Sara Nade

Here is that same night bird taking the top of the stage outside the window

Singing light purple notes alone and unashamed of his thin lilting echo

Pitched out and rolling down the quiet village lane over fences

and peeking in windows,

Disturbed 

and proud I would be

if I had feathers to wear tomorrow…

There are no reasons or songs the avian knows

by heart, I listen, still interrupted

under the occasional bassos auto rumbling past, 

the bird usually waits for the concrete to cool

back down

Before the night bird at the window

hops himself back up his perch to scale, 

topping his previous arias and picking at

new notes

The world rises in mourning ovation, 

the inevitable death of knights

or a little light disturbance,

I will get used to it. 



Photo By USFWS Mountain-Prairie [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0) or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Degrees of profession

Develop a certain

-skill set-

as in business, with cool callousness 

as in karate where

the belt be the crown, that designates 

the title or rank, currently

The executive balancing his arches

strapped acrost the tautly

ill-suited rung to sole,

checks his elevation, adjusts the white collar

and gauges

                    his next move.

Now, 

undo what was taught to you

as a rule, reject the ready-mades-

the artist sees these to steal everywhere,

his palms itch and brow drips with want, 

keeping it in,

he delicately destroys his visions,

brushing this distorted imagery away-

missing the point

                               of manipulation.

But by degrees of depth

-perception-

These Two, these too,

Race like Humans

to make names

that mark more than maker, dreg

on the bottom

left

worse off

The blue suits are more, deflecting danger,

The artist, unafraid of crimson, leaves a line

tethered to nerves

that steal

and is broken 

down to blur.



Self portrait By Manuel Pereira da Silva [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Confessions of Stories Never Told (mainly by Rip G. Larsen)

Sealed and steeled and
in tact, in fact, all there-disheveled

in-side the unripe, oxidized lock box, ideas

tamped down in ply, peeling brittle-edged leaves

papers, actually, assorted, fragmentary thoughts-

in-spiration in scraps, morsels and ort,
accumulatively intended

to become something someday a story,
or Open Works-en-Titled:

Idea, Plot, Wet/ Dry, Action Scenes Black forlorn (negro),

Husband and wife, Idea and Story?

Suede pages soft as tanned hides, see the sunlight and crackle

after fifty long dark years crisping in the metal closet,

delicately, I have shuffled through these-

dead mans buried confessions, yarns my grandfather never spun out,

of ideas kept shuffled up, out of mind -out of mindsight 

only to be come, unfortunately,

resurrected by me,
I see a story to be told,

another resurrection fable-
(when they were true and alive)

His lines cast Here:

***************

Go to ‘Blake’ island for mercy killing,

Witnessing of murder changes husbands mind

Convicts solve his personal problem

By killing his wife-

(he lives)

Write one about a revengeful husband who kills his wife’s murderer,

after he is sentenced to life imprisonment.

Taking down of memorial in wintry square.

Idea-Symbols that always work of superstitions that always work-have some from…(illegible)

Idea-In a human vein, tell the story of a very adroit sponge (use G.L.as example)Have this trait finally come to a climax with a human ending

Idea-Write one about rodeo philosophers who have life figured out.-Get one of these guys in trouble philosophizing about (illegible) Show his Reaction.

Idea-Two people in some environment struggling for the same thing-person detests the other for the very same faults that he has. One commits a sin and boldly accuses the other of its execution.

Idea How about using a guy who sees too much significance in each little event that occurs. Have him re-act a humorous chime to his disadvantage.

Idea    Sargasso Sea   to ships as  (illegible)  on Howard St. ---One young face in a sea of living corpses

Husband// Very devoted, sensible, Impetuous, Loves wife deeply, Patient, Noble, Drinks to relieve tension, sentimental, sensitive, sense of humor (over)

Wife// Irrational, Intelligent, Sharp-witted, has softening of the brain

Open scene with her in some unintelligible but significant conversation and action and end play with husband in some way-

Beautiful, superstitious, fearful

Vivid Night Dream                         12^th Night

Wet                                                    Dry

3”                                                        6”

Much ado about Nothing

Action Scenes

Battle with weather by man

Battle of man with man

Battle of man with animals

Battle of man with unknown

Battle of man with = -woman?  (grandmothers handwriting)

Black forlorn (negro)-His eyes and coat were wrinkled from the evening's sleep

Story?

