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new stuff
"minimal me"
I am learning my lessons well. Reflected in ancient tidal pools I see how shallow I am. The numberless stars say I do not count for much. The September moon casts sharp pine shadows across my brow. It is so far above me. Dolphins smile, knowing they are superior beings. Eyeing me, they dive deep, demonstrating I do not see beneath the surface of things. Even the sand fleas make me twitch like a puppet. Nature teaches. To be free, I must be free of me. To make sure I understand. It plans to kill me. |
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Asta!! |
To some, this may sound like badgering, but I think you'll understand because of the conversation we had earlier. I read this with a mock british accent in my head for some reason. This made a few lines stick out awkwardly... it's hard to keep the flow and tense going smoothly, but each line speaks clearly for itself. Message delivered.
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Appreciate yourself
Appreciate your surroundings In the end we are all one & individual A paradox Empathy Good one, art |
im depressed now :). fantastic writing. i like the visualisations i get when i read it. please post more :)
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Thanks,
Yes. I do think it sounds better without the English accent ;) OK. This next one is similar but even more loose in its construction. (Please see next post) |
"I am old and I will die one day"
I am old and I will die one day So I thought it was time I came clean. I gained enlightenment at an early age. I lived a so-called “normal life” with this knowledge So that you would believe me when I decided to reveal all As I am now doing. It’s not comforting to know Hearing this will not set you free. Freedom is not for us in this life. We cannot be other than we are. We pass our time with useless things As if we live forever. It’s our bodies doing this. Our minds know very well we die. But our bodies refuse to hear of it. Our bodies desire the useless things. We go about our days in service to these dumb limbs Serving them endless amounts of what they desire But does not sustain them Making them as comfortable as possible, as they demand it Because they refuse to accept they will die. Our brilliant minds are filled with petty annoyance. That’s our lazy bodies talking Constantly forcing us to confront ourselves in mirrors So we can see the damage we’re doing. And while we know love is the answer, We are faced with the hard fact We can only be loved to the degree we love ourselves. And we do not love ourselves. We are our bodies. And because they are such stupid brutes They are utterly unlovable. I am good looking enough to know looks are worth nothing And wealthy enough to have figured out it has no value. I am intelligent and know I can never be smart enough. I see far enough to see an end. Enlightenment is like these things. Once it is yours you see right through it. And you know Like everything else It is nothing at all. The secret of life is life. We all possess it for a while. I am old and I will die. It's time to say the things I've said. I am old and I will die. You’ll know it then. I was already dead. |
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my chills' chills have chills, art. now i know without doubt that a theory is definatly right. we are all connected, you just touched my soul, dude. something that only a very few select precious souls can do. this made me laugh... not in a funny way. when i have clarity or when something works i just feel alive and i laugh a deep, deep belly laugh. wow. my whole time on tfp was worth it for this one passage. Thanks, Art. thanks a lot. |
Thanks you, Z.
That means a lot to me. |
I was already dead... What a great way to end a great poem...Glad to see you in the lit forum.
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You have immense talent Art, but if I wasn't a regular reader of your journal, I'd be spooked.
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DD, undertstood.
I'd scare myself if I didn't see the humor in it all. |
the insights are very on point, and your words are very well chosen for the task. its very interesting to see how you construct your view of mind and body, and i think i learned something very valuable. thanks again...
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"I am good looking enough to know looks are worth nothing
And wealthy enough to have figured out it has no value. I am intelligent and know I can never be smart enough. I see far enough to see an end." I love this part. Please keep sharing with us... I, for one, will look forward to your writings. |
"Isabel"
Bottom dwelling Looking up - I sometimes do The old air ocean everywhere Disturbed The fringe of your turbulent skirt On my head I’m so small I can’t see your knees Or that deepest black hole Of yours I can see on TV They call it your eye But I know What it is |
Isabel Gone
Here up north A hundred miles inland Air's like it rolled off a south sea beach You left a mess, you know You must have been too proud to care And everywhere The trees bare more Tell you the truth There are fewer trees today You were a murderess too Bittersweet in my hand This orange Monarch Died young |
Getting rough out here.
The cicadas of late summer are silent. Their crisp skins, strewn around mixed with acorns, lifeless leaves. My path is crossed by doomed survivors - old bees getting a final buzz off of their chests - limping crickets fooled by mid-day sun - crazy drunken flies in kamikaze loops The praying mantis I spy poised on a fire escape downtown has no religion. And the green katydid flying toward me with impossible wings is unnerving These squirrels are way ahead of me. Summer was just a dream and they knew it. |
It is nice to see that you are posting here far more than you have since I first joined.
Thank you for sharing your work. ~Angel~ |
Thanks Angel.
