Collection bin

Dust
has been built up
atop the grout, between every square tile,
darkening into mounds along the top of the base
boards, hair, tissue, lint, a leaf and pink peony petals
sneezes, boxes stacked like artillery, mortar, bricks and
explosives set just so-goodwill gathered in standard black trash
bags, a segregation of sorts, some have labels, tape, names, places
congratulations ribbons, important and fragile balance atop
the denser matters,
the walls leaning in on the things consume
all space never room for more than what has been collected in
between the seams, along the borders, under the foundation and
                                                                          hanging on the edge.


Photograph by Carol M. Highsmith [Public domain], 'abandoned gas station in Selma, Alabama 2006 via Wikimedia Commons.

Does a body good

I was not born a child.

Strange. I was allergic to all milk.
I was openly resented for this
Growing up.
My bones are stronger for this.
Never broken one.
I don’t drink it.

I was raised as an orphan in my family.

I was taken in, hosted, taunted and cast out.
I was not like any other. I was an only child,
a broken mold.

Bearing no resemblance. A reassurance,
that nothing contagious was mixed in the kool-aid.

I was ugly, I was sexy, I was young, I was powerful,
I was smarter than most, I was curious and sensitive
I was giving and giving and gave it all away.

I lied. I faked it. I made and lost it.

I was nothing until I redeemed what
I was worth and after taxes,
it was not equitable to fulfilled.

Half-full and half-cocked.

This fair skin is not thin.
I have grown vicious through exposure
and ferment my sugars.

I have soured and forgotten too often
before I remember, I am

Lactose intolerant and hormone infected.

(But as far as childhood dreams go-
I do like the new milk commercial on TV).



Painting by Harold Gilman, 1918 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Buffet

One day, it will all work out for the best.

One day, karma will come.

One day, destiny will find you.

One day, it will be easy, one day it will be hard,

One day it all happened-as it should.

One day we will be together, one day apart,

One day we see eye to eye, one day we disagree

One day, or today, you say, we will,

One day, it may take longer to get there,

One day, I looked, as of

Today, it took

One week (will) to say no more.

To blend in and get the right shade of Hope

moving past

One and blending together for more. 




Painting by Imre Ámos, 1939 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Corners @ 90°

None believed her but she still tried to tell

She did not do it for being right or to 

skew hindsight with foresight.

She was just learning

to look at it with new eyes too.

By liberally applying divine 

Rules of architecture to structures

We discover limits 

Hover in the rafters

Broken beams, pride paid the bills,

Support came in pillars, mortared with guilt

No doors were hinged on labors of love-

but all things settle down, inevitably.

It was working, building

And making 

New sense

Of our life in boxes and wreck-tangles.




Painting by Antonio Pérez de Aguilar – Painter, c. 1769 in the Museo Nacional de Arte [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

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.