Book covers and titles tell all

If they saw the Bhagavad Gita what would they think?

If they knew any thing or two about truth in fiction,

or which was the stranger 

of the two

If they knew respect is not a costume anyone can wear...

if I cared 

they don't think of me

If they knew my ears were not sensitive enough

to hear small talk

would they only speak louder...spoken over thought.

They were not here when my daughter said we needed 

more bookshelves, requesting wall to wall coverage would be good,

she envisioned this plan, we have more than enough

needless to say, she pleased me greatly.

If I had not been buried in stacks of books

I wonder if she would still want this,

to save me.

And 

If they knew about being a parent-

is it obvious they could care less...

Apparently knowing would never be

good enough

                          to be great. 

Painting by Giuseppe Crespi, c. 1725 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

dropping the ball

As the overhead lights dim and dawn,

memorists and statisticians note

the smuggled force in-formation,

feigns power.

Smarter than the averages

within their means.

If it were up to us

burrowed heads,

footprints and carbonated 

rhetoric would leave a mark.

As observed, hope floats away,

proof we are wingless, too heavy

for syllogisms sake. 

It is not as though we are not necessary.

We are...proof, part air. 

Forecasting all is Fair 

weather wise

we are all 

dead weight-

Wait...

what about us?

Image By Pixelmaniac pictures (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Pele

Leaching lead mountains

Bled where scabs crust with healing

miracles to make

Image credit By Game McGimsey (http://www.avo.alaska.edu/image_full.php?id=5927) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Succulents

The jade saves its bloom
for the drought, reason enough
to live with little

Writing it right while the house was quiet

The duplex dreamt and the tenant typed

The reader was making a book; and not

Unlike emulation, was editing generously.

The building in the barrio with a tiny yellow light.

Worlds were created in near silence,

and destroyed even quieter still. The writer wrestles,

with choices and stalled situations, corners 

and trap doors until stuck no more, after all was imaginary.

The darkness provided the right light.

The writer made galaxies with aether.

Contrast and focus, like noise easier to see

when the dimness has long nestled in.

And the scrivener muffles scribbles, while snores and strokes 

of keys alleviate worries, working while the rest slept.

The word wizard cast spells, swept up by sunrise. 

The writer reads what the reader rights, a better ending after all.

*This poem was inspired by the famous Wallace Stevens poem, The House was quiet and the world was calm, featured (also a recorded reading) on the Poetry Foundation website.

Painting by Rembrandt [Public domain], 'A Hermit Reading (c. 1630) via Wikimedia Commons.

Progress Report on Humanity 2016

Progress Report on Humanity 2016

While working on wisdom and other such noble pursuits such as:

charting the last unknown seas of our brain,

decrypting the genetic combination codes,

lighting up dark matter, 

untwisting gravity loops, 

splitting hairs, creating charts, giving away lectures, taking no

foreign concepts as native, naturally

making machines for man to perform his manual machinations-and then some-play

(for fun), making Progress-just almost

and our work is never done...

(As though this provided some security,

it should not.)

Humble has no home here anymore.
Humane roots et al, such as humility, we have learned resulted in
futility.
We are too close for guns. 

*CONFIDENTIAL & UNENCRYPTED*

While busy upstairs in the attic, poison entered the kitchen.

In our genius haste we added this, liberally 

mistaken for a miraculous superfood.

Recalled flavor of the weak. 

Minor matters of consideration include; Moderation of matter

in patterns of fractal parsimony. & Distractions: a surplus of these.

Save some love for later. 
(Should this be encoded)

Meanwhile, we all thought our bodies as interruptions, 
 breaks in concentration and bones, 

and this partly makes us human.

Essentially. To know

and not say a word. 

Why some seem surprised when silence is broken, 

lack of line rehearsal.

An(other) Act

Comedy and Tragedy: Cattle Call!

All of us 

equally adept 

at playing either role. 

Look up, there is none. Technically, 

as the horizon, clear is only relative. 

Look out- better advice. Lucidity. 

The Big picture, we will never know

in a tiny lifetime gathering only so many pieces

allowed 

to fit in our psalms.

Look in. 

How do you feel?

And this doesn't settle well...

Fathoms deep we have wondered

-was it something I ate?

Toxic. But too late. 

Hate made us human. 

All the forces like electromagnetism, hydrothermal convection, 

and preoccupations like autotrophs adapting to gravity and love 

all liked best to Fall at our feet.

Footprints and fractals, all rewritable. 

Conclusion in Abstract Terms:

We are working on it. It may take a couple more weeks, considering the weather and the way the vowels 
(or opportunities) 
line up. 

Painting By Lavery, John (Sir) (RA) (RSA) c. 1918 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Sticks and stones spell...

That name I was given was a tool
to taunt my grandfather-
I was not told-
how to use.
He loved me best, more than his own.
And I have wrestled with its odd shape
and sharp turns on my tongue.

Walked on past when people stumble over it
and twist it to suit their native mouths
translation is just a place to hold things,
this placeholder for me is only temporary...

Life's a bloom until you become part of the potpourri,
which is why the dry blooms last longer.
I would be of the waxflower variety,
piney and if this name a color
it must be yellow-although it sounds more like
an oboe, not a cello.

If you could only touch me, I'd be satin-
sometimes
velvet.
My name would grow like a city, Odessa
with more steps.
This misshapen label matches me
even though I know contradictory;
looks like summer, feels like snow.
And so not the tool I thought I wanted
yet when fashioned to fit precisely
the only one that could work on me.

I now know this tool was used

to pry my grandfathers' irritation open

every time he picked it up

and held it tight.

He loved me best.

Its protrusions also make my mouth bleed.

And I have casually passed by when others

grimace and contort it by twisting

their own cherry knot tying tongue.

It is just a name,

to hold me 

in his passing voice 

temporarily

It fits.

Photo by Ohannes Kurkdjian [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.