The poems are happening as a result of regular daily walks I have been taking for a couple of years. They've become a spawing ground for poetry, which is a good thing, I think... |
man and dog
our pact with dogs is we are their masters.
we get to make the hard choices. they get to accept them. they never stop loving us. we never stop loving them either. but it's harder for us. |
Brain Freeze
Words are frozen mind crystals.
Sentences are chunks of ice. Once they are formed That part of the brain stops thinking And just repeats the words Over and over. We end up with titanic icebergs In our heads. |
Oh how very true this is!
Great analogy. |
sound underfoot
once, sound was all above me
buzz of crickets, shrill cicadas shook the trees absent now instead it's the sharp crunch of insect bodies mixed with acorns beneath my boots there’s old leaves too one day they’re tree-bound and wind-rustled and the next day they show up down here this transference seems fraught with some meaning that’s beyond me like the warmth that slips farther away each day I know it is gravity that does it but it seems much heavier than that |
Late in October
Playing the odds of one more warm day
The last katydid is hanging tough While a mantis prepares for hara-kiri Nervous chipmunks pool intelligence They’re drawing up secret maps And hiding them in burrows I hear each year they forget Where they’ve stashed them And so must struggle like the rest of us Blinded by frozen eyelids Stumbling, falling Toward utter hibernation Squirrels are in my face Staring right through me Peering for nuts I may have hidden behind my ears I guess I’m no threat now Compared to what’s coming The ones who can’t take the pressure throw themselves in front of cats |
Really enjoyable. Both thought provoking and entertaining. I tend to write poetry only when I get inspired, usually by something someone else wrote. I get jealous that I never thought of this or that line. You have inspired me over and over again today. Thanks, and keep it coming.
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Eyeing me, they dive deep,
demonstrating I do not see beneath the surface of things. _____________________ The secret of life is life. We all possess it for a while. _______________________ The cicadas of late summer are silent. Their crisp skins, strewn around mixed with acorns, lifeless leaves. ________________________ Really liked these lines. They got to me for some reason which is what is so great about poetry. Thank you for letting complete strangers get a view of the world through your eyes. |
That is the type of writing I love to see on the boards, keep it up!
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it's a good way to hone one's thinking, I'm finding. appreciate the comments...thanks |
Fault for the Fall
You’re just being cruel now
We really did all we could To pretty things up around here A lot of us are trying to pick up after you But it’s a lost cause and we know it Leaves are strewn around With no concern for what’s getting clogged up Don’t you know the rain needs somewhere to go? Treeloads of berries are just rotting on the ground The sidewalks are all sticky And it’s starting to smell We have to live here, you know It’s cold, too Getting fat is making sense Already, some of us are starting to give in Those white flakes you threw in my face today Were an insult, weren’t they? Not only that You threw my hat in the dirt When I walked out the door And this killing spree of yours Goes on and on I know for a fact The doe on the highway Was innocent How do you expect us to act With such a wicked Mother? |
Unappreciated
Sticking to my boot heels
Soft flesh of rain-pelted trees Downed too early, the newspaper said To show the very best of fall color Another failure like this And the whole year will end In the middle of December Instead of just freezing It will be two weeks Of absolute zero And no light at all Then we’ll be sorry We criticized Autumn’s best effort |
Low-Rent Birds
I fall for common birds
My youth misspent With bushtits and boobies Robin seduced me Each and every spring I loved her For her breast alone I'm still thrilled by starlings Simple silhouettes With little hearts as grand As the beating cores Of brilliant eagles That have no time to flirt All birds are lovebirds Equal in the blue eyes Of the empty sky |
cloud-flecked
blue air above us summer green surrounding warm skin we’re free here like butterflies hawks, foxes deer, serpents like undulant trout we're arms and legs splayed wide at play with each other spead under radial boughs of wide open elms we're hot pink as thistles and naked like the flesh of day lilies pulsing nearby as we pound each other into the ground |
You've got some great stuff here! Thank you very much for sharing it with us all!
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Art, you are simply one of the most fasinating people to me. Your thoughts, your poems, you simple are an fasinating person. Even your face. It's so very much your own. If you've read Stranger in a Strange Land then you will understand what I mean by that. Don't ever change, or more to the point, don't ever stop changing. I really want to see what direction you will go next.
As one of my friends used to say, "I only you were gay, and only I were gay." lol |
heh heh - thanks NiceGuy and Seer666...nice words - much appreciated.
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I'm so sorry. Don't lose hope.
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I took about 6 pages of notes and the result, so far, is this brief meditation:
... cloudscape up there in solid blue air architecture of vapor white water lakes lacking shorelines move cautiously aware of imminent dissolution their slow billowing crawl is stalled by Sol |
Some very powerful works Art. You are a very wise and talented man.
