Showing posts with label Photography. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Photography. Show all posts

FOLDING SEQUENCE

God preserves 
in floods and quakes—
impacts thrash straits
without escape

No crown nor color
just landslide grace—
constructed collapse
a melted face

Not mauled by malice 
but beaten in time—
the seed agape
a muddy line

Cut deep by force
elegance and space—
what ends in ruin
becomes a place



CONSUMMATION —

Roots bloom up into the sky
Where a life consumes a life
A spider weaves a violent thread
In mother's harsh delight
A husband's back
The touch of his wife
A mix of dark and light
No words need said
Slip into the bed
You know you've
Done alright 


















WOLF CRIES —

no one came to save her
but it wasn't the first time
she made threats

she was likable 
and persuasive
even talked me
off a ledge once
made me supper
at her place

but
no one came to save her
and she asked forgiveness
from God in her last words

i keep seeing her 
at the edge of the dock 
howling and wailing

waiting for someone 
to show up and 
help her fight

in the end though
no one came to save her
but three-hundred people 
cried at her wake

sang amazing grace

myself among them















































APPLICATION —

You become 

every moment

you become
 


























PRETTY DAMN GOOD —

2 young females sit on
my right and talk in a
soft urgent tone,
probably about
their love life

to my left is a couple
who stare continually into
each other's eyes and
laugh about everything
and nothing at all

the Vietnamese cooks are behind
me chattering loudly

I don't speak Vietnamese
so I tune them right out
like the buzz of
electric lights

others are everywhere
talking about this, that
and the other thing

they are angry, happy,
sad, in the middle,
unsure, and together

in the seat directly across 
from me sits no one

just a pair of ivory chopsticks

I know what must be done
and I dot it





THE WAY IT IS —

I understand nothing
except maybe

solitude
drunkenness
and loneliness

that looking
an angry man in the eyes
makes him more angry

that the factory men are
always better company

I am hardly real

and
there is no roof over
the mountains





















THE CORONER —

tables typically turn
too late
too gone

the warmth of wrath
replaced by distance
the light roots
held before
the dark

a procedure precisely
lacking
in time 


















_

PLAYTIME —

Mama cow

baby cow

chicks to hens

baby cow

mama cow

spirals spin

around and

around again

beginning 

to end

mama cow

baby cow

now

then











DINOSAUR —

Leaves are falling
Green, yellow, orange, red
Countenance out a third floor window
Cold innocence, cracked eggs
And terrible lizards 
Abound




























BARREL JUMPER —

Loops lead
to a nest
a lime
a sunflower
camels in deserts
spiders in webs
the barrel of the wave























GOD IS —

a force

a pounding

a hammer 

a nail

a piercing

the surface 

the substrate

symmetry 

sprawling

no end 

in sight


__




LIL —

I pass through the space
Upright and silent
Her mother
The wind on
My back

Hushed tones
Ripen and press

Our eyes and breath
Flutter together
Along the jetty

Throned and washed
Throughout by
Force



GOD IS A HAMMER —

Arguments of
white supremacy

are

arguments for
white supremacy

 

YOU'RE A VICTIM —

caught in an
intersection
of braces
projected
over
atrophied
limbs and
core



SNAPSHOT BANGKOK 4:01AM —

and i’m sitting on an
elevated sky train platform
eating a sandwich

below the people sit on the street 
drink and play music
as the trash men
collect trash

the working girls sit around 
legs crossed 
one heel 
bouncing

they sit and wait as the men
pass by, pass by, 
and pass by

they sit there showing leg
saying the same phrases
over and over

about a block away 
a door man is tipped  
while an elevator rises 
and falls again

a plane passes overhead
and four people 
look up

as the plane moves into the distance
a rat and a dog square off
both suspended in their 
battle rituals

men stand on the corners counting 
their money, swallowing 
their ethics, and sweating

the birds start their song
and i stand up and begin 
walking toward my room

i move onto the street 
and look ahead
as it all passes away 
into the strange space we call
history.


GOODBYE KOI —


the koi is a common fish
and actually a type of
garbage eating carp.

but if you’re perceptive
every now and then 
you’ll find magic
in this tragically 
ordinary fish. 

it’s something that 
captivates the mind
stimulates the body 
punctures the soul.

and when you find this sort
you follow it first with 
your eyes then with
your feet.

and while you know the common
nature of the fish you follow it 
still, often with amazement.

well soon enough either the koi
or you move on to new 
waters and that 
is that.

but in the meantime you follow
the fish thinking that one day
you’ll see it again in a 
different pond
a new tank 

or washed up dead somewhere 

but knowing that
you probably won’t.

ZERO GROUND —



there is nowhere left to go
no place to move on to
i have eaten
my family
or they have
disappeared


INFIRMED —

a terminal fatigue
seized in love letters
we're told she tried
to resesutate the
body for days




A CARNAL HYPOTHESIS —


confined to a leaky and sinking old boat
confined by change
by the aware yet archaic brain
by the thought
the emotions
by evolution
for or against

restricted by the lungs
neuro-plasticity
choice
fallacy
and function
constrained by rightness
and non-essential wisdom

confined to the limiting possibilities
limited by time
the four directions
Newtonian physics
metaphysics
quantum mechanics
oxygen
and ether

confined by imprecise language
by imprecise education
by certainty and uncertainty

encircled by the world-savers
the time-wasters, the paper-faced

ensnared by the black mosquito
or mile marker 146
or this time
or no time
or anything
less than
more than
or nowhere

confined by the lines in the road
by 29 miles to go

confined in ability
confined in unknown bias
unknown and known galaxies
known and unknown loves
confined by this poem
there or here
back and forth
or not back and forth

drowning in impotent ideas
morals, values, ethics
or lack thereof

confined by no judgment
or too much judgment
or just enough
or just right

deadened by politeness
by tambourines
by porcelain
or locomotives of faith
pounding on you like
broken piano keys

sedated by the rising concrete
and moreover, and therefore

forced under by too much
or not enough

forced under by rotted vegetables
or a burnt out headlight

confined by psychological voyeurism
peering in during the last
moments of solitude

or perhaps
confined by underwater warfare
by changing sides
and walking home afterward
shoes blow to smithereens

being set free by the breathtakingly plain
and ultimate conclusion
is as decent a thing
as anyone can know




MAGNOLIA PLAINSMAN —


Magnolias gesture in solitude, until morning
Over roped-roots, petals emerge in Spring
The sky still weeps against the passing
Fragile petals fill, shed their pretense
Fall easily to the ground
And underfoot are crushed
Into the soil

Magnolias remain impossibly, against their mourning
Submerged petals restore the flora of another Spring
Possibly the same blossoms, same roots
Resurrected anew in ecstatic absorption
Stronger than yesterday
Weaker than tomorrow