The world in a puddle

Shiny onyx paved streets that shine 

like oil

kaleidoscope reflections of topaz gems

yellow lamplights tossed from windows

makes me warm

inside.

Lullaby metronomes count water

droplets, clepsydra down the side of the house,

this eave, my gutter

fills, pours this bass beads across paving stones

reminiscent of a game of puddle hop-scotch

I count the treble, 

it answers the hydraulophone

inside me.

That musty smoke that lingers like dye

in the sky, leaking out of rooftop chimneys,

house pipes blow and issue

a rescue signal, 

for those inside.

Countless poets have captured this in smaller 

rain barrels commonly called buckets.

We lost some along the way,

which accounts for the change in overall volume,

by composition, ice is also vaporous. 

Drops do both ways.

Nobody cared,

these were not the ideal conditions for thirst 

or poetry,

water was everywhere, like supply versus demand

as far as they could see, 

there was no end

to verses. 

Image credit By English: thesandiegomuseumofartcollection (Flickr) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

S(h)ervant

I have served between eight and twenty-five 

thousand meals for my family,

I make coffee for them more than once per day,

equating to tens of thousands of perky hot pots.

I have given away my last dollar countless times,

I have shared the best bite, held my breath,

I have waited eternities all the while diluting myself,

watering patience back to life in the long afternoon heat. Thirsted for a moment.

I have dried tears, kissed scrapes, wiped milk, picked up,

and cheered up others, all while crawling on my hands and knees.

Does it count?

How many socks have I matched or single-handedly lost?

How many squares of cloth have I folded in nice ninety-degree angles?

How many circles have I Venn in?

How many bubbles have I burst?

How many sides have I taken

down only to expose what was hollow inside?

I have said the three words 'I love you'

and they have not all come back around 

on any one or two

ellipse-this is

proof of expansion or an open Universe, 

no place like Home.

My hands are callused, my feet are blistered and tender,

my eyes are faded and brittle, my skin gets heavier day by day,

and my hair glistens faintly like brass,

my cartilage collapses and all my salt sloughs off.

What is left to make of this? 

I have forgetten how freedom is one-sided and furthermore I have failed 

to recall my name when I am most lost, 

when I am too busy, when the last course

is done, when the words, 'my pleasure' meant motive,

when advantage was a taken

and Time 

was given.

What will be said about what is done?

I put this here, so someday they may say,

Her sentence had served her well. 

Painting by Jules Lefebvre, 'Servant' c. 1880 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Ilk-some

He was the kind of guy that would say,
                   my pleasure,
and from that point forward
add interest.
He was the kind of guy that held resentment
tenderly in his palm
                   while revealing a warm smile.

A gentleman does not tell
who he calls Beautiful
                   all the time
He was a kind and gentle man it would seem
to many
too many women.

He was the kind of guy that liked to drive
and scare his passengers.
He was the go to guy,
the kind that goes to extremes.

You know the kind of passionate man
who projects his desires outward,
the type that wants women
to reflect this same desire,
his wants and those wanting him-only
at his fingertips...

On his lips
                   lies more than truth.

The kind of guy who mouths one thing
but means two,
who denies what he does not remember,
repeats what he hears,
who walks with an air
                   he thinks doubles as a smoke screen.

He is the breed of human who has been;
in love
dishonest
rebellious
covetous
oblivious
                   to having lost all trust
when he wasn't looking
and subsequently stopped earning interest.

Day after day, a toll is taken, and then again
I hear him say, I have to go
                   and yet I stay,
waiting in kind for a different guy.



Portrait by Vincent Rodes c. 1820, located in Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Savage souls

Awaking in an angry state is akin to acting the part
of an apparition among the living,
all fume and red plumes of frightening doom.
Gloom radiates an aura, blue inside under dark ceilings and
thunder changes nothing permanently,
Just as the tree that falls alone
grows moss, grows quiet, and softer,
it is still a tree.
I am left pondering the source of this bitter acid
that arises, ferments, builds pressure
and makes fissures up to the surface-
Yet, I feel 
I must
already know
the signs of arson.

There was a day when I was a child
that I wished I could end it all. I tried to die,
I ate the poison apple
and failed to fall asleep for the
happy ending.
I then became enraged
at having been
the subject of someone else’s destructive desire
to fail. I did not disappoint
myself.

