We miss recess

It is all like going to school
and how a new school
is always bigger
than the last
and we all fear
getting lost
until years have passed
and we see more clearly
how little space this one
place
occupies-

And then we graduate
to a larger school
where we may find
ourselves
lost again-briefly-
before learning
how small
we make ourselves
is proportional
to our fear
of growth.


Photo of children on Playground in Missouri, (Author unknown), titled '9th and O'Fallon Streets', taken between 1900-1915, in Public Domain.

Well-being

I choose not to spend pennies of thought
for the benefit of others opinions
who have made no personal investment
into the savings of and for the consideration of
a profitable shared account wherein there is only one
authorized signatory and not that of the opinionated.

Buddhist principles encourage us to
'Let go' of attachment but 'Hold on' to
your spirit, stick with it, lean in-
to the fall, don't hold your breath,
all obstacles are opportunities.

I clear some space and feel smaller.
I create conflict and make a mess.
I clean the slate, gently blowing off all
calcium deposits thin as chalk.

A moment ago, I slept,
Now I know why a funeral is called a-wake.

I have lost it and found a-way
back to the well-
being-whereby
change was inevitably tossed in.



Painting by Kazimir Malevich [in Public domain], 'Woman with pails' c. 1912.

Project-ile

The poet sits with intention.
Knitted brow and with a scrap of
paper, a sharp implement and a
momentary departure, a faraway gaze,

the poet observes the words taking their own
positions simply as
falling
into place.

The poet lines up the marks and cross-
hatches, rounds up loops and keeps it all
justified, inside the margin(al) notes,
deducing answers by guess and check.

With so many alternates and messy remainders
that carry over into the wrong
problem,
we are easily led astray with too many steps
to count.

The poet prefers no word to another,
making it impossible to say anything
of value about luck or music, or talent,
or art or war or philanthropy or money.

In shorthand scrawls,
the poet draws out
the sharpest tips acquired and
compares this craft to the fine work
such as that of the carpenter or accountant,
or tailor or assassin,
whom measure thrice before a cut is made.

The poet shook his wrist.
The poet knew there were solutions inside
so he sought and tried
to say the one thing that would change
something.
The poet goes with the flow of ink
and arrives quickly
in a foreign tundra
where the virgin snow melts
around slated and craggy ideals.

The poet watches the footfalls
disappear,
grateful to have never been
Here.


Advertising illustration credited by 'Bookseller & Stationer', The Sawn Pen, 1919 in Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

Periwinkle...

...was precisely the most fitting tone
of dawn before the tint of all things
illuminated themselves outward

humming their hues
in synchronic earth tones,

in the distance,
there were glimmerings,
starlight still hanging
on, winking it self away
until the last wishes
were taken in
pastel.

Painting by Thomas Wilmer Dewing (1851-1938), 'Untitled', in Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons. 

Mantra(s)

(1)
Put this is your mouth
tasting this flavor of thought
smell the breath with in.

(2)
Lingering outside
you choose the notes to pick up
and savor the sounds.

(3)
Prove you can jump in
and out of the echoes left
in the chorus line(s).

(4)
Get inside between
and stretch as much as
you can momentarily.

Painting by Thomas Eakins [Public domain].

This 1 day, death is not near

It is called a veil
or shroud
for the way it
reveals itself
to be a cover
where the light
gets in
there was space for this
exchange
of dark(ness) and light(ness)
or public and private.

Lifted into a demanding
presence
we find ourselves
lingering
in graveyards
as though this was defiant
or exertion of our will
remaining
from youth.

It is between discrete moments
when the warmth moves through
the atmosphere
sometimes sinking in
while touching us deeply.

Our memories turn to life.


Painting by Miner Kilbourne Kellogg [Public domain].

Infectious

The overwhelming experience of taking it ALL in
Now, is an overstimulation of the senses as in the expectation
to make it so as we hold it in to the very top of this slippery
second the moment we notice it gone
and are left with what we do with and to this
experience
or sense of should-be-doing-
exhausting ourselves of our possibilities and
ultimate potential
contentment-
of being O.K.
or not okay
but still-
moving-thinking-feeling-not-
thinking-re-aligning
ourselves with being
ok with who
We Are


Trusting
ourselves
to heal
while we are busy
choking ourselves in the experience of
our environment
while the soul
caresses the wounds and whispers ways
to keep clean
while exposed.


Artwork/memento by Frederic Edwin Church, inscription reads "Remeber the ashy light, the black rocks and brown grass" Ecuador, Andean mountain peak [Public domain].