Noche de miedo

Cackles come careening around the corner

and climbing down curb-lined cul-de-sacs

on cool autumn evenings

Nothing can be done to prevent the amassment

the grandiose gathering

of evil intentions under orange lamps

illuminating holes.

Phantom leaves lay brittle on sharp blades,

sear, friable, vitreous and shattered shards of ecru erode to crumbs.

Ear-drums strain to find the bass, the bottom line

below all the trouble and high-notes, car alarms,

cat-fights, sirens, and ring-tones,

paper dolls were folding into cranes

and finger puppets on the wall were

pealing themselves off to crawl under beds

where the weary and wretched can lie 

awaiting a revelation, the bottom of the bowl,

the dark porch, the green-eyed monster or black cat

come out curious to see things through.

Los muerta de dia; la vida de disturbios. 




Painting by Jacob van Ruisdael [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Nonsensical

As we explore the depths of the oceans, 

seeking the ends of eternity as

conceived by space, 

mapping the matrix of the mind,

We hope 

we are making sense.

Some more sense of what may be 

behind the Divine and beyond evil.

Veiled by our vanity,

we can only hope to master

some special skills.

We are instructed, 

we are given-with grace,

five senses to use, freely.

We all know better.

Untapped potential, 

the vein, the mother lode,

these things that we seek

are lying here

not waiting 

for us to see,

not weighting

to matter.

Now, tell me about touch…

Can you feel me looking at you from

where I stand?

Can I make you cry with words, 

or laugh with only

black and white?

How do you know something has been moved?

Do not step there! Slow Down! Watch out! 

Has this voice

ever saved you before?

And pray, tell me, mind over matters

like these explosions of energies that spin wildly,

may we tame bursts by will, tempt with them with time,

temper these with new neurons

and cast off-the surplus?

Is it all too much?

A little release travels faster than light

yet always

dissipates all ways 

with so much space and water

between bodies

empyrean expanses, abysmal astrodynamics and such.

It was current

thought, 

that the thought wave and the wave of gravity,

ate projected invisibly, the unseen senselessly

Ignored-

As if maybe,

it didn't make sense, as if

'may be' meant there were more ways to feel

than five, or how do we know anything is alive? 

None believed in what they could not see.

With no matter to feel, to put a name on,

with nothing to touch us with shape or edge,

with so much space, with all the emptiness

making up all the meaning 

It is all the more touching

that we find our way by feel,

getting somewhere, 

After All.

“Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea?

Or hast thou walked in the search of the depths?

Have the gates of death ben open unto thee? 

Or hast thou seen the doors of

the shadow of death?

Hast thou perceived the breadth of the earth?

Declare if thou knowest it all.

Where is the way light dwelleth?”

(38:16-19, The book of Job via Primo Levi) 

Painting by Martin Johnson Heade [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Six Reasons to Never Try Poetry

They call them mockingbirds, some are nightingales, a few may be owls or ravens,

but all are really pretending to be the pursuers

while they are in fact the ideal prey.

All are moths-

of which there are more than 160,000.

Drawn to their own demise, despite the heat, they repeat the fire dance,

a Danse Macabre in verse.

In all fairness, one should be warned-

1. You will never be good. Or done. Or get there. Never, nevermore. It will always be wrong, could be better, you should have never tried, a waste of your time, a sacrifice for nothing. If you want to feel a sense of completion or accomplishment, this is not the way. You will never be able to make it go away. Get a drawer, carry a pen, try to forget. 

2. You have only copied others far better than you-who copied those that were far better than they. 

All the words that are strewn about and unsorted,

the ones you polished up and put together and

something spectacular, or smooth, or morbid,

were not yours to put your name on. 

You were not the first person

to make your bed.

3. Warning: Also-they All die beautiful, decrepit and anonymous, poor and misunderstood. They pass away, they are evoked and manipulated, worshiped for saying one thing-over and over-apropos to those who know how timeless interpretations remains. They keep their keys. They take thier fortunes with them. The published, finished, are boarded up, condemned-to looting, pillaging and squatting.

The moth never learns from others smoke. The moth must devour the leaves and petals from poets of other seasons if it is to survive famished and cleansed by morning dew. 

Some say violets capture a certain raw nature, many others pine over roses, and there are those of silk, that bare no resemblance to prose, without punctuation or stamen. 

4. The night is shared by good and bad voices, loudest to those who listen.

5. Color is not necessary for presenting a beautiful display. Light and heat are most attractive when removed.

6. A moth is a critical link in the food chain. 

Fake eyes, ink stains, shadow, ash and dirt colored, clicks and sonar are extra like lyricality. Both predator and prey are symbiotic as reader and writer, both flock to the light despite the smoke and despite the act of dying every night. 

Painting By Michel Bouillon, Vanitas c. 1668 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

X-plosion(s)

This is not what I intended to say.
Nor is this how I meant to convey this multi-
layered
meaning-making
sense of sense.
I set out, propositioned with pen in hand,
I aimed the ink at the receptive white page
to say this
one thing
and the damn poem veers left, starts
skidding out of control,
hits something solid,
rolls over
Itself
and only comes to an abrupt semi stop-
where interia is held in
mid-air,
over their heads,
emits an ominous scent,
and makes men
flee for fear of losing
oneself

A paltry passenger without my own;
controls, levers, pedals, wheels, dials, gauges,
buttons to push,
signs or signals to lead and follow,
I am
Left with this
loss of direction
I resign to not fight the fear
of dead ends.
Scribbling and scrambling
I get out while I can.


Image credit By Anonymous [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Buteo jamaicensis (red-tailed hawk)

Chickenhawk,

or common pigeon raptor,

an immigrant in suburbia,

your callused talons, prone to thievery

bone protruding shoulders, penetrate the blues

excess in feathers weighs one down.

Perch and peer,

wedged between a wishbone branch,

hurling her duck observations in high notes

as if swan songs were her only repertoire. 

Tenacious she, 

returns three days crooked, famished with

foresight, laser vision, and perspective-poised, 

she waits, she sees green, she feels envy.

The fluffy housecat chases his tail 

to satisfy his urges

the hawk launches

and draws his keen ellipse together.

Photo credit By U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Headquarters (Red-tailed hawk  Uploaded by Dolovis) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0) or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Sensual segments

The lotion in the squeeze tube

intended

to protect this crumpled 

and creased rice paper skin,

carries a strong scent, evocative

of all the horses I once knew.

The big baby boy finally comes along,

appearing one month old

already.

Somedays, like other times,

Her voice soothes

but most often it seethes

something in me.

Crap-

that coyote in a boat scared me!

the visitor exclaims-

pointing to a small hanging sculpture

Of a baby fox sleeping soundly in a hammock.

I knew it, but did not say anything

This time

it would be easier this way...

The numbers man heard poetry

at night.

It scared him. 

This time

he stood too close

to the source.

Contagion is terrifying.

Warm spreading in back of the head,

happens with Prozac

and Jazz musicians,

I have been told.

It may spread further

than just here.

As we were like this

One time

found in familiar fragments

of others, 

clarity comes to the assembly

in single file lines. 





Image credit By Clyde Waddell, American GI's at a bookstall in Calcutta, 1945' in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Moving moments

Fell upon, as light as drizzling

mists indistinct as an inkling.

There was a sense of something strange a-

round the sharp corner.

He walks confidently 

into newly woven webs,

framing the finished work.

The ground sloped, gravity pulled a-

long his footing in a groove.

One in front of the other. 
He counted on this order. 

Crossed over to a new dimension,

blended into this one image.

He is held up

to the sky and draped in silk,

with webbing in the corners, 
brushed by invisible lines.

He finds her hanging
where he left her last.

Never again

does he take

the last passage 
back. 




Painting by Claude Monet, 'A corner of the apartment' c. 1875 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.