Ebb tide

Tragic are those lingering losses,
comic are the erratic gains
all rippled with guilt
as if others saw
perception seemed worth its weight
to carry with us
all life, blending together in summation,
sometimes synchrony, although
in our exclusion
atonement is a single strike,
a note that takes its sound
along with others,
once more
the chorus comes-
laughter snaps like light limbs
which dam up
the tear ducts
for a time,
like ours when passage
was most important
and our structures remain
sound against the wait of all things
pushed to sea.


Painting by James Whitelaw Hamilton c. 1896 housed in the Yale Center for British Art [Public domain].

Scraps

She sits at the dining room table,
pen in hand-elbow to arm
props up her left love,
where logic once lived.

She wants me to believe,
by witnessing how hard she is thinking,
that she can find the right answers,
on her own
while I mindlessly match corners of cloth
on the couch.

There was a new way about her
that noticeably tilted the room
or cast the light
in her favor
across our stretch of space.

Don't look, she demanded
placing her body in front of
her painting.
I won't, I confirm
and see anyway.

When I leave the living room,
I can feel her listening
to the cabinet door whine,
the dresser drawers stomp,
she is wondering about
room for living.

She questions where I put things
away
for now
she knows
my thoughts
and where I would keep them.

She was always watching these,
grabbing them
in the thin air
and keeping them
for later.


Painting by Vilhelm Hammershøi, c. 1904 in [Public domain].

Feast of air

He sets the table
             for the holiday
                     he has planned
                                 carefully,
gently laying
           the knives-
                 blades facing inward

of course, there was nothing real
                      about this place setting

in this metaphor

Helping with a tool, utensil, in-kind-ness
He says,
              Busy, I have so much work to do
I do not reply
I do not show I notice
              anticipation,
I know this
                is a holiday
and anyway, he knows this too,
(the closures)
he presses (on) the edge of
bleached napkins
naming each of his clients
He must go
to
to-day
too many

there lie(s)
                   the empty plates
while the water glasses break
a sweat
profusely
dropping rings
at the appointed places
becoming tepid
                  and easier to digest.


Painting by Hendrick Andriessen, Vanitas c. 1630-1640 in [Public domain] via Wikimedia Commons. 

reflection

The difference between man and his
                                              Nature;
Primarily,
the words will fade away
                                        meaning
                      altogether

whereas colors come
                                bright and new
blending in
after each and every rain.





Painting by Henry Ward Ranger, 'Bradburys Mill Pond No. 2' c. 1903 in  [Public domain].

Intro-version

Things fall into place and we can safely say
gravity had a heavy hand,
although it is a weak force and spineless excuse
for why we stand up-
right

despite the pressure this places directly on
our crowns,
fashioned from sand and stone,
the weight resists the wait
reeling into terminal velocity
blurs and gives
in, collapses into itself,

and condensing, reducing what is necessary
by its lowest denomination

We still build and rebuild as if we knew it would
all work out this way,
and not that way we tried
to change the inevitable, like laws, universal
and blind,
like this dark energy displaced
with good will

things were determined
by the absence of things
accidentally
heavier than we could imagine.


Painting by Jules Charles Aviat (1844-1931) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

tepidity

I said my feet were frozen,
he did not care
but took notice of my canvas shoes
atop the icy mud.

The fire he made,
started by Him,
should have been
enough-

but the wood was wet
atop the dirt that was sand,
the grass still green despite the dew
the smoke swirled
inside the pit.

His forehead and eyes settled into the comfortable scowl,
his red cheeks took upon themselves an orange glow
and I knew he felt
contentment.

I smiled at him over the inferno.
He often mocked
the speed at which I walked
on December nights near the open sea.

After explaining over my shoulder,
like salt,
why the air felt so distinctly different
between us

he said no more about what he could not feel.

Together,
we find our way
a-part
of accepting
differences by degrees.



Artwork by Felix Nussbaum [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Here yee

By anthropomorphic standards;
that which possesses the sharpest quality
is able to penetrate without drawing a drop of blood-

it is the words that slip under the skin,
instructing our sense of tactile awarenesses
that are permeable, absorbed
and mixed into our blood or consciousness streams
beneath the smooth surface, it flows like riptide

whereby, like all liquid bodies,
we obey the laws
thermodynamically,
by an embered blush
or spontaneous hurried chill.

I will listen more closely
when the words
are honed
to the point of Truth.


Painting by Théo van Rysselberghe [Public domain via Wikimedia].