In the same in vain, insane vein as the hanging gardens of Babylon,
Can you call that which hides the sky a “worldwide wonder?”
What’s more glorious, the grounds they fought their battles on,
Or the shroud the king in power cowered in the tower under?
Selfish is the radiance-hoarder,
Unbounded bouncing element resonates,
Through the sphere of the sunshine recorder,
Upon its crux the particle detonates.
Lucid luminescence has primal appeal,
In a world of constant flux,
Like an old zoetrope, spinning like a pinwheel,
Unfettered, unfocused, a coliseum of lux.
A balance must be struck between the two reciprocals,
A cavalcade of color that leaves an impression,
A spectral speckle spectacle; a rainbow flicker-festival,
A kaleidoscope held up to your eye for another session.
I slouched on the couch, as she rose and fell on my chest with my breath.
We were groggy in the dim den. The switched-off cable box read “11:27″ in white hyphens.
I ran my thumb over the hole in my pant leg, when she grabbed my arm and stopped me,
“Do you have any coffee?”
“Yeah I do, want me to make some?”
“Yes please.”
I stood and stretched. She sat up, then lie flat and relaxed like a napping cat.
She wore gray sweatpants and a tank top, her hair was in a tidy samurai bun and she wore no makeup.
“Wake up!” I said in jest, her eyebrows jerked and perked.
She stood and followed me forward.
“You know the wallpaper’s peeling over there” she said, pointing at the seam where the wood-paneling ended in the foyer. It curled in some places and bubbled in others.
“This isn’t my house, I just live here.”
“It looks bad,” she said.
I shrugged.
We walked into the kitchen; I loaded the ground grains into the french press and boiled some water.
She slid her chair out from under the table, and ignored the wobble it made until it settled back into equilibrium.
I pressed firmly on the piston.
“How do you like yours?”
“Can I have a little milk and like two spoonfuls of sugar, please?”
“Of course,” I said pulling a mug from the cupboard. It was glossy white and boxlike, with a square-shaped handle on its flank.
I let the mixture steep.
“Why two sugars particularly?”
“One isn’t enough, three is too many.”
The Colombian roast had a strong, robust smell. The kind that reminds you why people drink coffee in the first place.
The stream of hot liquid from the jug made a prolonged plopping noise as it occupied the mug.
Once more I reached into the cupboard.
“Isn’t that broken,” she asked as my hand emerged.
“That’s news to me,” I said examining the cup. Sure enough, it had a chip on its side the size of a dime.
I turned and filled it with black coffee.
None sloshed onto my hand. None spilled onto the floor.
“It’s not that broken.”
I joined her at the table.
“I could easily get you a new one you know,” she said leaning foward.
“I’d love that!”
She shot to attention, back straight up against the chair, owl eyes fixed forward.
“Really?”
“I’m not one to look a gift horse in the mouth,” I said.
The chair tipped and bumped the ground with its lopsided leg, then slid back and to the left. She ran to grab her coat and scarf
“I’d still use this one anyway,” I announced over her mad dash.
“Why,” she asked, bundled up and out of breath.
“Because it’s okay.”
A shadow is present because of its absence,
Isn’t that inside-out?
Yet empty space is where one finds all existence,
We are always within without,
Nothing to write home about.
Who’s there?
Who cares?
We fit into these impressions,
Despite asking those questions.
Records get scratches,
Locks have latches,
All that matters is mass and volume,
You wouldn’t be there if there was no room,
And you wouldn’t be you if you were naught.
With each additional option,
We see liberation,
But practice caution.
Each consequence with direct causation,
On the results of the action-auction.
Personal persuasion,
Is a zero-sum game,
A perfectly balanced equation.
There is no evasion,
Protesting makes you more tame,
Each strike leaves an abrasion.
Like sipping fine wine from a Klein stein,
That leads you astray, away, aside,
Where you reside on the incline,
And slide back inside.
When you pass time, and things have passed you by-
You hesitate to say that “time flies.”
When you look up, it’s the same sky,
then one moment it’s February, the next it’s July,
then summer’s almost over,
then the leaves have died.
Sit when you sit, run when you run,
Think not of snow when standing in the sun,
fear no sharks when you swim in the ocean,
and don’t hit the brakes if you’re looking for momentum.
The world whirls at its own pace, and does not mask this,
in this we are hapless.
Like it or not, it spins on its axis,
and you are not Atlas.
Make the best of this game of chess,
It takes finesse not to obsess,
It makes a mess to regress-
When you compress your experience,
you end up with less.
The swing-set that squeaks and squeals due to shear-force in the sanguine summer schoolyard,
The oscillating fan that is ostensibly an orbiting oasis in the warm weather,
The trills and triads the trickle plays when traipsing through its trapeze act to tap on a rock face.
These are minutiae, minute moments made of monuments to each momentous minute.
I hear them outside, and this I know
The windows show a light-grey glow.
The yard was drizzle-dusted in a dancing, daylight daze,
Yet the sun’s rays poked through the rainy day’s haze.
The robins ranted and babbled by the crabapples,
While they foraged amongst the twigs and gravel.
I hear them now, while I stand in the sun room-
And I know that in time, all will come to bloom.
The wind whips and whisks the wisps,
Casting out cloudy skies
and spreading a crisp, brisk mist,
This too I know is true,
When I stand in the sunroom.
The File Pile 