Away

 

Through it all – time was kept present

Always with roaming questions

That slipped away in a minuet of eights.

The flutes and the strings being the voices

That whispered away all his thoughts.

And, like magic, exist behind the black curtains

Of silken weave; dancing and flowing 

Flowing and dancing away with all reason.

On another day he was found wondering

Around in his mind – looking for the look

That sets his view into a glass bubble,

Turning and whirling away from the walls of reality.

Alas, a gray brume appears; arising

From the river’s edge – setting a point 

Between the fire’s dying embers and the mist.

The epistle burns as he waits in mad rhapsody

as it slowly overwhelms clarity.

Why must it always mean away?

Away from what; away from when?

The time to here always had another way!

Another path; another choice –

Another thing that was lost or left behind.

The rich paints on canvass are fading away –

Slowly losing their palette 

The layered and lush colors so distinct

Now seem less clear, less certain – less.

The candlelight matters most in the end.  

Meanderings in Ramble

 

 

Suisan Littlentall soared

higher and higher

well beyond the hellenized hang.

“Tis not flames of the fire that I desire”

 

And thus, she broke free

with her ancient and broken wings.

Suisan soared to heaven’s palace

spinning in divine circular dreams

 

threading her thoughts

from the fire’s freedom

to enliven the torments of truth.

Oust at the fire’s fringed kingdom

 

the fire’s lips speak for the flame

flowing with tormented truths

sitting quietly; a penumbra of terror

reflections on mesmerizing couths

 

that are of an ancient mind;

a frontier of mellowing euphony

while the whispering smoke lilts

gently away with a forgiving eulogy

 

as the apotheosis of ruin

speak of the utter urgencies

to survive; to succumb

to the threads of truth’s agencies

 

that weave lines into the past

while pondering if there is still time

never minding the authenticity

of the moment nor its rhyme.

 

Suisan lifts higher and higher

a flyer soaring up like symphonies

throughout the circular divinities;

a liberation from life’s cacophonies

 

gliding freely into the maelstrom

where the tendrils of thought

become mobius strips of strangeness

whimsical wonderings without ought

 

two-dimensional paths without end

open lanes and byways going sideways

sliding off to the other side of sanity

rambling through the rabble of days

  

a rebel gallivanting the grounds of a labyrinth

seeking to find pupils for her pedestal

before the tentacles of doubt

shackle the poet, Suisan Littlentall.

 

Save thyself from thyself

sweet Suisan – forsake all entanglements

be not forgotten; believe not thy thoughts

before the manacles of madness fetter thy moments.

 

 

Poem for April's Fool

 

 

Meridith, the muse that thrives in the gardens of poetry

Calls away Angst, an old poet master, from slipping into silence

As he meditates into the deep seas of ubiquity.

 

“Speak poet - hold not your heart in reticence

For the waltzing shadows of time frighten the white rabbit

Back into its black hole of imaginary nonsense!”

 

“I will speak when the common guard of habit

Ceases to hail the weird cats of uniformity

And all haikus taken explain the meanings of the Abbot.

 

For all questions are fashioned in the reply of simplicity;

And therefore, we all are sentenced to our words,

To our songs. Remember, April’s poetry is not for the sake of complexity.

 

Instead, verse is within the implications of the red roses or the bloody swords!

All submissions are Moloch’s choice to either embrangle or to liberate

From utter irrelevancy or held to be supreme lords.”

 

After some weigh, Meredith mused whether the poet would abnegate:

“Poet, of old, would you rather slip away in a silent refrain

Rather than answer the paroxysms of rejection and love’s desquamate?”

 

“’Tis not my journey to find joy nor to abstain from pain.

No, indeed, it is because of my fascination with the fulcrum’s sway

Between refinement of pleasures and the perils of fame

 

My songs are lyrical rhymes; my morphemes formed in a simple way

Explaining how the kinesthetics of the mind capture the universe

When it speaks to the mind – it is a desideratum’s journey, every day.

The Question is the Reply

 

 

When the storm is dangerously calm

The birds and the beasts react in a sense

As they do when a predator hovers across the sky

Or the lion’s stilled intention is at hence.

 

The air is saturated with the chemistry of fear.

