Virtual Appearances

 

Why is there a brave little toaster sitting along the way?

Looking quite sad and lying askance upon the snowy curbside;

Was there a burnt misunderstanding that popped into dismay

Between the slices at the Manor Burnside?

 Who can say which side won the buttered fray?

 

A picture frame that might have once held a special place

Now sits alone and deserted upon that odd driveway -

Might the story, left untold, involve a loss of face

Or perhaps, it is simply a mishap left behind on a snowy day

Never making the trip; never to be a gift wrapped in paper and lace?

 

Stranger things have happened this long year

Where humanity isolated and made resolute to be in stasis

And all sense and degree of normalcy is masked behind a fear

That human connections of tenderness could be the basis

Where disembodied friends and family now wait - in a virtual appear.   

Roads of Ill

 

Roads of Ill

 

What turn; what diversion – what way

Have we made that brings us to this day?

When the better part of all

Is one that does not call

To nearness; nor offers weirdness

Along the roads of ill

Strewn in carrions of kill.

 

What is this place of strange nests?

Where tubes and blips speak of rests

That hold care and love in isolation

So that breath is not immolation

Of limb, life, and - civilization.

And so, the circle, the center, the point

Are One - that cannot self-anoint. 

  

Endless Winter

 

The narrowing days consume the aperture’s light

As winter’s hands dress the warm soil in blankets of white

And too, summer’s passions flicker away into the last embers

Before a frigid grasp claims foolish lovers; lost and not at home

Safe, in golden slumber; awaiting the sweet songs of spring’s rite

That gainsay a death’s epilogue and ease the peril one remembers:

How the isolation and regeneration grasses of brome

Swayed and soothed away an endless winter’s night.

 

 

Falling King on a Snowy Evening

 

 

Falling King on a Snowy Evening

 

And horse’s move seems so queer.

The Queen’s subtle glance confirms the end is near.

The King is naked standing by frozen lake.

The checkmate will set at last – the ending year.

 

The King’s crown tilts; his eyes shake.

The Queen attacks the weaken mistake.

Taking pieces with a first rank sweep.

The King falls upon glory’s flake.

 

The chessboard is lovely, dark and deep,

And now, I must attend promises to keep,

The castle’s floors must be swept before I sleep,

And dishes washed before I sleep.

Synapse

 

S Y N A P S E

 

As it happens

A first blink in the synapse

Begins three moments

A trilogy forming ovum.

 

As it happens

In trimensions

A second binary Blink

Blends the homogeneity of empty space

 

Such as chaos of expanding;

Contracting existence -

A tertiary Blink

Meanings of light

Cascades in isotropic wends.

 

As it happens

The ovule Blinks

In the synapse

A muse contends

 

Her wands as brushes;

Paints as music-

The interlocution

Is isolated by survival.

 

As it happens:

Blink into plasmatic

Oceans of luteous forms

Changing and evolving spectrums

 

From flavous to blue; to pink; to swallow

The muse whirls and spins her vaulted universe

To save a way

And breath for one more day.

 

 

 

 Written for Old Court House Art Center Exhibit - As it Happens

by Bert Leveille "Synapse"

https://vimeo.com/showcase/7795629 

Synapse

"As It Happens" Gallery Installation (Now thru December 31st)

https://www.atrociouspoets.com/

Trial and Trail of a Pretender

The trial and trail seemed purposeful yet, his feet walked mindlessly along

while he dwelt upon the detours of all his good intentions.

 

For the toils of beauty are not equal nor just -

 

It is a vindictive enemy -

the more you resist the more insistent it becomes - demanding full fare for your life

and this, for many is not as much of a question - as it is a promise to some destiny at the next stop.

 

He became less his ideas and more the ambitions reflected by his place, his status, his money,

his friends, his haughty collections but mostly, he was a myriad of all his doubts and insecurities.

And, in the end, even the mirror could not recognize him.

 

That gifted box sitting in the closet -

contains all the compliments, real and perceived, he once numbered.

