“A poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds.” -Percy Bysshe Shelley
Tuesday, November 28, 2017
The night that the Accountant
The night that the Accountant figured out poetry
was a simple story
about a man and a woman
and the stories they tell
each other-
About
who should and who should not
discuss poetry,
since there is no GAP
in poetics or likewise, alibis.
I told him a story about a poem
that was a story
I made up,
I was never really there.
He said, 'Of course it wasn't true.
Being pushed off a bridge was just a
metaphor-
for what-
I don't exactly know, but if I know you,
it was a feeling
you felt that day.'
I confessed
it was true, all of it.
I could have jumped.
He understood
more poetry
than he ever could have
accounted for.
Along this
line lying between non-and-fiction,
a subtraction connects us.
And we reconcile our difference
of opinions in between
heads and tales
black and read
to solve all word problems.
Photo credit by Mathew Brady, Long Bridge, Washington, D.C. in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
Monday, November 27, 2017
With the worms
Shaking off his jacket
spotted with purple dots of dew,
he unfurls his wings
and dashes off
to a new perch
higher up.
In the insistent rising sun
my head and shoulders form
an opposition,
casting shadows on
soft golden blades
rooted underfoot.
Stirring begins from the ground
where settled matters to-day
such as History and alternative pathways,
are made with each step one leg takes
at a time
to make movement or progression
of orbit
in order
to get there
only to see the selfsame shrinking
without feathers, but by a hair
and blunted nose not pointed beak.
This is sharp steel light
severing the warm body
from the sound mind.
A murmuration demonstrates
the reason
for gathering
our resources
but taking them
lightly.
Painting by Léon Bazille Perrault, 'The Bird Charmer' 1873 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
Round the bend
At this time
change felt like the fog rolling in
and when driving into the road mirage
and not hitting a thing-
in a blur that stranges the familiar,
stretches out time a little
like a band,
rubber or air-the change
lingered heavier than mist,
more solid than virga,
icy in all the same clear ways that
when you try to cut it out
from what was always
called Now I am-
like routine and rut,
running along the edges fray,
more than decor, drapery, or flax
like flux, anticipated
or a natural change
of season.
It could have been
Only that-
At this time,
comforts naked shoulder
cooled in the exposure,
where same,
felt somehow strange
like never before.
Image credit By U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
Thirteen ways of holding one's breath
I
Thru metamorphosis, emergence of
butterflies and frogs, spread and span
red cheeks, the gymnastic belly below
sticks it with
loins lurching
in love
untold dreams discontent
unwonted wishes, woos and woes,
it comes and grows
infectious.
II
Heavy is the moment-
He is gone,
gone, gone, gone
Gone.
Generations gone by
that beget her,
forget her, the family moves on.
A casket, a Triscuit,
another he dropped it,
and I put it in my pocket.
It is still there, in my jacket,
old as it is, new every time.
He was…
III
The spider, the car trouble, the anger,
the appliances, the curses,
the denial of utterance
which makes it so
makes it so,
laughable
as a bad day, a bad life, a stroke
of bad luck,
against the odds
I would survive,
still born
dead.
IV
All in. Cleared the accounts.
It has to happen now.
It will be, what will be, it will,
still there remains
doubt in the dregs.
V
Remind me:
Remind me:
You were never about you
were about them never being
about you being you, or just you
and not them. They needed you
to be. You knew them before you
knew you were just being
about them needing you needing
them to be about being themselves and
not you being yourself to be by
themselves, not you, being by yourself,
which would mean the end of you,
remember-
remember-
VI
Sow seeds are the things with feathers.
No, germination was more gentle.
Like television, what harm? What’s on?
That’s always on.
And on lines, tapped for groundwater, mineral
rights and tracking cookie crumb trails,
I was being watched.
I was being stalked, like prey, today.
A seed has been sown.
Murder,
she wrote, consumed him
of her.
VII
The same thing is
The same thing is
not
the same thing is
the same thing in
sanity.
VIII
Poison is in the food
poison is in the fear,
the body shrivels
the body resists
itself
healing.
IX
What has been done? What did you do?
About that-
Excuse us, excuses us,
in liberty, for just us,
to wait and seek happiness
coining it as pursuit
of private pleasures and
philanthropic altruism,
we donate dirigible good
deeds, after our needs
have been met
and mingled with resistance.
X
Go. I will
meet you
over
there.
XI
The next phase of the moon that wanes
knows how the shadows will fall
before the darkness sets us in place.
XII
From inside the cave, gasping for air,
before light,
unafraid of the burn, the yearning to yell
grips the mouthless beast
hidden herself and longs to fill her lungs
with sound of feeling and exhale
the pungent stench of death that goes
unheard,
the beast falls and the volcano erupts
with more of itself.
XIII
If the sky holds you,
you will be carried
the rest
of the Way.
Inspired by Wallace Stevens poem "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird"
Painting By Alexander Mann (1853–1908) (oil on canvas) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
Saturday, November 25, 2017
In our places
In winter it is warmest
in the pale sun
and under your light,
even behind the dark glasses
your eyes smile bright
while we talk softly,
without effort
the breeziness knows
understanding the sky
without words
needing to hold us up
against our own presence.
Placed here, like so,
sharing tastes and sounds,
noting the harmony
we share by proximity
and savoring alike. I know
you know, it takes two
to not let go
with one glance,
promise me
one day-
seasons will allow
a change-
when we lift our eyes
holding out hope
over all others
like this
there was no need to explain
how a line catches
all it can tether
together in one sky.
Painting by Johan Christian Dahl, 'Winter at the Sognefjord, February 1827 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
Explain yourself
The words were all too long,
became easily tangled and how I kept
pulling at what I thought was an end,
pulling, pulling, pulling, and
thereby taking too much
out of me
the body became barren.
What was understood as a major shift
of power, in direction or by time constraints,
was the anticipated and alternating current
as in that way
opposition acts by force.
Listen, it was my fate,
or decision
to do or not to do.
Small acts, even one
may be a miracle,
after all
this, one thought, one
surviving-
the risks were all there, caution was
issued too. Accuse, dismiss and relish
the sound of ones voice,
and how it comes out, represents
the avatar or holographic image
taken at the ideal angle
or time.
We were all Free
to walk around and not utter a word,
or like me, never give thoughts away with
dignity,
to light, to mind, to mouth, to hand
and inevitably, words were dying.
The Words
were writhing and gasping for shape,
despite the hand that rushed
along-
Definitions, unlike synonyms
carry want and need, unable to
extract and dilute the difference
between
I am and I was.
Painting By Yamashita Shintarō (29 August 1881 to 11 April 1966) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
likeness
The colors blended
one moment, one thing divides
a-similitude
Painting by Albert Bierstadt, Yosemite, Twin peaks, c.1859 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
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