We have all been told often enough,
‘Patience is a Virtue’, this equals that,
and yet, this is short of equi-valency.
Silence does not speak a word
about solutions, nor does forgiveness map
alternative paths
to higher ground.
Believing is seeing hindsight
with foresight, evidently,
possession is one-tenth free will,
anymore is often less
than enough to kill you.

It was not meant to be
Today-
I live to hear the words;
fragmented, at-best, good luck, hard to grasp,
Not the right fit-
And I do not quit

because this
is for me.
And this
finds me
looking happy to have survived,
and finding
anger was a phase of letting go.

Two a.m.

I wake up early-
earlier than usual.
And I assume it must have been the moon
disturbing my sleep, with its intrusive and
garish moonlight on high
and the ghoulish nightmares
all rising to the surface.

When it finally rains, I am comforted
by the cloud cover,
which will luckily tuck me in tonight
and I should sleep tighter, making for more
muted sleeping conditions
with this welcome addition of white noise
atop clean white sheets.

It pours. It hails. It is dark.
And I wake-too early-
still-wondering
why this sinking icy feeling holds me here,
alert and anchored.
Awake. A constant pull, resistance and an
uprising washes over me, cold chains snap
forcing me violently to the surface,
gasping for air.

My two eyes try to adjust
to the bright white light,
where windows make mirrors
dark pupils shrink in the glare.
And I see, plainly,
it is too early to tell...



Painting by Johan Jongkind c. 1872 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Treasures of a culture

Fire and glass reflected as smoke in mirrors.

A fork in the road, litter, like this wrapper, bottle, vessel, hand tools.

Artisan: colored ink, in part cursive curls, heartfelt loops, and snares,

we wrapped, and rapped, enrapt and bound ourselves.

Every opening begins with Roman squares, agoras, and edges

worn blurry and thin by so many eyes through ages, brittle

print-finger smudges to be dusted and all the while,

porous rocks erode into grainy pixel flashes, storage

boxes stack up, clouds let go, and by marrow

calcification holds together

bricks of pressed clay
                                     -for shelter is always a wall.

Supporting para-graphs, columns, and beams-by

lighted button codes:
green, go, yellow, slow, red, blood, blue screen of death,

only to touch here, like plucked strings
of stereocilia stimulating

goosebumps in sound waves that wash over us in wet streams.

Eye contact, nerve endings, radiant warmth from a mortal smile,
laser focus, photography un-posed, unprepared, ad-libbing and adding

depth of perception, this is us-

Totaled and broken down to the smallest things

in order to count the time more accurately

in minute fractions of eternity,

Well, this is why we bury things. 




Photo credit By Max Peronius (1907-1946), Tankavaara c. 1934 in[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Thor's day

Lightning likes it when we reach up to touch the sky.

And, grounded as we are

lucky in keeping our electricity contained 

and kept a safe distance from the epicenter or eye

It is miraculous we survive, sometimes, like a flash-

in the way that it is so unexpected, sudden

and unbelievable-until it occurs to you. 

Miraculum, as in the object of wonder.

It happened to me on a Thursday in February, 

just past the noon hour.

I was punched in the chest-

windswept out with words-choking on this

wonder-full revelation.

Desperately I tried to grasp my breath 

midair and stuff it back in where it stings 

and has been so hollow

and in wrestling with this 

it may have sounded like crying or rain.

But the dam lids overflowed 

and I struggled to compose a normal sound

while my son grabs a beverage from the fridge behind me, 

I exhale-steadily

as if blowing out a wish.

It was a video I was supposed to watch, assigned, as in destiny.

The woman spoke of her life, nothing like mine. 

Then she spoke of suicide and asked why, why, why-

she was not asking for forgiveness.

She traded her story with a Buddhist, 

the words he chose to frame her parable were:

"You chose Them", I coughed, she repeated, “you Chose them.”

The accusation blinding, hence the tears we blinked back.

It changes Here.

Where things are twisted 

around & 

you break the descending karmic chain
and begin Free fall.

This is when my heart plummeted like lead into my pelvis,

my rib cage closed, and I gasped one last deep breath

before being born once again

on a Thursday in February.

“This is the miracle that happens every tie to those who really love: the more they give, the more they possess.” 

-Rainer Maria Rilke

         “Everybody holds the possibility of a miracle.” 

-Elizabeth David 

 “I’ve never seen a greater monster or miracle than myself.” 

-Michel de Maontaigne

Painting by Mårten Eskil Winge (1825-1896), 'Thor's Battle' in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.