Location³ (Haiku)

Right people in right
places wrong people in wrong
places, I am both.





Painting by Yeghishe Tadevosyan, 'The Genius and the crowd' c. 1909 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

(H)ours

He took all the credit for green lights and always finding just the right words,

simply sitting there waiting for him, dutifully, right

where she left them.

He had a knack, he knew shortcuts.

Her mind went both ways,

of him, to her, for him, for them and then

perhaps she never said it in the first place,

since it was always his ideas

that she will be thankful for later.

There is a debt to be repaid for a life saved,

there is monetary value in a useful thing,

and a proper place 

she had never seen,

until he showed her the way

and locked the door on his way out

expecting her to be where he left her 

whenever he returns in need

of more perspective, flavor and wit.

But one day she was gone.

He found her 

empty of all things, she was smiling

with a faraway stare

and he felt anxious about his loss

not knowing any more about keeping places and sharp turns of phrase. 

Painting by Frans Hals, 'Portrait of a Man' c. 1650 in [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Warming up in the arena

The arena is oval
intentioanlly making

the full circle of time
longer
to come back around.

And again, there she was
propped on top 

of the highest hill
and I, as usual, 

stood down on
the slope to the sea.

We smelt smoke
simultaneously
lifted noses and sought out the source
at the same time
the lighting changed 

at once, dramatically.

The sun, abased,
hid his face,
and then ashes fell in fat white flakes
resembling a December snowfall.

The chimes rang in the festivities,
discarding suddenly
the carols for a cacaphony.
Twas an ode to Saint Ana, played
in her lowest latitiude
in lieu of Saint Nick
from the shrill Northmost pole.

And again,
it was watching the horses
that knocked the wind out of me.
I found myself suddenly breathless,
trampled and tethered to death-again
it was familiar, like a rerun of hooves

and clapping.

Under a change of directional
winds, the brittle atmosphere
carried things this way

on a warm winter day.

Amid the sea of grey, the longshot,
made a circle of gates

sent forth as smoke signals and 

red flags at the finish line.

One time we will learn
it is by noses alone
that races are won
or lost.

Photo credit by cogdogblog (https://www.flickr.com/photos/cogdog/2672008614/) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons.

Green stone fruit

If you eat an avocado in Italy,
genetically
it is a relative of a Calvino.

Italo's father brought the stone fruit
to the region first.

I have driven the California coastline
more times than I have had birthdays

and often I like to pretend I am somewhere else
among the rolling vineyards, to pasture with the

grazing livestock, and edged in by jagged cliffs that
plummet into the cold sea,

like somewhere in Italy,
right now I know

it could even be me,
eating avocados off the tree.




Image credit by Googsey at English Wikipedia (Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons.) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

FourFiveTwo: with scales

Greed is the creature with scales
that dwells in the darkest depths
slithering so easily around Humility
and longing for longer legs,

And with the sharpest tongue, cuts itself
and coils tight to stop the bleeding
that tension sutures and dies blue red faced
that fire would also feign

I too, have heard the low-lying rattle
and been prey to leers from low in the fallows
yet, always, a path broken
gives every thing away.




Artwork by Arthur Rackham [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

What is:Mine

Ashen sky, late hour

we embers smolder low red

settled in the coal.

Painting by Frank Bramley, 'A Hopeless Dawn' 1888 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Thirteen billion miles

First, ask yourself-
is it interesting
or worth further exploration?

Truly we are Voyagers.
This generation of seekers
has reignited
a flame.

Now, put a price tag on 'Time'
or light years-
A full moment is three seconds
or pennies in hypotheses-
how much Life
you are allotted in diurnal
years of Julian speed,
minus eleven minutes
and some fragmented seconds
may be written
in a single sentence.

Told we should learn
to figure things out for ourselves,
memorize how to hibernate
for the future.
And it is wise advice
for one and all solid bodies
traveling through space
at this terminal velocity.

I wonder if gravity waves
make white noise as they ripple
or only when they crash...

Some say,
Exile is a death, a geographical terminus.
Knowing one's history is written
over, like footprints and
now traveling under someone else's shoe.

But if I have something endless
enough to keep me fully
occupied;
a tree, a rock, water, or the sky-
time does flutter a lot
like Hope.

At last,
I ask myself,
after every sentence has been read,
is this an interesting enough
equation to try
to solve?




Photo By NASA [Public domain], 'Farouk El-Baz, Ronald Evans and Robert Ovemyer via Wikimedia Commons.


NASA reported on December 1st, 2017 that the rocket thrusters on the space probe Voyager 1 responded 13 billion miles away in interstellar space.