He-line

Like a cat

tame or otherwise-

A man

will attack if touched

where he is most tender.

Artwork by Gwen John [Public domain].

Roar

Solid beads bounce off my body,
each of their masses colliding with my shell
and I am sore, sensitive from the pelting,
gasping with my gills barely open
a slit.

Upwards I face and solid streams form rolling
down my brow and bridges.
I feel drowning is the same enveloping
as the light or darkness inside
my pores.

Buoyancy is all I have
left to show
I am still
occupying
space.

Stalactites reach for the mineral world
they once had.
Days went and came
passing thru me
like water.

There was nothing new
to sea here,
save
the rumbling and reforming
beneath the surface.



Photograph credited by 'Oregon Sea Lion Cave' Ljmajer [Public domain].

Wait and see

That is how things collapse,
you know how it goes,
all at once.

From experience,
there was no other way.

I survived a major earthquake,
yet none jolt the nerves like those
fault lines
connected to the heart.

So, it is never
really one thing-at a time,
rather what we choose to do or see
about it,
like finding a moldy blueberry
and leaving it with the rest.

It makes one turn to meat,
foregoing the fruit.

There is a dotted line between
poison and penicillin.

There is more to throw away
than keep.

Rebuilding is going to require
everything,
except
accepting to live in the rubble
of what once stood
up to/against.



Image credited by Nyttend in [Public domain].

dead end

Like Darwin's finches,
would we know why our beaks are shaped this way?

Poetry, like mathematical sentences,
cage the pigeon, momentarily truth can be contained
in theorem.

History was written to expel,
revise, adapt and to forget the way it happened
in order to make story from time with a line.

A plot never seems to develop
or hold
what was expected.

I do repeat myself,
I say things I often don't recognize
as mine, I smell fear in my atmosphere
and wish flight was my choice.


Artist Jacques Callot (1592-1635) 'Traveler' early 17th century, in Public Domain. 

De-hydration

There was I,
sitting atop the toilet seat after dark,
clutching the stemless wineglass with ice,
melting and prickling my fingertips with cold
beads expelled in an attempt at temperature
regulation.

My heart stomps and fills my ear
with an exasperated scream
about how hard it is to move
all this blood
to and from.

I do not drink wine,
my drink is called Karma,
its supposed to aid
digestion, I digress,
waiting in the mid-night
beads roll down my temple
and I shatter atop the frozen tiles

Waiting

as my Karma becomes diluted.


Painting by Sebastian Stoskopff [Public domain].

Weather (or not)

There are no problems, I have been told,
simply-events, an occurrence.

It is no coincidence, it suddenly occurred
to me, occur can be like low tide, recurring.

If there are no problems, are we living
in a comfort(able) zone, which becomes
uncomfortable,

like growing out of shoes,
or them growing apart
from you.

Returning our attention
to the steps we take, looking down,
we notice the children all looking up.

The sky is never the same.


Painting by Eugene de Blaas [Public domain].

The old flame

I have been sucking on rage
                    like a Jolly Rancher
                    all day-

They say
sucking calms coughing
                        fits, since we cannot do both
simultaneously.

The sun is blazing behind
                               the thunderheads
                               making the air tepid-

Did I mention the fire
                        coursing under the skin
                        causing the concrete to ripple
                         and fingers to spark?

Steam smolders in pillars from atop fences
as if the candles
were blown out.

Love and Hate, like thermodynamics,
                          compromises

I stand in between
with my lips stained red,
             a saccharin taste of cinnamon
that was once my favorite

reminds me
of our in-
consistencies.

Still,
I struggle to breathe.





Painting by Henry John Stock (1853-1930) in Public Domain.