 | Kip on Cowards’ Fear |
 | words4jp on Fear |
| kp152 on Rejection and Failure |
 | chardavidson on Falter Not, Fail Not |
 | shexhe on Lady Luck |
Yellow light has become our new carpet.
Light, like grief, reveals
us. And the lilacs gather bees
as my friends gather affection.
Light is my sour token.
Wind is the other.
Here is this summer light, but
people would rather wait
for news of stabbings, shootings, and massacres-
though, being human, won’t admit it-
and choose shadow.
But this is ordinary.
Even ornithologists do not fully understand
the language of birds.
I cherish this moment:
when the wind rolls in
with floral perfume,
when the grass bends-
as if in genuflection- and ripples,
when the birds warble
and their chirps burst like bubbles
and their piccolo-bones sound
their ascent,
when the children’s laughs echo
and fill emptiness where the birds and wind cannot,
when the trees seem to be carved rocks,
and their buds burst into bloom like fireworks,
when the flowers split into color and scatter
adding new shades with the buds of the trees.
This moment is
exquisitely orchestrated.
Life stretches toward both horizons
The dog excitedly barks at children across the street
Wind stirs curtains, leaves
Spruce branches sway like green tentacles
Birds peel their old plumage and blow their flutes
The robin inflates its heart
Clouds coalesce and disperse like cottonwood seeds
Sky opens and closes its perforated maw
Hours are marked by color and the sun’s position
Rain falls
Horns blare
Sprouts greenly fork out of soil
Wind ebbs and flows
Flowers brighten
Each horizon darkens to be lit again
The birds rise first- Robin,
Dove- wake me each Morn.
They whistle- I find,
I am not forlorn.
gold sun could lock
an eye blink orange
lozenge of trees break to fence
green cones spindles undulate wind
black streaks crows in streams geese
meadows pale gold flat iron yellow
white teardrops splash pile
trickle trickle
away
Today I’ve written for you what has been deemed a “Language Poem”, popularized by Gertrude Stein.
The intent here is to focus not on the meaning of words, but the way they sound.
Gulls are Harbingers-
as much as Robins, yet,
not appreciated as part
of Spring’s welcoming Quartet.
Once I cried from my powder blue room
my wails rising from my crib
like awful birds- beaks targeting ears
at which to peck.
Once I reached inside myself
and found the nerve to kick off the training wheels
and form my own path, unencumbered.
Once I found myself in a four square court
and the ball bounced between me
and people who introduced themselves
as they held that yellow rubber sphere.
Once I looked at the monochrome clock
that crouched, always in the same place,
on the mocha-brown walls of a building
that always smelled of new shoes and Lysol.
Once I found myself in a room-
painted a darker blue, the same
room where that doll-sized impression of myself
used its voice to rouse people from slumber.
Now I can use my voice to do the same,
but in spite of everything,
I take my own initiative
and set forth, out of the crib, onto the street, into the halls
on my own.
In this whiteness there is desolation.
Ferocity abounds while ice plummets
to where a birdwatcher would make his or her observation.
But now the snow plunges into summits,
hiding landscape from humans at their windows.
All one can see are tiny white comets,
and in this instant, that is all one can know.
It’s strange to think
about what connections we have forged,
conversations forming details like pearls-
your personality, my personality-
and yet our faces and our bodies are
only vague memories,
more than shadows but
less than silhouettes.
I speak to you
and you rekindle an old
schoolboy joy, a feathery giddiness
in me.
It’s a strange thing…
perhaps when we meet the old bird
will finally settle down and hum, content,
in my chest. Or else
a glimmer of recognition
will set its plumage ablaze,
my flesh will burn dark pink,
my breath will come in smoke;
then you’ll turn away in fear,
or douse me to pale, regular color,
and extinguish the terror of the bird
with the waters of your eyes.
As I scribbled, weak and weary... 