Dumb:____

I know you are well educated but do you have any money?
****************

The wife would be killed repeatedly and in theory,
this philosophy should disturb me, but it goes

unexecuted,
the crazy wife would die following him, naturally.

The gold lock on the green box was put on by Goldy-locks,
Blondie never laughed at these names that nicked at her nerves-

nor at all his taunting confessions
she noted, (red), too late

of murders he could never commit, accepting his miserable
blue collar fate
he quit

killing his darlings,

and turning attention to himself
went blue in the face
from this treading along of
American live-ly-hood-

Well-by now
we have seen, culture kills all kings,
by this time
unable to slay
all (his)storied thoughts, he locks them up for life,
to for get it out and to be handed down
the line.



   

Fingertips gather nerves

I got over it.

I had some extra lift,

(Oofta as grandma would say, Chutzpah grandpa would grumble

in accordion)

Don’t think brazen-

Don’t drink that-

It is enough without elaborating

It is extra superfluous to describe-

So let’s not.
So let’s be

Honest. Necessary. Only. Listen.

More understood, more grounded under foot.

The wings will whisper-“I, lashes”

The blood tingles warm, currently a-live.

Everything here was for you to use,

Everything was waiting

Notice.

Photo By No machine-readable author provided. B & W Kirlian fingertip [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Feather weather

It flew out of my pocket-

                      the white under feathers

                                      floating everywhere

                      in tufts of downy orbs

               aloft and aloof

          making May

all dande-

lion.

The baby birds have begun to bloom,

                      the cats smell them out

                      and bring them home to me

                limp and plucked.

they seem proud,

if I May

speak for felines

looking to chat
                             about lambs and lions.  

Image credit By State Library of New South Wales collection (taken 1945) [No restrictions], via Wikimedia Commons.

Another recall

Re-collect

a day we had no need

for recall-

Forget that these conveniences can

kill us and attempt execution

indiscriminately making

man’s digital gift

a.k.a., Making lazy

better than ever before.

Back in the old days,

We got what we deserved.

No more or less.

I forget how that worked-

And now we just keep making more justice

and mistakes and give away reason charitably

re-member these feel good moments?

We knew this time, anyways,

Make America Great (Again)

Will kill the dreams

we forget when we wake.

We forgot how to sail. How to re-

Member…

I am too tired to recall

All the ropes and knots.

Image credit based on Detroit, Catalogue J (1901). "418" on negative. Detroit Publishing Co. no. 013177. Gift; State Historical Society of Colorado; 1949City Hall, Milwaukee, Wis.

Characters

One time

We liked stories, truth be told.

Stories about us, about our stories...

And there were so many stories still to be told

in every narrow nook and at the basin of every crevice

Lie motive inside metallic locks, under Persian rugs, in-

between sheetrock walls-

And above all

shapeshifting cumulous clouds-

faces.

There were too many to notice such

sweeping similarities so we let them be

Different, like wings.

One time these stories

entertained us with fancy, charmed us

in emulating everyday escapades.

We recognized someone’s doomed desires

before the ending, catching on, 

like memory and water,

taking its sweet time

reflecting.

One time

We told stories to each other

of the way it was, of the way it will be-

Presenting only the preferred possibilities,

such as happy endings for the good guy or our hero's.

One time we wrote stories

because we could make it up, 

narrating truths seamlessly

into lovely little lives, dressed ghosts under bleached pulp with black eye liner-

awaiting a familiar revival in mirrored eyes.

The stories one time

saved us from the villains, by showing us

what they look like 

as potential suspects-

This way,

we don't step in glass

or cast more curses upon 

one fairys' long, winding tail.

Painting By George Inness (Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.