Golden Fleece

It becomes hard to breathe,

As if my chest walls

Resisted

The intrusion of more volume.

It is known,

My metronome sways slower than

The standard,

Which causes pause

To those listening for life by standards.

It becomes questionable if I am alive

For a full moment

It becomes obvious, this is my restful state

That alarms professionals of standards 
and not enough.

It was by the elimination of blur,

 the rolling together of static

and the burying down of heart that dams

persistence through rivers and veins.

The flow of water and words,

wind and blood run around without reason.

I should be dead,

They all said without saying anything solid,

Like stones and bodies

To remind us of sinking feelings and roots,

Settling and silt.

It was the iron 
will and heavy hand of world

carried just under the skin and cages. 


Jean François de Troy [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Point A

Home is where we start from,
Eliot said,
while one is busy making plans,
planted Lennon trees,
as though making a home and getting somewhere,
were lasting-
things are all ending around you.

It is not as if Paradise was the same as Innocence
and yes,
both disappeared,
were sheared from necessity
like baby teeth and training wheels,
and how it hurts worse
when home
and are overfed.

Home is a net,
or a web.

He picks up the guitar again and gives it
another chance
this time, she says, until
his fingers bleed.

The other one drives herself away
and is made stronger
so far
from home,
her hopes await.

They both grow from the 'here'
they call Home,
while I make myself busy
tuning the strings
to help them hear, or find
harmony in their spheres
and recognize the crystalized tone
of their own spin,
at least phonetically
one Here's
it to be, pronounced
Home or Ohm.

Raised from nothing but ashes.


Photo By Paik, Kenneth, 1940-2006, Photographer (NARA record: 8464462) (U.S. National Archives and Records Administration) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Norwegian Matte

The eldest sister of my Grandmothers' siblings
told me,
They would take rocks
from atop the wood burning stove in the kitchen
and carry them to school,
clutching these in their pockets as they walked.

Sometimes they would stay warm all day,
if you knew where to hide them
for later.

They did this every winter.
The walk in the snow to school
was not an ascent.
It was a privilege to go to school,
she often said.

She also said she pined for a pony,
and being first born-
she believed anything was possible.
She got a goat. She named it Eddie.
Eddie followed her to school.

She taught him math,
addition and subtraction,
and some simpler sentences.
Four was his favorite number.

Being the first (and last) born
from the middle sisters' daughter,
I understood her silly stories
greater than
the rest.
I remember
I saw no difference
between the rocks and the goat.

A smooth rock sitting in the sun
is not safe from my fingers or pocket,
by relation
I am compelled to carry the heavy load,
alone.
The slag added up
to more than four pockets could carry.





Painting by János Tornyai [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Passes thru

The train rolling through town

sends in its signal 

                   with the intermittent whistle which warns

of something more than arrival, delivery or destination,
crimson, or even hot steal.

It smelt of cinnamon and sueded leather,

Bark and skin, the warm coat.

Two young men, 
                         friends since childhood, 
Skype and catch-up on nothing new.

They live close to each other, 
                         only one hears the train first.

The little girl that left the boy 
                         in the woods to get lost herself
was kind enough

to think of bread for later so she could come back

to him, but he was hungry and took care
                         of himself.

She cries about choices to another boy.

She was the wolf that howls at the passing train, sirens song,

a puppy in a dogs coat.

Tracks made for trains are best for drawing lines, 
                        demonstrating the forging of space

between then and now,

                                    here and there

one nose

smells first

and hides in his skin.

The other clearly hears
the passing scream left behind
on warm steal lines
                        without a second glance

he knew there will be another
                         soon enough to catch up.
He takes off his coat.  
No longer in a hurry 
he thinks in all directions,
and decides to walk
without destination.




Photo credit by Carol M. Highsmith [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Lull-a-by

Stop at the low point, and in this recess

you will need these low slopes

to assess your remaining strength
in gradient.

Then,

          gather all the carnage you can,

but take none further than the valley.

To think is an acting verb.

Robots had been employed long ago.
Slave drives and across partitioned Seas
forbidden steps were recorded.

It was that legend that made it obvious 

                  we had since been spendthrift with time.

Our hands dirty from digging 

for shiny money and grit.

                   Seeing the stars so far from reach

we felt unrelated.
It became problematic, morally. 

As we take note of the hour
by the shadows cast backward,

thoughtfully-one attempts to

Rescale themselves
                                against the evening sky.

The airs thins during ascent

Aiming 
to take our breath away,

Try.

You will know when you need more than 

rocks and steps to move on.

And the ache

will accompany you (in lieu of Virgil),

And you will see the great Mountain 
                                  as more than one needs

in steps to reach

the peak

without why, 
                                  but because it is There. 

Humming and drumming help us close the distance.

Stars and mounds all added up to virtually nothing

separate or other,

meaning to, meaning too

much choice. 

Lulled into thinking the rest
helped gather strength
(in lieu of charge).




Painting By L. A. Roberts (Own work) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons.

Naked soles

Tick-tac with each step taken down

the tile floor hallway-

crept moving was the only way

to get here to meet there,

though the narrowing drywalls close in

facing the wall she wonders-

Whose purpose memory serves now-

As if climbing these textured cream walls

would help us all adapt to sharp

right angles, as accustomed,

and if given a sideways glance,

one may admire the frames for their brevity,

developed into more than the moment

of moving placeholders.

Time froze at her feet

the ceiling cast white over her. 

The slate she found was just cleaned.

Photo credit by Milko Matičetov [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

This image or media is available on the Slovenian Ethnographic Museum's website. 

Chlorophyll-ed

I am as incomprehensible as the granite

underfoot as I stand on the fence,

teetering on the post tops,

scrambling across the jagged riprap,

lava on my left,

ice on the right

wondering if I will ever touch down

and it will be enough.

Sometimes, I lean I little too much to one side

and become painfully aware of needles stabbing my cheeks,

and of the physical struggle I wage

against gravity and giving in to the wind.

My eyes hold a glare, grazing across seas of green,

hungry, nauseous.

I remain the thing that sticks out.

I pretend I can hold my composure.

I pretend I am mending, securing and building

back up

the differences between sight and seen, observed and obscure,

between then and now, overhead and right under the soles

heat rises.

The sky blended primaries and found 555 nanometres

restful to the eye. It was a gift in lieu of fight or flight.

A boulder in space time adds up,

this occupies me

for a time
as if I was getting somewhere.

Photo credit By Sonja1982 (Own work) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons.