Having come from the seas of your storms and decades of disquiet, I step, directionless, on an unmoving Earth. Being tooled for havoc, I despair of knowing what might fill this brazen peace, this wild surcease.
[Art: The Ship, by Salvador Dali]
Category Archives: thoughts
Womb
Do not speak of it.
Do not see me.
Give what you have to give,
willing or no,
and don’t mind the scars.
The remnants of your gown,
oft removed,
keep us coming back for more.
But, in time,
you will womb a tree
that reaches to Heaven.
***
[Art by Zdzislaw Beksinski]
Delinquents
Out in the cold
Old age is a smarmy being
that pushes you from behind,
confusing you with multiple choices
and dithering doubts.
Cutting some strings,
and tightening others,
it challenges your daring of pain,
and wants your attention during sleep.
Ah, this life and its just desserts.
***
Art by Remedios Varo
The Garden
“I have a hunger” –
Those words,
spoken in a formal manner,
were as stillborn, as heavy as a stone
cradled in an apron.
And, what does one do with this thing you’ve said-
you, who were always the comic,
furthest from the dead.
Taken aback,
in slow shock I cup your hand-
not leading you to bed,
but into nightfall’s garden.
We sup on the strange swirl of universe.
Closets
I think of what the skin holds in,
what’s in the bone, alone.
The finds of the fingers that linger.
What’s unsaid beneath the teeth.
***
photo credit: https://openchurch.com/free-download/photo-of-womans-face-in-shadows-1004047/
Etchings
At times,
I am one for shrouds-
the fogs of morning,
the smokes of burnings,
squints through filmy windows.
Oh these private mysteries,
these fond imaginings-
Manet, Monet, Degas, Renoir.
I pick and choose.
I fetch,
in polaroids I etch.
***
[Image: https://pixabay.com/users/johnnyjohnson20430-812216/ ]
Jester
and this day has a nevermind feel
the soulful king is full of regret
~hands off~ he knows
watch those whispers
for they betray
the teabag tumbles
in morning mumbles
do not touch the lingering cat
he’s spiny
he’s moony
he knows, too
this boat floats with just a whistle
***
Back to back
Oh you,
by the window-
all metaphor and innuendo.
Granny fists at the ready
to cauliflower my ears,
to pummel my donkey resoluteness.
And I say Why Don’t You Make Me?
~More malleable~
***
Good intentions
Daguerreotype is the day,
ancient as I drive.
Beside me she is a ghost,
and I can’t speak to the veil-
the closed idiom of her soul.
Or
I am the ghost
and have simply lost the language
to this often-paved way.
***
They got into the car just the same, even though this was a frivolous trip. Even though she knew his silences sometimes lasted the whole way. Today, though, was a study in differentness. It was his averted eyes, his apparent focus on an imagined point just a few feet away or in the upside-down.
She moves to make small talk but it catches in her throat, knowing that it usually elicits impatience and forced responses, and fearing what it might bring today.
“Why did I make him go? What is wrong?”, she thinks. “I can’t stay quiet. I’m just not that person. No. Not alone, with only my own thoughts.”
They cruise, and he disinfects his hands at alternate stop signs. She pats his knee, leaves her hand there. A hundred, a thousand times this road has known them and been peppered with their tire treads.
“Nick, let’s go home, okay?”…in a voice more coquettish than pleading.
But he drives on, comes to the traffic lights which flash alarmingly as if cautioning against any further advance.
“What’s the way, Beth?”
“Nick, what’s wrong? You know the way.”
“Beth, I can’t. I’m sorry. You need to show me.”
And she cries.
Aremyfeetofftheground 