“Fee fi fo fum,”
Standing on stepping stones,
Overlooking the ocean.
Ancient and irregular,
Interlocking hexagons,
Standing shoulder-to-waist,
Crown-to-knee,
Washed by the sea.
Uneven scutes,
On a tortoise’s armor,
Lying on it’s belly,
Beached long ago,
Sacrificed in service,
Of those who watch the waves.
If I could bottle that feeling
You get when you hear a great song,
Or receive some friendly words,
Or find a five dollar bill-
That one that makes you gasp sometimes,
That one that gives you goosebumps,
That one that makes you blush and jump for joy-
Then I’d have to resolve myself,
With the simple truth,
That I could never get enough.
What stands today simply cannot stay-
And there is no way to delay, to hold at bay,
It will all sway, grey and flay,
Forests filled with life, are also forests of decay.
The oak that falls crushes what is underneath,
In a massive faltering apogee,
It opens up the canopy,
And gloriously atrophies.
We run the same race at different rates,
And have different faces, yet the same fate.
“The end is a conclusion,”
That seems to be a delusion,
The end is an illusion,
Or an allusion,
There is some confusion.
I need back-ups,
I.E. plans B through Z,
A fail-safe
For each stumbling block,
May sound unnecessary,
But mistakes,
Congregate in flocks,
And I’d rather be on the safe side,
Than caught in a landslide,
On the wayside.
Going without,
A direction in mind,
Is like running through a wildfire,
While drenched in kerosene,
And even though the situation is dire,
All you have to say is “eh, c’est la vie.”
A blank sheet of paper can say anything,
It can say many things,
But get one in the mail, and all you’ll have are questions.
“Caution! Contents may have shifted during flight.”
Good suggestion!
The tenuous letters may have slid off the paper,
Turbulence will do that, I think.
Turn the envelope upside down and shake with vigor,
Scoop them up and lay them out on a table,
You’ll need to rearrange them.
It’s been so long since I’ve gotten mail,
Now I make my own tall tales.
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.
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 