Tag Archives: imagery

Plummet

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Like a flying squirrel that barrels down from its perch in the spruce,
limbs outstretched to maneuver the route.
Or a frog sitting pond-side, croaking then hops,
extending its haunches, an arc then kerplop.
A paper airplane from the rafters, lofted on air,
glides downward in spirals – a no assistance affair.
The mighty blue whale swims along as it sings,
I wander my world, and I ponder these things
with no such breaching to remark on my way.
Some landings are harsh with a huge debt to pay.

But the ease of the motion, the faith in the flight,
and the jump into deepness with the floor so benighted.
That gravity holds so much in its hands,
or lets as much go as we give way our stance
from a limb or a high point in a precipitous fall.
The squirrel nor the frog or the whale know at all
how the glide of the plane comes in for a landing.
Yet I know that I move in ways far less demanding,
with not so much height or a flight on a good day.
The landing is harsh, with a huge debt to pay.

The meaning of color

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Color me up to the edges of my outline in thatches of crayon strokes; bits of ochre, fern and midnight blue.

Rarely will I bleed ink on the pages, but mostly to my fingertips, black and blue from pressure on the quill.

Means are geometric for non-normal distributions. A gathering blue that peaks then tails into infinity.

Anything that rarely happens once is blue, like the synodic moon to achieve its baker’s dozen dominance.

But in the context of other palettes, blue marks the calmness

Love brings to the spirit.

Encased

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In my personal shadow-box are many treasures and perhaps some rocks, toys and memories from my past, and in the shadow-box, they last.

From my pocket to the side, I pulled a pinch of something ossified, what once may have been from a wound debrided. It’s simply a pebble, I’ve now decided.  

A marble, glassy, green and blue, from a collection of many I had and threw around the playground tree at school, collecting spoils for keeps like jewels.

His gun raised up high, a green plastic soldier from a platoon of recruits that I had as I was older. Despite the difference in my age and size, I never developed a loud battle-cry.

A tiny, tyrannosaurus rex, a figurine without a sex, insignias on patches and badges – but none of them jog my memory with matches.

A matchbox car painted apple-red, with opening doors and the letter zed on the hood. Don’t ask me why it’s there, I’m not sure I could.

An old pocket watch that no longer tells time, I’m grateful to all that had passed in its prime, next to a heart made from elastic and beads, stretchy and tactile and has met all my needs.

A rounded, polished piece of quartz made from tumbling, now distorts lines and letters like mumbling. This shadow box where these trinkets have graced, all the while keeping my memories encased.

Opening

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A shrieking blue jay sounds a turning point.
The day might be too long.
Cardinals perch in boxwood sacs, 
reminding me of those now gone.

I've skirted 'round an earthen hole,
peering to the bottom.  
Dirt and pebbles slip from my steps
and down into the dark and glum.

Choristers pause, holding a note
that pierces incense smoke.
The carillons ring out the hour
and half a prayer's invoked.

Is this how changes snap and tear
when events go awry?
a grinding crevice in the ground? 
a ripped seam in the sky?

Careful plots, with no solid facts
are awfully mistook,
our hero left with no recourse
but to rely upon a hook.

A shrieking blue jay sounds a turning point.
The day might be too long.
Cardinals perch, reminding me 
of people that are gone.

Opalescence

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A jellyfish cloud drifted in the sky

propelling itself hither and nigh.

The type of motions that mesmerize,

whilst I woolgather time in the ocean wide.

A rabbit perched upon some pillow fluff,

awaiting a moment to jump, and not to muff-

then disappear inside a hole in a huff.

(All this I’ll imagine soon enough.)

And later, the sky I watched was flattened and grey.

A canvas without texture on a humid summer’s day

settled in to remove my imaginative display.

And the daydreams diverted down and away.

The shades of green caught now in my sight,

Jagged lines on the edge of the canvas’ chalk-white.

whispering connections to the last vestiges of light.

And the opalescence of dreams settled in for the night.

Driving into Lascassas after midnight

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Driving into Lascassas after midnight, when only the ghosts walk.

The glint of streetlights launches from the pavement,

a blank page to capture dreams

and past countenances in the moonlight.

The words you speak echo in the night and pass through blinking traffic lights;

As poems create themselves in flight.

Not like arriving at LaGuardia on a Sunday afternoon,

with its hallways filled with a thousand stories at every turn.

There is a rush and jumble to this world,

only small pockets of stillness swirl

to float a verse into the air.

Most often colliding in the face of a hurried elsewhere.

Almost never staying free and clear,

like driving through Lascassas after midnight

with soundless ghosts and streetlight glare.

Rabbit

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The sky was pallid, lacking device.

My ambition was weedy and my aims imprecise.

I walked near a garden while out on a stroll.

My mind in a spin that was out of control.

When a rabbit darted from beneath the hedge-row yew

out onto the pavement and pondered askew.

It paused just enough to acknowledge my glance

then hurried away in a leap and a prance.

My eyes then diverted to a swelling of phlox,

purple and white, and crept over rocks.

Opportunistic, these flowers that crawl

slow and indifferent of their beauty and sprawl.

A shelter for insects, this bloom carpet sum

covered terrain in a besetment of rhumbs.

The rabbit returned, hopped in a straight line,

I stood there connecting the points to design.

What wonder is here. What mystery there.

The path to discovery does not compare

the direction, the lines that we draw are just that.

Drawn from perspective, our own charted plat.

The rabbit now vanished, my lunch hour spent,

I returned to my workday with a poet’s intent.

A Christmas Card

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Paper greetings, printed in opaque black,
swirled with ochre tones – and embossed
with tinsel and glare.

The serenity of straw and stable,
low station and artless beginnings-
in the midst of majestic creations.

Or how the mystery of snowfall
obscures the road ahead, yet in stillness
illustrates continuum beauty where we are led.

The green wreath, the evergreen bough-
decked in ribbon – tinged with gold
and captures glimmer and snow alike, somehow.

See the carolers, their faces
reddened in winter’s callous air –
mouths agape with our imagined joyful song and prayer.

In the bleak midwinter,
Snow lay all around, stars shown bright-
then pealed the bells more loud and clear,
Merry Christmas, Noel, this silent night.

eau

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a fragrant voice,
a merging sound
to gather yellow, red and crowned

in a glottal stop
between the soundings
of the clock.

in a fashion, step
betwixt the puddle
stones and ripples, mixed.

lovers with their grasping hands-
arose, then reached at its command
and cleaved the blood-pricked
thorn, alone

in silence
and in clamored tones.

Concomitant

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There is a slight twinkle
near the sun, and it brings a magic notion
down to one. There is a water droplet
near the stream, and it doesn’t bother
or even seem to care if it’s apart-
the teeming, rushing flow reprieves.
A single green leaf among the red and golden sheaves
and fading starlight, tropes in morning dark.
Waving grasses, stand in endless fields
beneath the doleful skies of clouds with daylight, now concealed.
Wisps of raven hair that battle with the breeze,
as eyes (that smile) seek out the day’s reprise.
And this, a thought to consort with the one,
the charm that twinkled with the sun.