Waltzing with Shadows

 

If one questions what one believes -

Then that - that was believed is in question?

Or does doubt have little else to do

Then to palaver with opposition -

Only to discover that the reservations

Are simply rhetorical glimmers - it is their nature,

Never to understand the value nor the weight of one’s word.

If what one believes that standing right or wrong

Is not a pinnacle but merely a contrary position to hold

And be dismissed as simply an opposing seat

Holding peer judgement and sending verdict

Based strictly on inward coded strains of false depth

Superficially covered with old garments of arguments

Patched quilts to please custom, tradition or worse - ignorance?

Should change befall upon you unexpectedly

And upset your basket full of idioms.

Which euphemisms should be collected

To reset broken truths that were once believed.

Or will these notions remain static as a mountain range;

Or will they be a tomorrow like open sea

To the unknown where the Pequod chased the beast.

If one lives only at night where the stars are the past

Blinking their truth about an existence into this moment

Will you see only in the shades and tones of black?

Will the prevailing shadows be your chiaroscuro painting

Depicting only what the moonlight can hint at?

Will the shadows be your only reference of life without color

If the night is your world – must you live in sleep forever?

Should the sun be always at the pivot without night?

Will you then believe only what you can see clearly as real

And all imaginations be castaways beyond this static realm

Never changing - never moving - never turning – never day or night.

What cycle will you mark if nothing is passing nor settings nor rising?

Will the uniformity become a blend of same with no shame

Because everything and everyone is always the same?

If shadows that waltz across the cave walls were cast

There by a light being swallowed by the abyss within the black hole

And persistence was only necessary to peer into the darkness;

To stare into the abyss and all the while the abyss looks back

And whatever monster, whichever beast one wrestles 

One could become its lineament – a mirror reflecting back -

For what one sees is what one may become.

Poetry Garden

 

I made a poetry garden

To plan for poems to say

For there is so much to give

And calling old friends to play

Went hard cultivating poets

From back in the old days

When five flowers was all we had

But it didn’t matter much – it’s okay

There was an old paladin poet

Sitting at the gate in full cogitate

The mood was easy - no need for strain

If it’s open to just ruminate

I saw a rose by any other name

Sitting by herself showing stems with thorns

For beauty is only to see; it’s all just the same

Yellow, pink or red dress she adorns

Then came the old dog slammer

Friend of the old woods 

No one knew their hammer

Nor could we see they were user dudes

Their songs went fast and rhythmic

As the poetry party rose to a wayward lee

And love poems flowed into the garden

When the yellow tulips all stood to see

There was trouble in the garden party

For there came dandelions no one knew

They soon elaborated beyond meaning

And caused the place much ado

Oh me, oh my! – it’s just a poetry garden

It don’t matter much who is Queen

And there is no king flower

Bees and butterflies is the scene

Went to a garden party

Seeing who was there

And found only winter’s hand

Had taken its cold stare

And so, we play in the garden

Once again - once more

Poets come and lovers go

And the old poet is still lore.

(tribute to Ricky Nelson/Garden Party)

Calling Waters

The ease of flow in the waters -

Currents moving - cascading - falling;

Gently puddling, forming, gathering -

Hasten the beaconing waters: go beyond the edge.

Eddies where inertia swirls and turns into brooks

Streaming into rampaging rivers resounding

Beyond majesties and behemoths standing

Tall along the canyons and gorges.   

Skies that transform from delightful blue

Clear and clean while the air is sick and thickening.

Grays skies began boiling into a rage - threatening

While the future awaits in a distant queue.

Thunderbolts launch - slamming the heavy air!

Everyone with dreams of immortality praying

For emancipation from death’s calling…

The consuming quietness, a portent of destruction.

The winds of change take aim in full rage

Their intentions and power are demanding

Full annihilation of all life standing.

Long hours huddled inside a hole that is a soul.

A peaceful silence awakens the new dawn

As daylight’s gentle light is redeeming.

A full sunrise begins with blue birds singing:

Alive! – we are alive to rebuild a new world. 

The ease of flow in the waters rises

While the currents cascade into the falling.

Gentle forms gather at their puddling

Hastened by the beaconing waters: Seek the edge.

  

Wonder of a Mystery in Uniformity

 

Bring me that broken chalice

Along with your harbored malice

On this one day for foils and fools -

This noted first day for charm

And trickery and foolery sans harm.

What story, what mockery, which lore

Could be more incredible than this war

Of nonsense and ridiculous caveats

Wrapped in misinformation; tied with red ribbons

And sold by the fox of misgivings. 

