Esse est percipi (to be is to be perceived)

The weakest link in the chain of being
Makes no lasting connections-

Through some set of instructions, like a recipe
My grandmother warned me
As most Norwegians do
Pick your battles,
She was no warrior but always got her way.

My daughter asked me why I gave her
Such unruly hair
I explained entanglement,
like genetics.

My son wondered if his absent father cared about him
I explained how black holes devour every event
Near their horizon-
Light cannot escape.

I listen to my mother every week
on the line-long distance,
and remind myself that gravity
cannot be forced to become
stronger or weaker-
here
-without proximity.

All the unfinished pieces I call quanta
Have been spinning, gathering, and weaving
Adams this evening,
I listen to strings beings played
somewhere in the distance
making music with wasted energy and vice versa
to feel harmonious.

My grandfather sings this one verse
Spin the tail of the Ouroboros-
Watch him chase his legacy,
Ask him where he is going
He does not say Entropy,
His mouth is full of chaos.
Spin, spin, spin the tales
O wee world weaver.

Now
It makes sense,
This is coherence

as a theory of relativity.

Photo By Fred C. Palmer (died 1936-1939) (Photograph of original postcard) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Fight or flight

I propose

to usurp the power that death takes

hold, clamping its rusted iron jaw on degradable values

make diffused, diluted and convert to decrease aversion

Fight or flight for

Fear?

(clipped wings are for peacocks)

I have thawed my right angles

to meet the idea of my mortality

in mirrors and simulations and held white

for a time, essentially accepting

dirt nor ash is enough to subsist us

For the birds-just-ice

Leave me

Happily ever after

Life.

Lastly, carried away

Wishes molded into clay sink

while the will

always ends 

with wind.

Painting by Melchior d'Hondecoeter [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Hex-ameter in cent-imeters

The spoken curse at last 

resonance on red lips 

from dripping fingertips-

May you live in interesting 

Times (chorus again).

Thy will be done -Here-

at all costs

Thy-

Will be done.


Painting by Charles Bird King [CC0 or CC0], via Wikimedia Commons.

Where purple fades to black

Draw, if you can, a picture
Please-with your eyes closed in bliss-
May I imagine seeing it too,
and what if-could I be with you
this night where we never miss the truth
if it should fall before us

Find, if you can, a wish
hitched along aligning stars
winking the words in a code
they read, like they need
to fill up all our empty cups with
drops between here and there

So why are we still so thirsty
amid our aqueous aura
see opulent streaks, purple pains majestic-
The salt is the bitterness, now all dried up-
maybe the ache will shoot me-
the shape of lines we need to meet
May be in ink, in visible
made purple and moon

Feel, if you could, a feather-
this is the same as my kiss
Want is the honeyed passion oil
glimmering for attention under heat-
watch the butter-flies battle this
This, this, is the same as wonder

Why are we left wanting
this is more than we can grasp in a life
this is more than we can make in a word
shown ourselves wrapped up in a code
enigmatic strike momentary flashes
passed missed messages
millions of miles apart, we started

Be cause, once I've heard-past-
where the purple fades to black
and the doves skip the lyrics
due to heavy rain
this is where we dance outside of time
feeling the echoes of each
others heart beat
living in the notes.

"After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music." -Aldous Huxley

This poem is in tribute to and inspired by the artist Prince and his lyrics to the song "When Doves Cry"recently passing away at the age of 57 on April 21, 2016. 

Published in A Prince Tribute Poetry Anthology, published by Yellow Chair Review.

Image of painting by Charles Joshua Chaplin [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

2nd Image of Purple rose By Portraitlady4306 (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Give & Take

The most random growth

strikes me as superfluous

Beauty.

Look around;

Light, colors, temperature, 

                        and patterns too ornate

to recreate by free hand. Living proof.

I take it in too deep, bury stars under dust

And as ugly as I try

a mote may hope

to grow out of it.


Illustration from Patrick Moore's Watcher of the Stars in 16th century[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

A loud thought

We

are the only creatures

that are meta

Supposedly

as in Assumption

Anthropologically

or making

Anthropocenes

and calling it

as though It is

Fragmented-

they said

I was

Funny,

that is my poetry showing

if you have a sense of humor

or comical elbow

you know

jabs are blunt

This specific species

doesn’t understand

All 

parts as a whole

some were mystified

and thought the Art clever-

Others never

see the holes

by volume of alibis

Let’s confess,

if it bleeds it needs

Compression

another way to say

another need-

                      to say.


Painting by John Michael Wright [Public domain], Portrait of a Lady (17th century) via Wikimedia Commons.

Caught in a (w)rec(k)tangle

When the house becomes too small to move-

Say-the mind a sliver, the air stagnates,

Move, make ninety degrees and push

yourself in the corner as close as you can

                                                    and wait,

settle eventually

                                      into splitting sides.

The edges are solid suggestions.

Only like (a)new angle,                thirty-three

vertebrae stacked spines of letters in cantos

                        Will line up to form new rays,

circular thoughts that roll off to escape

                                                       -common

nodes or intersects by a(n)arrow marginality.

Letterally, let us build this thing out

with meaning and not caulk it up impermeable

Around the double pane windows

Only to trap commas in between

Breath and rain

Between escape and containment

We will just

stay in place and listen

Accepting the sentence

as the last line

Insight. May be make more

empty dwelling spaces

To call a place

None like Home. 


Painting by Michiel Sweerts [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.