Putting poetry to the pasta test

The poems that stick-

are the ones that

when hurled against a wall

make not a sound,

some advise letting them float-

as a way of settling.

The poems that penetrate

and get beneath the skin by

3^rd degree composition, 
tend to scar, pink and raised, 
until another poem

goes deeper.

The poems that sing

are Free

like all the rest

seek harmony, adhesives

and sharp lines

that stick out. 

Painting by William Merritt Chase [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Two ships atop the sea

Far is relative to center

the mid-hole

from which we pivot

against the magnet that repels us.

Hang on-

filaments frayed figure eights,

the vapor traced apparitions

by degrees, the skin tightens.

Drawn toward

warm is closing in on sought,

locating by looking, two palms burn

like wicks awash in golden light.

Where were we? Trajectory fell

plane flat, or rock bottoms held on,

we know what happens

when we touch the spinning Top. 

Painting by Émile Vernon [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Juxtapose (in years)

(Re: Blade Runner 2049)

Just suppose:

On an October Monday before noon, 

you sit with your adult child

in a crowded theater to watch a matinee

set in the year 2049.

The others in the dark theater are all Senior

Citizens-

You would think it was 'Discount Day'.

And it may have been.

Then you wonder-

Who will be alive

at the end

of the story? In 2049,

which of us will be there

to hear and see the tiny Finale

and give full credit to the vision

passed on, past, with future tension and

Imaginations fused with Technologies, 

struggling for dominance

each, chasing memories.

Behind those pictures,  

someone remembers them 

as their own. 

What will they take away?

The silence is black.

 It was a dark and stormy night.

There was

Nothing real

about it. 

And then, your adult child asks about his Future

Discounts. 

The Time will come,

you promise. 

Artwork credit By Signed lower L by Gernsback's illustrator, Frank R. Paul [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

We women watching under eye shadows

Seeing is believing.
Done through heavy sooted eye-
shadows.

New, meant come around 
all over 
again.
We noticed,
nothing new.

Women still paint their faces,

but abstain from powdering noses,

            and will travel as far and wide enough

to know a full revolution

            of the hips when she feels the need
to dance,

when hoops slip into too tight of spirals
we feel confined.

Given time

the stains come out

and by reduction to the lowest possible whole drop,

                        some flesh tones become singularities

condensed into specks, spread across any open faces

                        sunk into  black holes that may only escape 
as screams.
There was a trace. 

What progress we felt on our burning skin,

blurs as age rounds off soft female edges,

                        yet the spine protrudes, more

and gums get back up in order

to suck out the ivory scene
leaving a chalk outline.

All life in circles, women come around.

Known for orbit and making

headway

            by the expansion of ego and 

squeezing in equilateral points, the men did
squares and wrecked tangles.

Forward was no direction-

to give 
away.

And finding this Now, Here,

           was terrifying.

There were unseen toxins in the air.

The smog-always Over There.

The disease thrived in another suffocating body.

Would we feel less,

we would ever know

if we were in it

or it was in us.

Knowing not 

why we came or why we remain,

heavy, 
we carry on a stench 
wrapped around our glacial shoulders.

A few were inoculated against such

vertiginous long views, like standing up-
right

where Up was no place

for land lubbers.

Women won't follow 

directions. 

Most felt the calamities rising,

considered the unreasonable temperatures,

and the harshness of storms as personal 
lashings, mis-behaving as
the judged and jurried.

From overhead,

sensed the shifting clime,

and sought sources

                        backward, by untangling those wires,

going on invisible signals.

We find the Current that carries us. 


Painting By Marion Boyd Allen (1862–1941) (http://the-athenaeum.org/art/detail.php?ID=49019) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

America the Insoluble

Family members, Party members, Americans and 

American'ts: There will be no favors!

Some were lovable, some detestable

at best

loving and despising felt passionate.

In the city, at the hearth, families are

making and breaking ties

and promises. 

Some of which, solidify under stress,

Some are just now breaking down,

None with ease,

All with intention.

The residue of a last name, 

hangs like an apostrophe, drops like the 'e',

and is only detectable in the darkest matters,

where love is made, despite the conditions.

Life-like, we all play

our parts, ruin our roles,

and forget our lines

showing our age.

When a kiss is blown

from seven generations away 

and lands on the cheek of resemblance

it all matters more than a passing breeze

to shoot at.

Collectively, granite, like

Love makes mountains, and

flecks of abhoration make ashes 

fly elsewhere. Never to rest

peacefully. 

Blue was expanding.

Touching us all

leaves two hands stained

with family history.

The stars remain
cornered.

Photo of The Atwater Family in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Women liberated

Every woman becomes Medusa,

and learns how to become grotesque 

and malign with the glaring intention
to harm every fellow femme or fowl.

All the manly men demanding 

subservience, much more gratitude 

and adoration for being a Hero to 

Humanity.

Mind the Gap, they kindly warn us

of the space wedged between

World and Human-as if we could easily 

misstep
or fall in.

When an atom was split, 

when the uneaten apples fell,

we made matters worse

by being casual observers.

When women went to work,

when women drove-

when they chose-

the family would decay.

The women wanted,
the men desired,
the pairs all 
spun
out. 

"Translation is the art of failure"

Umberto Eco famously noted.

"Metaphor is ritual sacrifice, it kills the look-a-like" 

suggested  Rae Armantrout.

Between two 
worlds

the Space 
keeps us Safe. 




Painting by Lawrence Alma-Tadema, 'Women of Amphissa' c. 1887 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Systematic

That

Nothing can be in balance

never maintain harmony-

All is; push and pull,

give and take,

more or less.

That

Life itself, in order

To Be,

swings

back and forth,

like Galileo’s cathedral lamp

from chaos to entropy-

you again. 

Rest and wake are processes

of changing states.

Death doesn't change.

Life is never the same.

That

even though two far-flung

pendulums find synchronicity,

two clocks seek divergence.

Both are counting 

on each other.

That

Truth is not always true,

what is left lying there

awaiting our grand

Discovery?

That 

it may be easier

To be

savages, cold-blooded

toward each other, 

hot under our collars, getting

callous without tools-raw, blistered

and running behind and away from

the greater risk of being

alone and afraid to touch

each other.

That 

This

Homeostasis must not be bliss

to the civilized, passionate man

That

Balances

Truth with Justice

ending up with a loss

for words.

Photo credit by Dietmar Rabich / Wikimedia Commons / “Grand Canyon (Arizona, USA), South Rim nahe Tusayan -- 2012 -- 5893” / CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.