

not semi-transparent or deflecting items such as prisms

     or  iridescence. 

Honestly, I am still trapped, 

so tell is all I can do. 

It takes determination, geometry 

to hold on to other crystals like granite,

becoming solidified, and structurally sound for a time

bond even, but really just passing through. 

This is how too, 

          rivers are reminiscent of veins 

                         and the passing of blood,

like what is liquid or solid 

               and divides me by you. 

Painting By J.E.H. MacDonald (1873/1932) [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

 

The distance attention spans

Who reads anything

anymore Long-ish, I wish

for the short answer.

Painting By Félix Armand Heullant (1834–1905) (Düsseldorfer Auktionshaus) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Our Lady Alexandria

What feels like Now is never heavy enough

to last longer than a Sunday.

Idle times like June, we tend to wander too far,

it takes august

to bring us back to routine.

Presently, reading.

Presently writing

Then and Now lying in front of me,

blurred by biography autonomously-

     whose voice is lost in the amplified volume

of imposition

     whose own prosaic tome is never true or tight enough

to carry the note all the way,

to cut the final folio, to fill the flyleaves.

More memory appalls dead weight

          one will carry to the cemetery, nary a soul should know  

Those things, flammable flashbacks attack hard back, unhinged

in carnation

in damnation

in citation,

My cover slowly singing, smoldering as I am oldering,

lighter 

Now (transparent)

on paper backs.

Painting By Juan de Echevarría (Bilbao, Spain, 1875 - Madrid, 1931) Born in Bilbao, Spain. Dead in Madrid. Details of artist on Google Art Project [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Squiggly lines

Draw the wind for me

                                             That is a line

This is a wave

                                             It is a cloud

it is not raining

                                             It is floating

It doesn't resemble energy to me

Because it can fall or disappear

If I cannot see it, it is not there

                                             What do shadows show

Movement

                                   You must move-first to see 

I see stillness, yes

                                   this second, do I breathe

Alive, you must Be.

Not imagine

                                   show me the difference

where water and air masses separate 

conglomerate as clouds 

                                   demonstrating the movement

of nothing.

No thing                     that floats.

Now your turn to draw the water

                              well are not those tears 

Artwork By Вера Владимировна Хлебникова (1891—1941) ([1]) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Readproof

This it is how it is done

                                                  -delicately.

Most important, remember to breathe

steady

quiet hands, 

               as in decent golfers and honest horsemen

then confidence is key-

                                             the only one that fits, actually.

First, you must penetrate the first layer without severing any of the connecting 

threads,

                    or start over.

Next, to get deeper you must first see trust,

                                                            like fat.

You don't need a lot to proceed.

Moving along, use your tools wisely,

logic is too dull.

The point must be sharp enough to travel through the body.

Make no bones about it, be deliberate, don't deliberate.

The marrow may quiver ever so slightly,

this is good-you have come this far.

                                                            You don't need me 

for Directions nor

Corrections

                         the beat of your heart

                         the heat of your pulse

                         the meat of the matter

                         the flood of blood

on the ashen page

in the first draft stage. 

Painting by George Goodwin Kilburne (1839-1924), Penning a Letter, [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

About my love life

Romance is learning

how to give yourself flowers

when you most need them.

Painting by De Scott Evans (1847-1898), in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Symbolography in Sakura

People think it says my name.
I forget that it is there,
not seeing it the way others do-
it says Unity,
anyway.

Signs you say...
it was the pine that drew me here.
The smell, the sap was worth all the needles,
it gave me something to do
as a conifer.

The creek out back, back at home was the gate,
outside.
There were no bears there
despite the name given.

Summer rains are sad it is said,
but how a monsoon is cleansing
and out of character,
it is welcoming.

And I agree, the cherry blossoms do resemble sunset clouds,
or blushing cheeks,

“searching the wind

the hawks cry

in the shape of its beak” said John Knight

follow my calligraphy

do you know the inference

“The sparrow hops,

Along the veranda

With wet feet.” (in Spring)

A fisherman, a nun,
the snow, years past,

the pattern of the iris

and blood stain of cherries
are simply symbologies
and not to fear.

When I was a little person
my grandfather used to make me climb his rickety old ladder

to pick the bulging bunches of bing cherries
from the neighbors' tree

which hung liberally

over the fence.

Good fences make good neighbors, he would smile casually.

He also read Frost to me.

My grandmother would watch me from the kitchen window
clutching her hot black cup of coffee

staining a fake bone china cup

showing her dentures in propped open way, 

her name was Pearl.

Lately, the murders have caught my eye,

and I noticed how they prefer the pines.

Reeds and ginger,

even a shiny new Gold Medallion

are futile flora for them,
they mock my gestures in watering.

All the while, the falcon still
stalks the tiny ficus dwellers,

the cats watch back intently.

Tenacious,

I have not given up either-

even when my thoughts remain stained
with disease like Worry.

Thankfully, the summer rain washes all the blood off the driveway,
he succeeds

tiny under feathers fly low as

cherry juice runs by in a river
where I stand.

The crows cry out

my name, blaming the mockingbirds
fortune on the falcon, my fault.

It all sounds the same,
sole(less)ness, a cumulus,
one cymbal marks the end. 

Painting by Frank Nuderscher, Cherry Blossoms (1914) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.