Magnetic fields

The air holds warmth in sealed packets

and ships them to living bodies

whom linger idyllically,

overdressed in gaudy allure,

pink jasmine sprays its lusty plumes

overhead the woven flower wreath

making this crown Joyous.

The mustard yellow fields are lit.

Local poppies have all stuck their spindly necks

out tall, above the scruff and common

gullible daisies.

Petals spark fields of amber glow, 

strong in orange and

merely mocking 

the white weak sun.

There was green hope all over the hills

-After All-

Winter wouldn’t stay fixated on grey

forever. Tasted the difference between 

yellow earth and blue sky-together

And It was good, 

And it was all green

left by the sugary dew

drawn to each other

in the new Spring atmosphere. 

Painting by Granville Redmond, Coastal wildflowers (1912), in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Electra en route

The skydiver sits with legs dangling

over some hazy sepia city, where white boulders

are really single-family houses.

The words in the sky-

The only open space-

mention the management of

Trust and Risk.

From the profile

I recognize the Roman nose and swollen lower jaw,

puffed up bottom lip.

The head is tucked in a leather helmet or bonnet

and thick black gloves meant for big jobs such as 

holding on. The figure is slumped over, looks down.

I note how long it has been yet despite the gap 

easily identified as the Pioneer Amelia Earhart;

whose good fortune in men and time

required no planning of retirement,

whose fate turned ill at forty-one,

whose security was not welded to stocks or

bonded to breed,

whose figure seems compatible

in that alien atmosphere,

who was never buried

whose sealed lips, stony gaze,

Pause one to wonder what she sees

in the shadowtrees painted below,

does this sky have depth perception,

or recognize

the Miss Appropriation, the mixed media,

the teetering between jump and fall,

I tear out

the full page newspaper advertisement

and fold it back into a paper plane. 

"You haven't seen a tree until you have seen its shadow from the sky."-Amelia Earhart

Amelia Mary Earhart was born on July 24th in 1897, she disappeared in her plane Electra and was declared dead on January 5th, 1939. 

1st photo of Amelia and her husband George Putnam taken 1931, By International News Photos (eBay front back) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

2nd photo By San Diego Air & Space Museum Archives [No restrictions or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

The Incantation of Sprung

The ringing had to have been

the resistance of air in being dissected

with a rugged swung scythe.

A crude way to make matters worse.

Should we speak up

so breath can chime in and tune on its own
accord to T for truths, sinews,
or sing along so we know

where we were going
when it is over?

Souls dissipate most visibly
when the sun is a mere

ten degrees above the arc at the end of All

and they blush as they come
into vulgar exposure.

The vertiginous extension of body

feels its mineral composition,

just as the mountain has long since
gathered here and crumbled there

under the broom of wind and whistling.

The wait is the same atomic gravitas

so we make music on its shoulders,

conjuring notes we hope will

carry,
raining colors in a natural spring

Forward marching over the detritus
of the Others
calcified fragments, ground in silt and 
carried by such quick sand.

To hear and to be heard over the years

something so sharply.

Watercolor by Karl Bodmer (1836) Assinboin in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Ahold of things

Floating on fingers

moments away from slipping or suffocating.

It is not safe yet, meaning has not been found.

There is much sleeping left, 

I am wet behind the ears.

The head feels the body catapulting and spinning 

on this solid mud earth.

Sinking in unsound.

The ringing of the ellipse, 

the thunder touched the letters as I type,

con-forming to thought.

What solace could be made 

with such furious fingers?

Latently the violence in man will awaken.

Grasping for notes and singeing the ends 

in godspeed.

Smoke fills in for music, dancing in swirls

It disappears with the keys.



Painting By Yamashita Shintarō (29 August 1881 to 11 April 1966) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Teach her

There was something of a

learning curve

that resembled the arc of an eyebrow

hoisted in intrigue

as though there were more connections

to be made, fine hairs to grow

to bring a-round

complete insight

from the pupils center.


Art by Alphonse Legros c. 1949 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Moving her lips

Distracted by a flicker, brutishly I burrowed

under the thickset arboreal pathway, forward through,

not needing a Virgil

Whereby, I found myself subdued and lowered

my angel body, knelt upon the gathering scrag,

with knees upon the well curb, my two soles

Watching my back, I feel the frosty shade

Safer now, I may close my shamed eyes

And I know why others have come too.

I reach right into my hip pocket,

making a tiny discomfit chime,

half-expecting the birds to flap.

I take out the three pennies

used for the i-Ching,

fingering the Nineteen eighty-four first,

it sits in the color of old adobe

streaked in rain grime.

I toss it into the blackness that is not

Empty nor dry

and I wait, waiting, listening, breathing,

hearing nothing...

The next one picks up the red in the sun and

glows facing its prospect of good conduct-

Two thousand and one

sided History, the honest man does not smile

I let it go as impersonal,

It falls quickly

I lean in

this time

and I don’t hear it hit

gulping back it was swallowed hole.

I never wished.

The last one left, I save for a

second thought, more

about splashless wishes

for Change.


Painting by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

“Here”

Raise my hand-Why

would I point to myself

up high?

That is an outdoor activity-

cloud seeding and closing in on where

parchment persists.

Not spoken to, only @

A step back, none needed

knowing any more than No.

Tell me again what Confucius said-

To air is human.


Painting By Paul Louis Martin des Amoignes (1858–1925) (Bonhams) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.