Minimalism

 
 
I suppose . . . aspire to . . .
the restless – end.
      . . . expressed, wild,
. . . the wisest among us.

Between the hours and minutes . . .
      every opportune . . .
unknown. The quest for –
      what . . . remains unsaid.
. . . experienced.
 
 

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Moebius Strip

 
 
Shadows are the unambiguous messengers of time.
And light is always late for the next event.
They–both–won’t ever cease to be familiar.

Now I know why first love fascinates us so:
the illumination of every other affection
comes cascading over the same horizon.

And if night makes us forget ourselves,
sever the ends of the very world;
your map will spread full before you again.
 
 

Running to Stand Still

 
 
Perhaps we are our own mirrors
and only disown them to glass for an ideal.
Then we remain several steps behind
the formation of our dreamed imperatives,
a purposeful mist that drifts along the contours
of starry-eyed simplicity.

Deep understanding of the world
(the intricate chemistry of tumult and silence,
ruminations given in error, earned in humility,
dispersed into nurture, joy, and grief)
is the hard casing of our reflections.

Why can we never move closer–
only evolve within our own vision or
along the surface of others’ fragile esteem?
Belief must suffice, whether
      god or void,
      nuance or instinct,
      spare islet or mountainous sway.

We will inhabit these fictions
      as flame makes the darkness
a mere memory
and behold what cannot be real
without us.
 
 

The Fish That Couldn’t Swim (Repost)

 
 
Once upon a shore
Of salty sand and more
There was a fish that couldn’t swim.
            Just ask him.
“My fins are such a terror!
    Never will I cruise the sea.
    My life is but an error.
Woe is me . . . ”

This failing pleased the osprey
And made his predatory day:
“A fish that flops on shore
    Pleases to the core.
    As with others of the flesh
    It satisfies the appetite
    Yet avails me a catch
With a minimum of flight!”

And so, without a pause
The osprey swooped and bore its claws.
The fish was clenched with fear,
            Shed a tear.
“Let this day not be my last,
    His hunger not decide my fate.
    How the die is cruelly cast!
Instinct: do not wait!”

And this is what the osprey saw
That shut his hungry jaw:
A rippling splash where once was food.
His prey had changed its attitude
“I can swim! Look at me!
    Yet now the task is harder.
    I’ve got to learn to breathe
Underwater

And soon . . . ”
 
 

Ms. Ardelle

 
 
I once knew a woman who in middle age dyed her greying hair a deep shade of black. I have no knowledge of her whereabouts now, but when the nighttime is quiet and still, I hear the huskiness of her voice. (She is whispering some fearful gossip like a deity who does not understand her own power.)

Words are stars, Ms. Ardelle.
From dust they came
And though they do ignite

We have not yet burned away
The darkness. I’ve forgotten
Every story that you told
In my presence.

However, I remember the morals that you would defend only in secret. Like moonlight obscured by gnarled branches and leathery leaves, the moments all passed incomplete. And here we remain:

In this brutal world
Where silence is mistaken
For love.
 
 

Motives

 
 
He whispered strength, a calm fortress that invited
all and enveloped them without grip . . .
      I wear no mask; I observe.
The here and there, the sedentary what and
the velocity how. I heard nothing . . .

(Perhaps the experience of color
is linked to appetite: we devour everything
in a manner. The flavor of vision . . . )

When they came in droves
with their rainbow fragments and euphony,
and the doors swung wide for them,
I drew the cool air into a deep shiver.
      No one knew I was there . . .
(We dismiss ourselves at crucial moments
into who-know-what kind of abyss. It is
not dark there, just endless . . . )

But this: he split his own heart in
so many jagged ways that the art of it
was lost to him.
      I savored all that
I knew . . .
 
 

Fourth of July Sky

 
 
My beloved star-shine,
Though these cacophonous sparkles burn bright
They fade: their strength equaled
By the spareness of the dimming sky.

What is eternal?
What you celebrate? Hold in your heart? Worship?
Everything framed in an emotion we would loft
and illuminate . . . ?

My beloved star-shine,
Time is not on our side; permit me my lucid moments.
Around them, living coalesces. In awe.
A captured dream.
 
 

Untitled

i used to think that fear
was something predatory stalking me
devouring my life
then realized that it was
a defense i could perhaps wield
and not be consumed by
;
however you cannot always
protect yourself
:
putting up barriers cannot be coupled
with any other act
.
Walls are just Walls
(that’s all they are)
 
 

A Whisper in an Auditorium

 
 
The tapestry began to unravel the moment that its weavers pressed their hands into their pockets and wandered out into the dusk . . .

(Why do we ask the wrong people to love us?)

And the portents also.–
Like evergreen needles falling
to the forest floor
something vital yet unbirthable
disappears.

. . . she wept. Her tears stitched themselves into the atmosphere, a tender portrait now, that Time (though worn and faded itself) brushed with dawning hands, open and content in their airiness.
 
 

Immersion Therapy

 
 
He opened the glass door
and went out onto the red brick walkway
which gradually cut lower and lower
towards street-level
as if a procrastinating staircase.

He felt a piercing weapon aimed
at his back, heard screams . . .
His mind flooded with panic
while his footsteps remained casual.

When he reached the sidewalk
and turned around, nothing was there
save the aging bank building and
patches of ivy
that passed for landscape.

(His fears were not real
so he imagined their forms
medieval as that made them . . . )

“Dragons,” he whispered
remembering a story from his youth
in which whole villages burned.

“I’ll slay them.”
That’s the promise of suffering:
more suffering.–Until the pain
boils away into a mist of numbness.
Myths remain at their inception
always.

He walked on. The half-grey, half-blue
sky persisted above him.
The white noise of traffic flooded
around him. Voices
of any mood or measure were absent.

Truths unspoken then
could have crushed the universe
or split it in two.
Yet still he walked on.