Sound Reason

Poetry cannot

Preach and Listen 

simultaneously make or destroy

sense nor sense-ability.

Rock music and video games 

are responsible for all evils

not to mention

Others who don't do things

like we do.

Literature no longer poses a threat.

People don't read. 

People can spell but are inept

grammaticians. 

A poem can 

fair enough

hear and here itself becomes an echo,

like music, to sing along, to say,

open to all, an invitation

to taste.

The poet breaks line 

and all paper currency

down

so the pocket sings

wildly.

Relax, nobody is listening.




Due to the limitations of early cameras, this is the only known image of American orator Robert G. Ingersoll before an audience. Taken May, 1894 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Pearl-esque

At some point, it all becomes too condensed
to hold in one point, place or person.

I believe this to be the equivalent to the
internal pressure of a proton, that
binding force, around 100 decillion Pascal or
the compression at the center
of a neutron star.

These pearls glistening
in my lower quadrant of vision,
the milky way so to say,
are warm, as heat is conducted over
centuries. The pearls being given
to my grandmother by my grandfather
because of her name

He would take
a grain of sand
and a jewel was made.

He would wink at me every time
she tried to open the clam.




Painting by Charles Joshua Chaplin [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

20/20 Solution

Coincidence is a convenient
excuse in lieu
of exactitude, like revenge,
directed.
Which explains the
all too common
aversion to poetry,
making many believe
in God,
or a guiding hand
like muse and magic,
where attributions are
misplaced in
disappearing ink and through alchemy.

Ultimately, it seems we see
what we want
based on capacity, like neck rotation,
like breath and lung,
blinking and humidity,
following instructions, under certain conditions
these operate smoothly
without our requisite participation-

Yet when an event occurs
unfathomable and unforeseen,
scaring one's vision deep into the optic
down to the spinal column,
making it more important
to look away,
than move
on
without directions
that is when we say
we knew it, we caused it, we planned it,
it was meant
for the best.


Painting by Aleksander Grodzicki [Public domain] 1893, via Wikimedia Commons. 

Conductivity and Rhythm

The bass was low all day,
the only thing that resonated
was my deaf ear toward the treble.

When my eyes bulge with tears,
it is time to surrender,
when the bones feel metallic and leaden,

light notes miss their harmony.

A dread tastes sour and acrid
in the back of the mouth.

An idea of where one is and
what must be done is conjured
in a line, the music keeps time

alive, lightening the load

a feeling carries a tune
echoing the heart and human
need to be moved by sound.




Painting by Johann Carl Loth (circle of) (1632 - 1698) – Painter (German)Born in Munich. Dead in Venice.Located at the Palace Museum in Wilanów [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Elders and Elms

Officially adopted at the age of 38
by the man married to my mother.

The man's mother and father
put me to work on their ranch
over the summer breaks 

from school.

My mother was a strong woman,

I knew this
even though she worked in an office.

Until I turned thirteen
the man had never been afraid

of losing control

of a woman.

I remember the fear in his eyes.

He slapped me across the face.

I laughed and the man's eyes changed,
forever.

When I mentioned this occasion
to the man's mother,

she slapped me too. It felt the same.

This must have been touching to them,
genetically.

When she died, 

her husband, the man's father

molested me before the funeral.

Still-I lie there-

Since we were not family,

the father died a happy man.

Instead of bears, I take secrets to bed. 

My mother was not as strong as I thought. 

Painting by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Like Life

Life is only understood in reverse order,
philosophically,
we trust the disasters and miracles
as necessary catastrophic shifts
and dramatic scene changes
the curtain drops
the Act is up.

When the world as we knew it
once hovered in equipoise-
disintegrated and crumbled before
our thin-soled shoes,
we thought of tides
and how they rip the earth
from undertow,
and leave us
to balance
less.

As chaos is to entropy,
we stand our ground despite the speed
of orbits and bullets
hoping to break the spell
of wait.

Pen and ink drawing by Henry Fuseli (1741-1845) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Marker

It occurs to me that a threshold

is essential for crossing over

leaving one place, entering another.

A transference or transcendence

if done intentionally

the past stays outside.

It occurs to me rather suddenly,

despite making plans and beds,

tucking corners and ducking blows,

this was all about some body, 

a place to rest

and what to do with what remains.

I have reconsidered 

that it may be the most selfless thing

to be buried in a plot, or swallowed by a sinkhole, 

instead of scattered

to sea, disbursed widely

without

a mark(er), a fold or ripple,

a place

where others can go

to meet with Memory.

This is the last thing I can do

for those whom I held the door for,

for those that may be missing and seeking

my presence-

No body

needed more than a place to rest. 



Painting By John Singer Sargent [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons, 'Open Doorway, Morroco, c 1879.