How salt takes to wounds

I made it-
not to say that it is done-
that I can breathe now
that I know this.

I am here
none-the-less
by the sea
all-the-more-
for me-
guilty
pleasures are all mine
in fine coarse grains.

I am aware,
consciously,
that the measure of success
is off the charts, the beaten path
off the grid,
infinite and yet most
definitely a direction,
like horizon.

It does not move me
along-
but still, I bother
to rise to each occasion,
daytime, in lightyears
despite the erosion, in spite of doubt,
the tides still rise
in order
to pull stars in
circular motions,
like me, reeling.

I am pulled back to sea.
The end begins again
with me
mixing carbon and salt,
separating oil from water
I found a solution
to stop the bleeding.




Watercolor by William Matthew Hodgkins c. 1894 in Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Lie Claim

As far as policies go,
Honesty was the one underwritten in blood.

After all the lies and liars,
both black and white,
I read-in plain ink
that the selfish gene-takes over
all of us.
Altruistic illusions of gene-rosity
have delusions of granduer, like Welcome signs
in kingdom come.

Lies lead to more lies like
mitochondria and kudzu.
Entanglement and estrangement are different versions
of the same (k)not.
As an only child with given chromosomes from unknown
x’s,
I feel more than a tad teal
in a pond full of swans.

They all lie and I recognize these
traits. We learn to float.

With two eyes, ten reasons,
heads or tails,
what was mine is yours,
two cents for a back scratch.

Do animals lie? I asked him just
yesterday. He says they just don’t
tell the whole truth.
I recall the fox, the raccoon and he smiles,
conceding
finally, my point-even
when there is nothing to gain.
There is always an angle he adds.

Nice girls never finish anything.

I wanted to get around to
telling the whole thing;

I smell it all over him, breath and body,
under all the covers
I see the disappointment in my daughters' eyes,
I should have been more-
I see my sons deflective shield,
I should have protected him more-
I see my mothers obsession with self,
always wanting more-
I see a step-and a push-
a trip, and fall.
I gather things, gingerly, trying to lose my place,
because these truths were below me now-
I find myself
dancing around the pyre of pants
like the moth
I am drawn to be.

Those genes look as if they were made for you,
he complimented me.
But honestly, he knows
they were handed down this way,
ripped with holes
and a little too long.



Painting by Edgar Degas [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

id est (in other words)

The ink pot solidified
in the -unpreventable- evaporation
of
all things
considerable.

Words were
the only way we could try
to grasp the conceptual -framework-
of the time
it takes
to become
a person, place or thing.

Of late,
it is more common than not
to notice the disappearance of
what
seems -indescribable- where only by means
of observation
could we conserve our precious
resources.


Artwork by Hugo Charlemont in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

STEM cells

Being a woman, it took a lot of courage

The kind that clenches your abdomen

Like menstruation,

And then it was only once, not monthly. 

I once asked a cosmologist

about his poetic tendencies, I thought I caught

a glimmer, it was in fact, a pungent reaction.

The mere concept was rejected as any preposterous old electron

Would be out of line. Needless to say, the hypothesis was

Brushed off like the free radical

I was standing there, circling him

And trying to get in-closer.

I was the chicken laying an egg,

Peeking inside his paradox.

In hindsight, it was foolish,

Asking an astrophysicist, a theoretical one, anyway

About his propensity with words, metaphorically,

In lieu of his numerical potency,

Silly me, little lady.

Considering I am entitled to (k)no(w) facts,

In my female tone, I displayed

A type of  indiscretion, often a woman’s way

Of adding verbs to scientific theory.  

Photo credited to National Photo Company; c. 1919, Restored by Adam Cuerden [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Bulbous

The earth slows down
just enough to focus on a handle
as if made for us,
made for touching and gauging
the sum of all things
with the unbearable lightness of possessing nothing
earnestly.
Time flies, hope levitates, spines flex in-
tensely repulsing gravity
just to keep up-
right
after the fact, I heard back home
the mighty oaks had toppled on perfect-
ly calm days,
the redwoods, however, stood their ground.
Meanwhile,
down here, the passiflora
already swallowed the fence
and now nibbles away at the eave.
On this evening
the colors come too quick to name.
It was
the tulips
we were expecting
to Spring,
the wait was too much to hold still.
Over centuries,
it has been discovered
our heads have become rounder.
When I look harder
it seems like
Venus' belt is shrinking.




Painting by Franz Werner Tamm [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Global warming Returns

There was fire reflected in his eyes,

and though he had been so kind lately,

been treating me tenderly,

it all shattered 

in the calm evening 

after dinner was served and the dishes were done.

There was no wind but things carried. 

He screamed at me 

from the doorway, from deep in his diaphragm,

‘Get Out Now!’

And I thought he was angry at me 

for a flashing moment-I felt

enraged-by the tone.

I noticed, however,

his face was glowing-not from

the evening sunset.

My eyes went south-

east, thirty feet tall, 

a basket of burning serpents

squirmed atop a roof and were licking  the sky,

devouring a tree,

the roof next door is on fire! 

A black plume expands like dye in water,

like a volcano that erupts before projecting 

sound.

In the long hot silence, 

before the sirens in the distance, 

my heart

strains to find a steady rhythm amidst

the pops, cracks and snaps. 

The cats are hiding, children are 

lining the street filming,

hoses are flowing anemic,

I am frozen in place.

I think of how we just survived the flood.

When the fire finally died, 

we waited for the third

and last

good Friday before we may rise and shine

only to be born again

on Sunday. 

Painting by George Hitchcock c. 1904, 'Easter Sunday' in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Line by line

Life unfolds this way,

the face now resembles our grey matter

what is inside comes out.

The clouds will unravel again,

you can hear the wind 

moving them along.
I am done
telling others to listen.

Paper, then. My life. Drawn to fire.

All those the people carrying dead burdens
on their cracking lips.

They burned books
into their memories and cauterized the wounds

with chanting and invocations

shaped to sound like smoke rings

they read the signs.

As with people and colors
they gather but do not become,
one another,
as with clouds, the heaviest fall
and we say we needed rain.

In these conditions

the symbols bleed together

and it is red
Open.




Painting by Emile Claus, c. 1898, 'Ampelio, old fisherman of Bordighera', in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.