Dreamscape

 

Dreamscape

 

From a distant place called life

Painted across a canvass of many years

Filled with days and years of many tones

Some hues are bright while others - so dark.

The range of images are clear and present

While many others are intriguing; indiscernible.

 

Stepping closer to the work - it is a lifetime

In scope and detail however, it is incomplete.

The quadrivium of perspectives, while simple,

Much too intricate to absorb instantly.

The nine enneads formed into a square;

Threes forming a canopy of trees.

 

Reaching out to touch the painting

There is no stillness – it is alive;

Expanding equally and exponentially

It is plain to see many unfilled and unfinished

Aspects of the art where it fades to rawness

Or is pale and faint to its age.

 

Now the old man enters without fanfare

And sits alone in quiet ponder

The painting moans in aches of birth

For the work pulsates in elaboration

The colors are vivid and vibrant

As his eyes close and become blind.

 

And a ship of fools and poetasters

Carry out the last feast to all that is verse

And sail against the adverse winds

To carry the old man’s canvass to its place at sea

Where the deep waters keep the mountains

That he loved so because they hold - the next horizon.

Dedicated to Yvette; who seeks to see and touch her canvass.

Why is Always Never

 

When did yesterday lose grip of always?

The things that were once - have stayed back

Barely visible through the melancholy haze

Of sentimental memories and fleeting glories;

Remaining huddled behind shadows of regret.

 

Why is yesterday never today?

Anymore than it will be a tomorrow,

Where always seems to run and run

Staying at just the distance

So to never become – always.

 

We see the geese at a great distance

And then, they are here

And gone for always

Until another time-

For another one to ask-

Why is always – never?

Vessels

While one contends

the source;

The other appends

It's course -

Always Away

 

 

Always

from ourselves we are drawn; way

Away

and when it is time to be on way

Away

to human frail and fail as gone - way

Always

seek where the sun's dawn is the only way.

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)