As always it is a pleasure and with deepest sincerity an honor to read your work. |
Your kind words are very much appreciated, pan...
Thanks. |
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I think a new poem -
not because you stopped those apocalyptic downpours, tornadoes, even, and show a day of actual sunlight and clear sky. Hatched during your mean streak, the mosquitos are mid-summer strong. I was writing about that sky before you took it away from me for two too-long weeks. I was lying naked under your sun. And, as you know, I was looking good back then. I don’t think I trust you enough to get back out there now. Thanks, but I’ll just forget about how I look. Not only that - I was drawing again. My pen and paper suffused by sunlight, I drew up a storm... |
whitetail
four million years moving through this hidden place it has always been yours but I share your secret now deep in your blood you know it by heart and your heart is my target you’re everywhere these barren days sex-crazed leaving traces on hard ground, on trees making mistakes showing yourself is your fatal flaw you’re giving yourself away and you don’t know that you can not help yourself I understand this behavior in my own flawed heart sensing me in your space I sense you in mine you’ll die here as will I one day but you are more beautiful than I this is why you will be the first to die |
I really like this one Art, Thanks
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sure thing. seems like this time of year gets me thinking...poetically.
thanks J.R.V.A. |
I love the juxaposition of that poem - even though we know certain paths will bring a faster end, we cannot break from the past.
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That's an awesome interpretation amonkie. I can really see it in a new light now that you mention it...
Thanks - sometimes even our own texts are not entirely within our comprehension. |
running, bleeding
blood's flying out of you like a flock of red birds freed up from pressured spaces you're weakening now running for your life as life leaves you marking the trees with inner scent the dry woods soaked red leaf and root will grow anew warmed and fed by your pass your deer heart, unaware continues beating pumping out your life as if you are the world but you are not the world you are yourself and you are dying your bright tail signals surrender I'll make this up to you this beautiful murder you will continue on within me |
building the blind
I use your eyes and think as you see the old place as new treading familiar pathways carefully leaving no trace no scent of my presence in our shared territory stepping back breathing it in observing the execution of your ancient habits comprehending the logic of your journeys and the reasons why you move finding your shapes pressed in the grass where your kind halts before stepping over the break in the rusted wire where you scrape the soft earth where you pass and have passed for millenia your prints still fresh the raw rubbed trees all the feral signs of your dangerous life you are drawn here by the fallen chestnuts the white oak acorns where the autumn sun warms the side of the southern hill where you hide at noon by the quenching waterway the cool places where I spot you beneath the moon the old paths converge here in this enfolding valley this is where I'm building the blind on the earthen dam above the small stream behind two trees I tie branches to brambles lay a cover of twigs drape brown grass level a spot when I return I'll sit for hours watch the frost evaporate admire the morning mist note the insistence of the woodpecker and wait for the flashing instant I end your numbered days this ineffable special place is not so unique each foot of living earth is after all a place for dying |
You know....I do not hunt.
But Damn....you just made it seem a rather inspired way to spend a weekend. Thanks |
It's good to read more of your stuff Art. I need to keep an eye on this thread more often. You contunie to amaze and confuse, bedazale and enlighten. I really enjoyed the last one. It seems a rare thing for one to find such beauty in death. Though is it the hunter following the dear, or the bear following the hunter? Hum, something to ponder. Keep them comeing man. It's like intullectual porn for a metiphor junkie.
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Thanks for the kind words, Seer666.
Every once in a while, I like to use words more carefully than I typically do. Glad these have some value to you. They're like stepping stones along a clear path for me. So much of our experience is verbal - including our thinking. I occasionally have a need to create some clarity out of the clutter, I suppose. |
Awesome, Art. thank you.
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Ghostly World
If spirits do roam In these spaces Between the slow burning up of suns And the inexorable downward slide of gravity It must look this way to them. Where the appearance of death is brilliant And things freeze white in solid air The escape of steam from nostrils Mistaken for the soul Turns things strange Like getting gasoline Out under orange and yellow bays Great bright stalls on greasy concrete The living dead stand still Fueling up, driven to wander Risking everything to get back home The signs surround me They are quite beautiful But I know, in my marrow They are all about dying I’m not going out there They’re spreading rumors About spring - even rebirth But that’s a matter of faith |
Wow, I had to read this a couple times to make sure I was grasping the poem, and it always is good to think about how others view our world.
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Thanks, amonkie.