So, tease away all that you see

Strip clean all values and sell them for a fee.

Put on your best brown uniform

Along with the black boots of repression.

Learn to salute with that vile arm extension. 

 

Become a true wonder of a mystery in uniformity

Bend and twist your self-worth into conformity! 

I’ll stand here between chaos and cohesiveness –

And resist the oceans and conquer the mountains

Not in silence but in harmony with freedom’s fountains.

Winter Scene

 

Intersecting shadows of forms and lines

Within a mind’s muse that invites allusion

Of profound legacies and fore divines

That one might know in seclusion. 

Of incredible views; moments

 Under the deepest blue canopy,

With degrees of radiant adornments

Casted on snowed fields sans panoply.

The incalculable signs lost to a mind

That fails and falls to his bane

For his thoughts race to find

A friendly face; a familiar voice - in vain.

An empty scene except for a sounding chime

The engaging piece in a peculiar diorama

Standing pointless without rhyme

While encompassing every panorama.

Nuance is a kind visitor – a long shadow

That trembles as it traverses the quietness

And stands alone along the narrow

Line of trees of an infinite wildness.

Circles and Spheres

Why do you wonder so;

    what is that path you seek;

where will that circling flow

end?    -     Upon a strong perch; or a meek

    edge at the abyss, outside the sphere?

How will you know there - is not here?

When - has no face; has no place.

    For only for a blink will time hold your ink.

Fitting Broken Pieces

 

Broken pieces that don't fit?

You say they don't- make sense?

It's a jigsaw puzzle to knit.

Otherwise - it is pretense.

A fractured painting

a perfect contradiction

The rhetoric has fainting

ideas that hint at redemption.

Herd the Madness

 

A meandering mind will soon enough find conformity -

and within that herd spreads a madness of uniformity

as the rails merge the obsequious fawns to fill the stalls

with kindred humans - listen, to silence of the calls.

See Me - See

 

I see only me

What genius I be.

Fools bend the knee

and ask to see

this - my anarchy.

(Image: Narcissus by Caravaggio)

(Image: Narcissus by Caravaggio)

A Raindrop

 

What is small wherever - ever is?

How is it that the universe Is found when one assumes the infinite

and too, understands the quantum degree that sets the essence of why a single raindrop,

upon a leaf, images of all things knowable and leap in wonder to the unknowable

in reflection of how one leaf is one of many on a branch and that each limb is one of many

upon a single tree – a tree found among multitudes of trees in the woods

and the woods are many places in a forest and the one forest is part of many landscapes

that sits below the mountains of one range and that belt across the highlands

that stand to drain the rain unto the rivers - byway of the endless rills, creeks and streams

that flows across the deltas to find a source. To form a loch; a kettle; a lagoon;

a lake of many bodies of life.  A tree of life that feeds the open land; that sustains

the prairies of grasses and that formed a fjord; an estuary that follows a gravitational course 

to join into a gulf that knows the secrets of the deep seas; immense oceans that hide the

continent’s deepness; that keep hidden the age of this single blue sphere - perceived to be

in solitude; a lone planet amongst the immense space that forms a universal family.

One member planet belonging to the sun’s tree.

A sun of many suns that create a humble galaxy – the Milky Way galaxy found in a family of

a cluster of galaxies.  All accounted for within the infinite tree that is found upon a single

tree of endless trees and all of it rests within a single spark of the unfathomable –

Everything held upon a single leaf - a singularity.

Everything one needs to know begins within a single raindrop.

A Moment in Haste

 

 

A Moment in Haste

 

The dormouse came to be

When beguiled by a notion

That what is temporary

Is too, infinite;

And said to the white knight,

“Make no haste

For the labyrinth has no taste”.

 

Impermanence is a canvass

That keeps no secrets

And understands that waste

Is left for the dullards

Who neither believe -

Nor think beyond the grey woods

That they harbor in.

 

Speak to me universe

That I may hear infinity;

That I may understand the end

Of an event horizon

And that I may grasp

The voice of chaos

Explain human pathos.

Dreams in Good Form

This shape came upon view

A ship of antiquity

Silent - as a prayer’s felicity.

An object appearing new

Yet, the illusion was untrue

Afloat upon incarnadine sea

As the winds wailed against the lee.

Euripides scripts the tragedies

Telling of skeletons and scree

Of plays in poetry and degree,

Schemas and sense of geometry.

Dreams with vespertilian wings.

The bat in the belfry sings

While Euclid’s hand defines

The conforms and the confines

Where universal lines

Are undistinguished through time

And the good ship hauls away all rhymes.

(image AI-generated)