A Gentle Hand

Not speaking for other species,
a human being shall not deny
the power of touch, tact-tility.
As in a word, requires the
relinquishing of an invasion of space
for a sense of felicity, in kind

where seeming accidental, more so
gently, intentional, affixed upon
shoulder or thigh, put so adverbial or
propositional, it is
in earnest, rightly so,
it feels heavier than
the application of pressure
or happenstance.

This need to reach out
and grasp toward
this living moment,
or clutch the vibration
that is life, date-stamped
within our fleshy fingertips.
It is compulsatory

that we soon become
etched or embossed with entitlement,
as in adept for survival and
toward those celebrating this.
It was a touching thing it was said,
to feel mankind
using his hands wisely, for once
in this way.





Painting by John William Godward [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Ellipsis

.

The point was never to be asked

as to why or where

for it was only an aim

as if trying may turn

chance into favor.

..

We looked together

at the same art on the same page,

seeing two very different

images

before us in this self-portrait and

agreed only how much it resembled 

us, individually. 

...

Another reason to dig deeper

and to not avoid the back-breaking 

work or big fear,

is discovering 

that the work worked perfectly

for making castles with dirt

or other temporary shelters for our

homeliness. 

Painting by Colin Campbell Cooper, 1921 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Quicksand in the hourglass

Turned overnight into the shadow,
an ominous space easily overlooked-

devoid of light in this dire dilemma
of grasping at grains, starlit seeds of time,

accepting these days that display
traces of altered spin-
and small places
for sin.

Take out the woven-store the sheer.
Year after year, resort
the bookshelves
by ilk
and most pointed dagger,

Titles,
those names mean nothing
-Placeholders-
arm your selves
about the fire and ice, in these
extremities, inside and isolated,
the glass steams up,
the walls smolder around the skins,

and the colder they get,
the deeper they sink
into the thickest of thoughts.

Tucked in this virtuous blackness,
the rest had no peace,

and the sand moved slowly
towards what could only be hours.



Painting by Sebastiano Ricci, c. 1706 in [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Direction

The pod pulls past

super slow

And in one way

the future is seen

in a second

Under notions of nightsky temerity

when moon rises and shines

and stars fall and flame out

The past twinkles

inset overhead

A fine line

between the living

and the dying

dissipates

when we look too long...

Image credit By C.R. O'Dell (Vanderbilt University) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

If looking-She went crazy

Rarely left alone

for obvious reasons,

when given more than

a minute in solitude

She would start a poem

or worse-

(See)

Dependable as ever

they required her presence

while there was still time

together-no stability

stays the same

(after all)

And dutiful too,

as anyone could be,

she served herself last, cleaned up

after others

with a smile [happy]

And far away gaze,

busy going nowhere

(and getting there)

The blame belonged

not to poetry

alone

(finally.)

(See, after all [happy], and getting there, finally)

Painting By Michael Sweerts (Flemish, 1618 - 1664) artist (Flemish) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Montgomery Street Cleaning

The German poet, bartender, magician, wanderer, playwright, refugee, and performer

who was Exiled in Vienna

arrived at the States United in 1933.

Uniting people was a thing in the thirties.

She had drive. She was a hitchhiker. It took her places

she had never been before.

In 1952 she stopped.

In 1952 she stayed around

because of the fog.

Because of the fog, she left

no more. Set up a shop with no-where’s to sell

on Montgomery Street,

1010 or in the closet -1014

in North Beach on the hills of San Francisco

where All the artists cranked

Out-

Work-

Inspiration

with little more than smoke and mirrors

they beat the Underdogs.

Panned dirt. Found gold. 

The difference between street level lingo

and horned poetic motifs.

Looking back now about it All,

she said the shower was the best, it was

on the roof.  After a rowdy, stinky night

she would disrobe in the Pacific Bay air

and sacrifice her body to hot beads

pelting her thick Austrian skin under New York neon gas,

atop sirens and broken glasses rolling below.

The steam from her body mixed with the fog in the air 

exchanged vows, made love to each other there 

with ruth standing in the middle in

all lower cases, cleansed.

She rose above the ruth-less-ness of it All

below her. She sticks out her thumb, finally

making the last word a gesture 

of straighter lines and mist ends.

She looks a head, she looks be hind and she finds All is again

circularity, repetition, rhythm,

and heart beats bumming free rides to the top. 

Image credit By Internet Archive Book Images [No restrictions], via Wikimedia Commons.

Text after image:

"The bench to remember George Sterling is on a San Francisco hill that commands the Golden Gate Sterling: Tribute By Idwal Jones(S. F. Examiner, November 18, 1926) GEORGE STERLING, touching on his fifty-seventh year, and feeling wearied turned his face to the wall and died. He quitted this life from his little room in the Bohemian Club, and with no more regret than a bird quitting a twig. This was somewhere between 7 o’clock of Tuesday night and noon yesterday. No mat-ter when. For the curtain had fallen on the drama of San Francisco’s Bohemia in which he had been master of revelry for two golden and charming decades. The Dionysian had drunk the cup to the lees, and found the end of life bitter. The reason for living was past finding out. He said good-by to no one. To say good-by would have caused his friends grief. They are many, and they all wept, for he was an exquisite poet, and a charming and loyal friend. I last saw him two weeks ago. We had walked arm in arm through dense fog at midnight, and we..."

By a heir

On a full moon night
near the solstice,
there was no gentle way
to be honest
under the naturally blue light.

I have long said,
everything travels in waves,
like this; light, sound, heat, idea,
emotion, news and aromas.

It made me angry
to remember
standing there.
He said I should do it,
for the money, for some sense
of justice
I ought to
make an effort,
as if it were worth going
backward.

There is no gold in those hills
waiting for me,
He disagrees.

For now, I tell him
I am still too busy.
And he knows how cold it is already
and knows it is too cruel to drop more
on me.

I reminisce how
many moons ago
I dreamt myself right here,
and never needed to remember
how it all happened.

Honestly, there is nothing left there
of value
for me.
I know I will have to go
back there, as the only child, the only one
who will-
It will cost them
only a little peace
when all has been
said and nothing done.

You left part of you
exposed there and turning blue
waiting for you to finally go back
and bury the body
deep in the hills
like treasures of the past.

We finally agreed,
a wave of relief washed over us both
Not Now-
in due time
it will come needing me
and my cold-hearted honesty
in the full moonlight.



Painting by Ilya Repin [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.