Just finishing up a new one here... |
My Heart Attack
There’s a man I’ve yet to meet He lives over at the next farm Been there just about forever, they say I see him, dressed darkly, sitting on his tractor He can raise a thousand acres of corn with that thing And he can cut them right down again Staring only at his wheels When we moved in here I waved the first few times he passed He never even turned his head So I stopped waving He’s a decorated veteran – a war hero The subject of a Hollywood movie These days though, he walks slowly Out to the mailbox and back The other day I passed him in my truck He seemed to pause at that very moment Stared in my direction I almost waved at him But he wasn’t looking at me He had just mailed a letter Maybe he was having second thoughts I think he knows the weight of his words I keep thinking I should go over there Make his acquaintance He’s knows my family He’s visited my friends One day He may come To visit me |
here she comes
Setting up for spring around here. The flying wedges of geese point due north these days. There’s the occasional seagulls resting up in superstore parking lots. A few farmers are getting the jump on things by turning over newly thawed fields. And there’s little bulging buds on bare tree limbs. The sky is lit by a higher warmer sun. Clouds puff up after descending from their high striations. Our road is a collection of muddy ruts swamped by thawing snowbanks. Most of last year’s gravel’s been scraped away by the plows of winter. Got on my lighter jacket. Sus is wearin’ her fringe buckskin. Mimi’s in her lightweight western fleece. I’m writing fair weather poems and sus is out on the sunporch painting the landscape. Yep. Winter’s windin’ down. Don’t matter what else is up its sleeve. We been through another year’s low down ride. And the tide’s on it’s way in ag’in. |
Damn Art.....I honestly needed that "breath of Spring Air"....very nice
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Wow... |
J.R.V.A., that's a much appreciated statement from you. I'm pleased it struck a responsive chord...
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My Heart Attack II
I saw him today turning under corn shafts he left over winter for deer cover. I had dinner put out the dogs and he was still there. All I see now is the tree of lights suspended from his tractor the beams shooting out toward grey rows. Standing against the slow advance of his inevitable machine stalks become sound under invisible wheels and the February moon. He’s still out there. By morning the old crop will be gone. |
Damn Art....always a pleasure to read you.
Standing against the slow advance of his inevitable machine stalks become sound under invisible wheels and the February moon. this was particularly well done. thanx |
...likewise, tecoyah.
always good to take in the work of another practitioner of the ancient art |
Out naked today
Under the spring sky I felt the photon fingers Of the sun Pulling hard. I barely escaped With my skin intact. |
ART, i enjoyed that. Spring is certainly a time of renewal.
Your words conveyed the rays of sun with a graphic feeling. very nice. |
Thanks, sweetpea...
It was remarkable enough to spur a new image... more to come, I'm sure. |
Coming from one already sunburned, that spring pull is just too strong to ignore - seems like we become naked in soul and spirit as well, to the changes in our lives that lie ahead.
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Thanks, amonkie.
Seems my poetic year starts in the spring. This image was notable as the first one of the (vernal) year. More soon... |
There is something very zenlike in your poetry Art. It covers the soul.
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Appreciated, Astrocloud. Thanks.
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So wonderful. Perhaps one day, when I am not so full of sleep, I will tear these apart and see what falls out.
Some of my favorite lines: Isabel Gone You were a murderess too Bittersweet in my hand This orange Monarch Died young Getting rough out here. The cicadas of late summer are silent. Their crisp skins, strewn around mixed with acorns, lifeless leaves. ^ when I was a child, I'd go around the neighbourhood in late August collecting the remains of the cicadas. I liked to think that they were fairy shells, despite how ugly some of the skins can be. Fault for the Fall How do you expect us to act With such a wicked Mother? What a perfect way to end. I love the connection that this poem, especially, makes between humanity and nature. Your poems make me want to go walking. They're serene and thoughtful, hopeful and honest. Some of the best I have read all year. |
Thanks, cellophanedeity - they are often - almost always - the result of walking through the world...
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dressing you with my eyes
I've been watching you very closely for more than a month. You're always up before me. In fact, as far as I know, You're always up. You're there when I awake making yourself more lovely right in front of me. You do it so slowly. I can't stare away. New tones of green cover your limbs. Your body disappears like the landforms behind a peacock's tail. Then suddenly you're adorning yourself with cherry, lilac, and forsythia. I can hardly bear these differences between us. You are the most beautiful thing. Even I can see that. |
Damn Art.....as always, inspired.
And I can only imagine the form of such inspiration. |
thanks - the inspiration is all around me here, tec...
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I could have been blue
I could have been you On that walnut limb At the center of the world. I want you to wait For my camera I want your image And to speak your name As if by saying, “Indigo Bunting” I could become you And now with camera in hand I look at empty air Above the branch Where you were Beyond the grey-brown perch Behind the green leaves The sky is bluer now From having held you |
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