Civic Duties

-Sit in a courtroom and observe a trial for two hours (ask an official which one is most interesting

you’ll find that everyone knows the schedule) Dress nicely and smile.

-Sit in the ER and read, only listen, do not make eye contact, do not touch the arms of the chair. 

Dress poorly. Do not smile.

-Wait in any lobby for someone-as if they were coming for you.

-Eat alone.

-Go to a cinema alone and take in a film alone. 

-Travel alone. Pack lightly. Smile small when you feel stupid and sorry and don’t know what to say.

-Drive to the DMV. Don’t get out of your car, just put it in Park (if available), idle and make some notes, reasons, identities, and etceteras. 

(Patience is guaranteed to be in no place. Like an ounce of gold in a ton of dirt. Don’t give any away to strangers handling hot pans.)

Wait with Will. Watch with wariness. Write with wonder.

Make the present interesting.

Active Membership dues are paid in Participation points,

The verbiage puts us in our places-

Your lines are next to appear, to  laugh or to frown

We are all just nouns waiting to be called adjectively. 

Artwork by George Romney [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons, c. 1734-1802, 

Yale Center for British Art. 

Passages

Time

takes the toll,

giving change for our large bills

and admits passage 

but offers no return policy.

Make Time to Meditate.

Who makes time? I have an order. 

Empty. Thoughts.

Does one miss arguing with oneself

until none win?

The walls are over-crowded with imagery.

It was me-I put the elephant in the room 

who is 

holding a candle on a cloud, 

his shadow is only flat. 

Tell me again-

What is mine is ours-

With these words-

Let no thing

remain behind but a poem

After thought 

and plane shadows on clock faces. 

Sitting and spinning

Never,

having sat in this precise spot before Now

I know

others have sat just so Never before. 

Painting by Pál Szinyei Merse [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Evidently

Reporting without empathy makes architectural field guides for photo collectors

As album and lyricality that reflects memories in places via accidental captures,

Not limited to focus head on or red eye, not what was hiding under green-eyed

History, flash or glare,

Was the background, dropped, crooked, tiny, partial.

And parts where the edges sever our attention in sharp lines,

Bordering on continental jagged tears.

Only here-footsteps-show-Not ahead of our time,

Not dated, or inscribed

In any hand of another traveler.

Repeatedly, things recur, we call facts,

Likelihoods, charts, and possibilities as solid as paper rocks and

Finger scissors. 

Image taken 1938, 'Fedorov at the North Pole' in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

What lies ahead

Sun lifting the veil of purple sky-

might bronze forge strength

pungent as the turned dirt?

Thirsting through 

exposition, hide and seek,

those are lost and winding back 

around-

those that reap

shall be held against the light

shall cast atonement into the shadows-

thou shalt be measured against the day.

All ways an arm's length

a way-in every direction

aimed 

this focus spares no details 

no enunciation of echoes

when molding bodies

come to day with arsenals

of color intended to define us

by just what they had

known and felt 

against all alchemy

made from the excesses,

there was the sky 

with directions. 

Painting by Maksymilian Gierymski c. 1869 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Binding bed

Sought intimate spaces

for self-

lost private places

for nurturing health.

Grew weary with waning

insistence,

wilted and arid, the stem

aches with thirst

the worst exposure

to lunar light

this side of mourning

the death of circus dreams.

It seems the sun disperses

its golden dust

according to an architecture

of ideal.

Beholden to the barriers molded

by hand-

curses stand as they must, in spite of us

for a time.

As last

sunsets free

the stars, placing winking faces

astronomical units apart

and fixed on never being

yours or mine.

“Our tendency to build walls is useful only to provide a starting point for self-definition, walls that contain the bed in which we are born, in which we dream, we breed and we die; but outside the walls lies Siddhartha;s realization that all human beings grow old, all are prone to nightmare and disease, and all must ultimately come to the same implacable end. Books endlessly repeat that one same story.” (“The Library at Night” by Alberto Manguel p. 229)

Artwork by Evelyn De Morgan, 'The Prisoner' c. 1908 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Social security

Unless you were born
a boy
with silky chestnut hair
shaped like a perfect bowl of soft wound thread
nested as in a kitten ball
atop an angelic head dappled with
a sole magic dimple under the high arched
cheekbone amidst
perfectly placed and sized features,
jawlines of a steed,
eyes of witches hazel,
long indulgent black lashes,
long limber legs, strong steel shoulders
broad aspirations
long ago,
No-
you will not be chosen
as the one that was
a man for all ages
a perfect fit,
the right breed,
hand(y)some or skillful.

The rest shall be
Employees.



Painting by Benjamin Haydon [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.