Category: Photo/Poem

In This Age

In this age of refracted reality
the magic pull of certain vagaries of truthiness
ensnarl, swirling flames and celestial gloom,
the state of permanent sleeplessness
hypnotized into confusion and wonder.

Not too scared, never outside your comfort zone,
a life of nothing more than sensation,
the bewitching bond of desire,
and a terrifying romantic nightmare,
conjure up worlds, present and beyond,
arresting speculations of unmitigated folly.

Lethargy and decisiveness of every single attenuated moment –
metal, bone, blood, ash,
fragments that  lack context,
relentlessly empty and ugly,
long centuries of ghosts woken from their sleep.

All that you have done compressed in the ocean
of sympathetic imagination.

It’s All in Her Eyes

It’s all in her eyes;

those blazing, wild eyes,
unbridled, impulsive,
seeing ten steps ahead
of her actions,
perpetual zap
through an endless
tunnel of thrill;

shearing through days,
no looking back,
unstoppable as a
rampaging herd;

with the charismatic force
of unimagined ecstasy,
that blurs
better judgement,

as she careens
in all directions
towards  the consequences
of the damned.

I Get Paid in Hugs

“I get paid in hugs.”

A tidbit I caught from the radio
before taking out the garbage.

It lingered, like an unwanted smell,
while I schlepped the trash barrel, recycling
bin and bundled newspapers to the curb.

Not the same way as
“Does a dog have the Buddha nature?

or
“The world is all that is the case.”

or
“Ineluctable modality of the visible:
at least that if no more, thought through my eyes.”

The hug payment afterimage remained
like a pebble in my shoe;
an irritant without apparent purpose.

The phone rang inside,
the dogs barked,
Bernie delivered the newspaper, and
my wife stuck her head out the window
reminding me to empty  the ashcan,

and I lost whatever was there a moment ago.

Not For Sure…

Not for sure I’m quite here yet,
spending time,
wasting time,
time seduced
by fireworks and frills,
lost,
nowhere;
distraction not being a place,
a detour, yes,
a movement smooth and effortless,
away from place and a time notched in meaning.

Too bad,
oh too bad this gong of presence is muffled
in imagined past, and future projection,
fueled by unctuous schemes and urgencies’ insistent barbs;
unanchored and drifting,
in the current of lost,
the waves of losing:
celebrations,
illuminations,
tactile evidence grounding presence in the world.

Waving the tattered flag of surrender,
a half-hearted life of neglect,
of discernment of porous beliefs,
of connections barren and uncultivated,
sometimes careless, often clueless
to the ever-changing interdependence,
registering spikes of false confidence,
convinced that
when things go south
it isn’t necessarily you.

Cyclone

A poem is a messy thing,
a curious joyride
of unfamiliarity.

Readers bring their carload of desire
to make sense of
its momentum and inertia.

Of course.

We were taught
by the well-intentioned,
who never rode a hurricane
and couldn’t feel its eye;
who preferred the morning edition,
comforted by the comprehensible,
friendly and familiar.

Thrill seeking
attention demands
surrendering the need
for prosaic answers
in service of
the deeper dive
of questions;

resting in the exhilaration
of not knowing.