Wednesday, November 15, 2017

chiaroscuro in chalk


The thinnest limn of luna
fights her way through forests
of shadowed beings

Dimly disappearing cusp,
the darkness drinks its last sips
of amber

Spheres spinning so fast none saw
the movement, as vertigo, camouflage
in dancing shadows, the coins spin

The same two choices,
flashing rims and eye lids
make vertigo

Below bodies levitate between
the same two choices
quintessence finds the balance

between particle and wave,
reflecting accord on a fulcrum
or where to draw the line

between light and dark spaces.








Artwork by John Bauer [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.



Fruit bearing


When you peal back all the exterior layers that have built up
around the original seed
of conflict-which stems not from the picking of,
nor the eating of the lowest hanging fruit
or thereby sharing its ripe pungent juices
with another needing nourishment-
generosity doubles its pleasures
and we are both guilty-expelled-and angry at
the circumstance.

The great divergence actually occurred
when it was Found.
Of course, she saw it first, so she is the gatherer,
but inevitably, it is his Discovery.

Her gaze may have given it away,
yet, let it be known, consumption was never her goal,
it was a thirst she learned to live with
his hunger scared the birds.

With his long arm, and extensive reach,
He provided
for himself
bittersweet meats, her nectar, her basket,
the load she carried, the bodies he dragged,
the plates she cleaned, the fires he stoked

he becomes sated with his accomplishments,
being the first to find,
everything a man could ever need or want
and will defend his property
to the end-

He cocks his sharp weapon,
its poison dipped tip enough to take a life
hostage, something stirs, scares him, he aims
while she is busy gathering her bearings and things,
biting her lip and drinking the blood

They divided the chores
between conquer and conquest, bleeding and bled
out.
She seeks
comfort, security,
he finds
himself lost without her
basket.




Painting by Emmanuel Benner the Younger, 'Hunters in wait' 1879 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Sunday, November 12, 2017

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.




Friday, November 10, 2017

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.




Wednesday, November 8, 2017

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.

Tres (trace)

Water Today, warm raindrops glass blurs, the blurry glassy, sharp sparkles sugar. Behind Evening, it was good. Leaves all turned into shadow...