And the box wrappings with all the blossomy ribbons?

Those are the self-denials to himself as the best possible ornament. 

A Fire in Tercet

Virgil’s question, “What fears - thee

When the garden is in plea

For a bee to rest upon thy breast?”

 

I dread the beast’s silent quest

And too; when words will not rest

To fill upon a line nor form into a page.

 

Virgil’s question, “Is this a poet sage

Or a fanciful lunatic in a rage

Waiting for flowers to blossom?”

 

Neither winsome face made handsome

Or plain; shall keep sins hidden behind loathsome.

Waiting to wait - a loud adore; or the quiet abhor!

 

Virgil’s question, “Is the door on fire

With flames that create an empire;

Or is it merely a pyre – laid deep with fears?”  

  

Castings at the Fringe

If you were there at the place

where the moon sits

And if I were here at the edges of its beams,

crossing distances of time and space,

would we be casted in shadow splits;

Together as one at the fringes of existence?

(photo by Johnna Calvillo)

A Path Not In Vain

The path's veins
Bleed Light
And nothing lives in vain.

I Can't Breathe

I Can't Breathe

November ‘63; a bullet explodes

Filled with bad odes

Blood fills a titular head -

A frame too sad.

The news freezes all

And too, I can’t breathe.

Cities implode into a churn

As the song pleads, "burn, baby, burn!".

The dogs growl at the bridge

And police hold the ridge

Against a minister’s prayer call

Of a dream where all can breathe.

Brother Robert teaches hope

And then, an LA interlope

Stills Camelot’s last gasp.

Another favorite son will lapse

And, the Summer of Love will fall;

Napalm is in the air; we can’t breathe.

Young men drafted - abide

The country's outrageous ride

Into a false war's reason;

Soon, too many sons lost to a country's treason.

Students shot at campus mall;

She cried “he can’t breathe!”.

In a faraway place of ancient origins

Revolution is in the air against Americans.

Iranian students despise Western ways

Holding embassy hostages in secret stays

Insisting for a Shah’s royal pall

As the clerics claim, “We may soon breathe”

A man lurking about at the Dakota.

Imagine - John ending a sixties’ coda?

In Houston, one good heart replaces a failing one.

In LA, Rodney is beaten and killed by justice’s wand.

In Texas, David takes seventy-five into fires enthrall.

Poets and songwriters tell of a turgid air - we can’t breathe.

A quiet September morning sit two towers

As the life of a city awakens to last hours

Before hate strikes at the twin emblems of the free

And suddenly - their collapse kills all lost in flee!

Mongers of fear bite at the nation’s throat with deadly appall;

The ribs of the towers swirl with toxicity; no one can breathe.

Three men of justice stand on a man’s neck.

Perry pleads for his life not to be taken in check

And, his black color assures that he will never be set free

From the knee of injustice; and he pleads for his momma to see.

What is one more life when black is the voice that calls?

“I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe”  -  And now, we gather to breathe.

The Last Couplet

The Last Couplet 

Feted and decorous jesters of spoken sound 

Gathered a circle of romantics into a round 

To initiate their exiguous songs 

Crumpled into verse, sonnet; all sort of doggerel wrongs 

Written and sung with plaintive tone so to disabuse 

The objective of the critic’s tongue of stinging refuse 

Flavored bitters and morsels of disfavor and condemnation 

Offered as the last course - at the table of predation.

A Man and Door Perception

It’s an old door now with longing splinters.
The frame it hangs on has seen hard winters.
The key that unlocks it from dogged ways
Has been lost, misplaced like so many days.


Perhaps forgotten or traded for dreams
The story? Doesn’t really matter - seems.
The portal views are cracked and unclear
Do not see too well; it's fine no one near

To hear the rusty hinges groan and creak;
Telling stories of good years left to speak.
Door is a bit swollen and hard to close
Or open; doesn’t matter, no one knows:

  Why the door sits at the cave’s perception -
  Neither agape nor refused - to inception.