Cortisol heightens the will to survive

And the internal alarms are set off to high

As pails pour out the adrenaline to keep alive.

 

Listen especially when the day is strangely quiet.

Notice that the sun has no shadows to measure

And that the shapeless clouds linger the day.

Ask why Arcadian tulips appear to be a colorless nature.

 

The universe is the totality of emptiness

Interrupted by the light of creation

And time is given a meaning without limit;

Expansion by cosmic inflation!

 

Will existence fall upon its own weight;

Has humanity accelerated its passing end?

At the sacrifice of all available resources;

Will societies and cultures offend?

  

In the delicate balance between need and want:

Will human inflation become the fatal demise?

Nature abhors a stasis; stagnation summons change.

Will expanding intelligence be an inflationary force to realize?

 

The compromise seems left to poets and rebels

To insist on the questions and not accept the politician’s lie.

Humanity’s new crutch is finding an artificial wonder

To ask, to answer and to store the reply.

 

The moment is absorbed in silence

Reframing by category and assignment.

A given truth is in the dying of the light

For truth is a reluctant lover waiting for change’s enticement.

Agonizing with Morphemes

Agonizing with Morphemes

 

All was good when trans was with port

And there were no problems whatsoever

When a trans was connected to verse.

 

Meanings were of little problem

Until transgenerational trauma

Proposed the transformation of a curse,

Of a tragedy, of a catastrophe through the eras

And shared across communities, societies, cultures

and families -

Is it Inherited pain; absorbed guilt;

or is it found in acidic blood legacies?

 

Pieces of history written with elemental components

Of language using small parts and pieces

found in any word shed – an agonizing morpheme to learn.

 

To transport is to carry oneself or something forth

Nothing to argue with here.

However, to transpire is to end or to go on – develop

a reasonable contranym.

Either word has a fundamental meaning.

 

Translation of transaction, transfer and transmit

all simple ways to submit or remit from any exchange.

 

What transit is needed to transfigure or to transmogrify

A lump of clay into a scientist or into an outer-space alienist?

Perhaps a transistor to resist all transhuman transmissions?

 

The question is elemental, Dr. Watson.

The keys are found in the morphemes

And the answers will beget a family of memes.

 

The transcript does not include – nor it entertain

The identity of a transgender being.

Nor will it consort in the intercourse

Of transsexual persistence.

Instead take the morphine or drug of choice;

The translations are in the omens of transition

and are channeled into omissions that satisfy

individual transfigurations.

Ode to Pentameter

 

Sitting down to write a verse

Requires a gifted leading line

Perhaps a stunning last curse

To upset the good gentry’s - define.

Signs of weathering days in tumult and turmoil

While keeping hope alive;

Unbridled joy at the snake’s uncoil

Using dissonance and assonance to dive.

Alive into day twenty-seven of the ride

Away from the chaos and troubling change

The rhyme is a riddle; the meter is a foot and glide

What is iambic whimsical satire – how strange.

To arrange a thought inside the buzzing hive

Must find how the trochaic pace is a da-dum

A sound within a sound makes nuanced jive

The head page is all in a rage: red-rum redrum.

Drums that beat out in a cacophony 

Scatter the notes like unhinged words

A tornadic occasion before the euphony

Quiets the warrior poets and their swords.

   

Left to the Stage

 

Left to the Stage

 

Flying into the Square

well after the winterfylleth

has ceded to the greening snake

awakenings -

As blossoms of sweetness

yellow and red tulips

offering fertile pistils.

 

The walk to the cobblestone road

by way of the rainbow steps

and on to the Grand Old Dame of the Opera.

There is a stage with starlight there

to the left

where the dormouse feeds your head

with good vibes for the night

playing with the stars in delight.

 

The rabbits were all there

gathered sitting together

a fluffle in a ruffle

as one.

 

Standing tall

with a long sheet of crafted words

laid down with pace and beat –

Thoughts and verse

flying around in murmurations

of style and movement into the air.

 

There was a gentle poet

with a child on his mind

troubled or afraid – still

in the poem.

Oh, so good!

