Sensual segments

The lotion in the squeeze tube

intended

to protect this crumpled 

and creased rice paper skin,

carries a strong scent, evocative

of all the horses I once knew.

The big baby boy finally comes along,

appearing one month old

already.

Somedays, like other times,

Her voice soothes

but most often it seethes

something in me.

Crap-

that coyote in a boat scared me!

the visitor exclaims-

pointing to a small hanging sculpture

Of a baby fox sleeping soundly in a hammock.

I knew it, but did not say anything

This time

it would be easier this way...

The numbers man heard poetry

at night.

It scared him. 

This time

he stood too close

to the source.

Contagion is terrifying.

Warm spreading in back of the head,

happens with Prozac

and Jazz musicians,

I have been told.

It may spread further

than just here.

As we were like this

One time

found in familiar fragments

of others, 

clarity comes to the assembly

in single file lines. 





Image credit By Clyde Waddell, American GI's at a bookstall in Calcutta, 1945' in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Moving moments

Fell upon, as light as drizzling

mists indistinct as an inkling.

There was a sense of something strange a-

round the sharp corner.

He walks confidently 

into newly woven webs,

framing the finished work.

The ground sloped, gravity pulled a-

long his footing in a groove.

One in front of the other. 
He counted on this order. 

Crossed over to a new dimension,

blended into this one image.

He is held up

to the sky and draped in silk,

with webbing in the corners, 
brushed by invisible lines.

He finds her hanging
where he left her last.

Never again

does he take

the last passage 
back. 




Painting by Claude Monet, 'A corner of the apartment' c. 1875 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Blue windows

Practicing her new monologue
from a Steve Martin play,
it becomes impossible to forget
some lines.

Some lines
slap the face, others rattle the cage
just between the ears,
and linger in the room
like cooking dinner.

She recites the lines in front of her closet,
and in front of my closet,
in the sliding glass door
when its dark outside
as I put away the dishes,
listening to her practice,
again.

Distracted by the shutters that keep slapping,
I await my favorite lines
about the shutters that could never be-
come forest blue,
because forest blue is no color,
and denying this existence,
makes it true, naturally.

I try to picture a hole in the forest,
the sky peeking through the canopy,
but my eyelids flutter at the steam
rising and swirling on the stovetop.

Shutters do not occur in Nature, the lines note,
and I wonder about Pi, naturally.
I like Pi,
Newtons apples are the juiciest.

And these occupations
keep our lips moving along,
fingers fiddling with locks
and minds simply wandering off,
it takes time, an open mind, a window
and practice.

Look at the face, the hands, the clock,
she knows all the words Mr. Martin wrote.
Now, I can open the kitchen window,
letting the forest fly out with the green.





Artwork By Juan Gris (José Victoriano González Pérez), Spanish, 1887 - 1927 (1887 - 1927) – Artist/Maker (Spanish) Born in Madrid, Spain. Dead in Boulogne-Billancourt, France. Details of artist on Google Art Project [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Shaken not stirred Ma’am

(For Frankie)

It is hard to see things abstract.

We are more accurate Now

Encapsulating climate

When we mention Culture.

Let’s look at Value:

Price tag says, “As Is”.

No complexities.

No narcissism.

Loathsome luminaries loaded

In ink, inebriated, inoculated,

Imbibed in itself-“As Is”.

The Sardines became the Gollum.

O’Hara, Oh everywhere, oh Sun, Oh oranges!

Can you feel the rust coming on,

Or is it Out?

Aren’t we all magnetized toward the morbid,

the dark, the obscure, obtuse, or abstract,

as they can be good for hiding things in corners, 

shading over or making shadows. This depth 

achieves something like,

making good on promises.

Sometimes he seemed gay,

they say, he was happy, in so many words.

All the time, they say, they were true,

the poems. Because they were simple

they cannot tell lies.

Portraiture is paraphrased,

how does one escape?

Clouds come and go.

Meanwhile, the pastoral artist demonstrating

how much one can hold,

runs out of colors, runs out to resupply,
runs hot, then cold.

Any poem can be an apocalypse,

this is how they all End

(in grey), 
except the last words say,

All days look the same. 



Image credit by Berenice Abbott, 'Radio row (NYC), 1936' in [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Bare Essentialism

When we speak of

Ars Moriendi

You and I are finally getting somewhere,

beautiful.

When the Poet dies-finally-

The poem is freed.

The libertine line advances

meaning, perspective.

Morals are not the main characters,

plot is where we were going,

a scene made, is setting,

is a container, set and broken down,

a frame to hold all the pieces

to gather in one assemblage

and enable anyone to walk around.

Implicating exclusion by category, genre,

red and not read,

unbounded through decohesion, 

letting leaves fly-

Well

we must determine-

To finish or decompose.

After all This

Art is all that remains after speech,

after thought, in memoriam,

the pictures point and the words paint

only where there is

Life. 

We recognize these reflections

and find them beautiful. 

Painting by William Orpen, Reflection in mirror c. 1917 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

He kneaded Her

She may be being beaten

As we read this

Together,

Hold on, it sounds morbid, but there is nothing that can be done to stop it.

One learns to accept the role of  I-witness, until one cannot bear to watch-

And then instead of gashes and broken bones, he could be pushing

Her buttons, shoving

Thing in corners

And covering them up with

Sickness. 

He certainly demands

ATTENTION! Obedience and privacy,

Of course, isolation and abuse are like marriages,

Ownership issues and subtle clues, like Grand Canyon colors,

Naturally, it was about the little words, the little monies,

The precious little time, the violent vices, the weak needs

And the only daughter they despise.

She is cowering, her nose red, her eyes black, her thoughts run away with the

Memories, tapes we tried to unstick, etchings I attempted to erase by

Geography and sandy paper,

Moments that seemed frozen

Then

And then

And then

And then...

Painting by John Reinhard Weguelin, Woman in the reeds c. 1895 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

The green lantern

The face returns, a profile on the moon.

The serious brow exudes envy in its October glow.

The heat lifts its chain mail exterior,

unarmed now

the fight subdues, breathing resumes

as the humidity rises,

solemn fog rolls over the westerly

treeline

mingling out of character,

and brewing up a new ambiance

with wax dripping from overhead,

thunder gathering below,

running on low 

light, it becomes apparent;

Degrees are mirroring phases.

Image credit By Stephen Rahn from Macon, GA, USA (Waxing Crescent Moon on 4-1-17) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons.