Resilience

When one says,

Actions speak

Louder than words spoken,

It moves atoms around in the air,

Between one mouth with two lips

To two ears on one head,

Which alters the space between

And shifts reds and blues

Where one views the plan ahead

As needing more suspense

And periods

Sharp words etch punctuation

Like scars to be read one way.

With more movement than meaning,

One mind may make matters

Participate with Noise.

In one sense,

Seeing is believing

In silence. 




Painting by Edward Robert Hughes [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Held

We carried decimal places in our pockets,

there was never enough change

to evenly distribute amongst us.

We put pennies under our tongue,

never noticing the green words growing out.

we nestled ourselves inside boxes like silverfish

swimming from page to page.

We wove blankets with blame and empathy for others

and died our thoughts of progress and peril

in complementary colors.

Our choice by natural selection never counted

on such a vast assortment of unparsed persons

holding onto everything in case the anchor 

dislodged and diluted by oxidation,
broken down into byte sized bits.

We will fill any holes with our fitting figures,

leaving no space for any one lone light to escape

in a flicker.




Painting by Charles Willson Peale, Portrait of David Rittenhouse, 1796 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Skywriter

The clouds pursued an equilibrium of their own.

The jaundiced glow fell over the soft heads of innocent beings

not looking up.

It may have drawn more in, pulled more up

had the wind changed dramatically.

as if the dark atmosphere

and hot air

weren’t enough warning

persisting in taking shape across the glass bubble sky.

It was clear as day to those that study the signs that clouds make,

The ambiance made moody thoughts thunder through.

Painting by Konstatin Bogaevsky, (c. 1920's), Clouds, in Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons. 

Learned

We have become wiser by (re)placing knowledge,

the study of science and acquisition of hard facts behind 

the gauzy veil of superstition, making senses agree to co-
here.

When we look up our horoscopes, we know it means superficially,

and specifically, something general about us and all others

born under the same stars, the same fate awaits us 
under the same moon,

for Now by proximity.

Where some of us are the observers and some are the affected,

which results in the observed being aware of observation through

filters like sieves, discarding the detritus and cause. 

As in the non-medicinal biology of our physiology

and newly altered chemical psychology,

originally the study of the soul, which moved up to mind

which won't be found, locally hovering over us.

The cause of all actions, dreams and motivations, 

are electrochemically bound to the nobility of gasses produced

and what cannot be seen is still ingested, gravity rolls in waves

to tip the harmonic float of equipoise in irony. 

Under all this entropy, chaos left a scathing impression

Of being busy and all amalgamated, diffused and placed

as a foreign body, easily pushed out over time

as a known irritant that refuses to fade away. 

And we realized it was there for a reason,

the whole time it was up to us,

which changes things intensely,

which overloads the first mover

who would be wiser to let go of certainty

by welcoming the only clear way

where stars have the room to line up

and fall, to burn out after emitting all

opalescence.

Pennies sink and still shine, unenvious of temperature,

windows will fly open in desperation for fresh cool air,

we were stuck thinking and suffocating, 
awaiting a breeze 

that breaks in and ransacks the soul

inside out

in any given broad day light

we were willing to learn from the past, 

but still collected worthless things

for others to admire.

We forgot on purpose 
what makes desire. 


Artwork (brush and watercolor on off-white paper) By Creator:Luis Falero [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons.

Golden Fleece

It becomes hard to breathe,

As if my chest walls

Resisted

The intrusion of more volume.

It is known,

My metronome sways slower than

The standard,

Which causes pause

To those listening for life by standards.

It becomes questionable if I am alive

For a full moment

It becomes obvious, this is my restful state

That alarms professionals of standards 
and not enough.

It was by the elimination of blur,

 the rolling together of static

and the burying down of heart that dams

persistence through rivers and veins.

The flow of water and words,

wind and blood run around without reason.

I should be dead,

They all said without saying anything solid,

Like stones and bodies

To remind us of sinking feelings and roots,

Settling and silt.

It was the iron 
will and heavy hand of world

carried just under the skin and cages. 


Jean François de Troy [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Point A

Home is where we start from,
Eliot said,
while one is busy making plans,
planted Lennon trees,
as though making a home and getting somewhere,
were lasting-
things are all ending around you.

It is not as if Paradise was the same as Innocence
and yes,
both disappeared,
were sheared from necessity
like baby teeth and training wheels,
and how it hurts worse
when home
and are overfed.

Home is a net,
or a web.

He picks up the guitar again and gives it
another chance
this time, she says, until
his fingers bleed.

The other one drives herself away
and is made stronger
so far
from home,
her hopes await.

They both grow from the 'here'
they call Home,
while I make myself busy
tuning the strings
to help them hear, or find
harmony in their spheres
and recognize the crystalized tone
of their own spin,
at least phonetically
one Here's
it to be, pronounced
Home or Ohm.

Raised from nothing but ashes.


Photo By Paik, Kenneth, 1940-2006, Photographer (NARA record: 8464462) (U.S. National Archives and Records Administration) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Norwegian Matte

The eldest sister of my Grandmothers' siblings
told me,
They would take rocks
from atop the wood burning stove in the kitchen
and carry them to school,
clutching these in their pockets as they walked.

Sometimes they would stay warm all day,
if you knew where to hide them
for later.

They did this every winter.
The walk in the snow to school
was not an ascent.
It was a privilege to go to school,
she often said.

She also said she pined for a pony,
and being first born-
she believed anything was possible.
She got a goat. She named it Eddie.
Eddie followed her to school.

She taught him math,
addition and subtraction,
and some simpler sentences.
Four was his favorite number.

Being the first (and last) born
from the middle sisters' daughter,
I understood her silly stories
greater than
the rest.
I remember
I saw no difference
between the rocks and the goat.

A smooth rock sitting in the sun
is not safe from my fingers or pocket,
by relation
I am compelled to carry the heavy load,
alone.
The slag added up
to more than four pockets could carry.





Painting by János Tornyai [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.