 

Poetry words work to calm

the soul

and silence

all ruckus away from the opening

beyond the fabled rabbit holes

of the rock-land labyrinth.

 

There were the songbirds

playing their strings

folks singing folk

and ballads of life

in humor; in love

and of the fire

within the cold stones

that keep away the sparks

of flight or fight

for eagles must take to the air

when there is survival

at stake.

 

The young doe left a story

of trepidations and trials

with her fawn so precocious

and audacious

a teen of four

all clichés applied

however, more than a charm

and with plenty of wit.

 

As with all good things

there is an end

when there is no audience left

all is done at the Stage

the lights dim

and the door closes.

 

Remember Mother

she owns all the seasons

and she has all her own reasons.

Rabbit Rabbit

 

Rabbit-rabbit. Where is my soul

Is it cold in that graven hole

Or is there an uplifting tale

To be told.

 

When the hare runs into the maze;

The labyrinth of craze -

Will there be a magical totem

With linear strings – unfazed.

 

The vortex in the hollow,

That of mankind’s shallow,

Will the revving mind and manic geste

Serve as a pretended halo?

 

The way out is the way in

There are wonders in the scene

And pastures with casted rainbows

Where the pawns protect the Queen.

  

Come as you are Mr. Rogue

Down the roads prorogue;

To hesitate is to be late

And is irrelevant ideologue.

  

Answer the questions out of habit

With cues that hint of the white rabbit

Asking: “Why did you leave;

were you going to meet the Abbot?”

 

For those who wear clothes of ritual

Also carry prayers that fend any residual

Perdition or castigations against ‘elf

And serves communion as a victual.

Sliping into Silence

 

In that place of noise and ruckus

Where the cyclops wears two heads

Each one sits in the opposite view

And responds to agitations on cue

Because the cause is not in focus.

 

In the realm of chaos arises the caustic threads

Of dissension, distortion and disproportion.

Step in; step out of the excursion and blaring alarms

The River Styx awaits the fools with charms;

Charon, the Ferryman, rips all return tickets to shreds.

 

Smell the ardor; breathe in the scent of apprehension

Slipping into the silence will overwhelm all dementia.

All the words; all the curses; all damnations will cease

In the realm of silence – will be mauna vrata to sit in peace.

The art of silence is the act of total cessation.

 

Nine circles of the inferno are the pathway to dystopia

From fires of treachery to the soothing fountains of limbo.

The guide is blind; the silent shepherd is your mind.

Quench the manias; set down anger and distress; find

In the wisdom of silence – that there is a brief scene of utopia.

 

Paso El Papa

 

To arise for Sunday morning blessings 

Papa, the shepherd, went out to the fields

Leaving his garments behind in their fold.

A simple wooden ship will carry him

On his quiet journey through eternity.

Fourscore and eight Easter’s had ascended.

And now, this mass will be the last farewell

A last prayer painted in aquarelle.

Jorge and Francis will walk for the poor

And heaven’s gates will welcome the humble

Provide sanctuary for the weakest

The homeless, the besieged, the immigrant.

For the boy, the man, the priest and a Pope

Will speak of peace and of goodwill for all.

And now, his rosary of gentleness

Will be remembered as his blessedness.

 

 

 

 

Taking the Haiku - There

 

 

How odd is the pair

which one has the even leg;

Bilaterians?

 

If in symmetry

where is the opposition

when there is movement?

 

When in harmony

is there syntax in labyrinth

between child and old?

 

is there a threshold

at epistemology

or analogy;

 

is entanglement

what is in the empty vase

or is it the vase

 

of this metaphor

annihilation; free of

perverted nonsense?

 

The kid with quests -rests

when the old man closed his mind;

heaven is in rage!

Swimming in the Waters of Ubiquity

 

 

To wade into the waters of ubiquity

can be the cost and the reward

of swimming beyond the safe shore.

 

For treasures are hidden deep

and the rigors of the sea

demand stamina and patience.

 

There are lessons to be learned

and trials to be won - for everything

there is a moment of stillness

to allow the universe its time

to bring and remove all ambiguity.

 

From the darkness was begot light

And within that light –

is found a deepness;

a spark that defines

the silence,

the empty,

the unknown

and the hope for endless sight.