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Mar 2019 · 274
Paper Bag
Igor Goldkind Mar 2019
Paper Bag

I am a paper bag, I am.
I’m not the smart one,
I’m not the successful one
I’m not the tall one who always won and 
Then died. 
I am a paper bag.
I’m only as good as what I can carry.

I am a paper bag, 
I’m not plastic, not I.
I am paper: rough, brown and thin
I’m not waterproof, you know.
And I can’t hold any liquids or gases within.
I only have room for the stuff that matters.
I’m a paper bag.
I’m only as good as what I can carry.

I am a paper bag.
Wrinkled and used and often abused
Thrown on the floor.
Buried deep inside your drawers.
I am a paper bag. 
That sometimes falls apart
I’m only as good as what I can carry.

©IgorGoldkind 2018
First published on the cover of the San Diego Free Press for Poetry Month, 2018
Mar 2019 · 364
Pebbles
Igor Goldkind Mar 2019
Thoughts are merely pebbles
Being gently washed by a passing stream.

You are the stream.

Thoughts are merely pebbles on a beach
Being gently rounded by crashing waves.

You are the waves.

Thoughts are merely pebbles in the sand.
Being gently worn away by the passing wind.

You are the wind
My words escape on.

Words are merely thoughts
Being gently read by a passing eye.

Yours are the eyes
That can read my thoughts.
Originally, this was a 3 line Haiku or Faux-ku.
But each time I read the first 3 lines to an audience, someone would always ask me to read it again so that they could hear the idea a second time.    So I decided to repeat and expand upon the initial 3 lines.

Read the first 3 lines by themselves and if it doesn't make sense, keep reading.
Mar 2019 · 612
I'm a Good Catch
Igor Goldkind Mar 2019
I'm a good catch.

I can see the thin edge where your tire hits the road.
I can see the stone that you just threw,  
Skip halfway across the world

This world slipping  past your fingertips.
I can hear your ears listening to the wind
I can see your eyes greeting the world
 
I can see your intent summon its consequence
I can see this in you because I can see this in me.
You are the sender, and what you send.
I am just reflection;
An open-palmed receiver of your gifts.
But I'm a good catch.
I can catch a falling girl, faster than a falling star.
For Jackie Lopez
Mar 2019 · 272
My Alley Cat
Igor Goldkind Mar 2019
I didn’t get her name.
It was a hot and wet Saturday night;
So I left the screen door wide open
Hoping for some kind of change in the weather.
She strolled in like the queen of Sheba riding the night’s breeze,

Her inspection was clearly on schedule.
She let me imagine that it was my company that she was after.
By earnestly engaging my eyes with her face
Which she put close to mine and stared into my eyes
As if she were the last soul left on earth who still loved me.
 
All the while she scanned the kitchen floor 
Out of the corner of her sharp feline eye,
Having assessed my modest, meagre means
She walks straight back out the door she had walked in.
Leaving me  staring at the empty space she had deliberately left behind.
Mar 2019 · 147
Firefly
Igor Goldkind Mar 2019
Like a firefly fluttering between the twin palms of my hands...
Just let me cling to your light,
For the rest of the night  
and I’ll be alright.
Igor Goldkind Mar 2019
Kali swirls her flaming dress,
Eyes flashing, she cracks open the sky above your head.
Kali beckons and seduces, then pulls you in,
Before devouring your mind.
With her insatiable, irresistible desire.
Mar 2019 · 127
The Truth of Beauty
Igor Goldkind Mar 2019
An aesthetic is a polished stone of truth.
Where beauty shines its insight
Onto a multitude of reflective curves and planes.

Small wonder the world smiles upon the couplet
Who have shifted the surfaces they slipped from.
Orpheus and Eurydice reunited:

Having finally tripped out of the cave and into the sun.
Their outward smiles shining with the inner joy of a sight regained:
Love is the greatest beauty of them all.
Mar 2019 · 200
Your Soul
Igor Goldkind Mar 2019
So who is this Soul that you sing of?
This silent witness
Who counts the leaves off  of trees  
instead of gathering them?
And raking them into a funerary pile,
Into the giant pile that your better self will fall from,
Or jump into.
Up to your eyeballs,
Up to your own private crown of thorns.
Mar 2019 · 108
Haiku
Igor Goldkind Mar 2019
A boy goes to school

And tears  his schoolmates apart

With metal piercing bullets.

This is normal now.
Mar 2019 · 2.8k
Motorcycle Zen
Igor Goldkind Mar 2019
Riding a Motorcycle
Before I start my engine
I know where I am going.
The motorcycle and I are one.
If the motorcycle goes fast,
I go fast.
If the motorcycle goes slow
I go slow.
If the motorcycle goes too slow
I fall over.
Ouch!
Igor Goldkind Mar 2019
I’m still choking on my own blood.

As it slowly fills my lungs.

I am drowning inside myself

The blood is mine; 
the air is gone,

Now so am I.

After death, there’s nothing more than that same familiar empty space 

waiting for your thoughts to refill it

Infinite & Eternal 
in every direction;
both up and down and beyond before.

encircled by the horizon.



This emptiness where your awareness doesn’t so much ‘go’ 
as recollect that it’s always been here.

look through this persisting dream! 

there is no afterlife because nothing, 

not even memory, is really destroyed.


just transformed 
into particles

into wavicles 

into higher frequencies,

your mind no longer fathoms,
so you leave 
your mind behind.



crystal

liquid,

gas,

plasma

your awareness is the fifth state of matter.
Feb 2019 · 172
Being is Becoming Still
Igor Goldkind Feb 2019
Existence is a limitless screen of emptiness
Vibrant with jubilant celebrations
And gratitude for the joy in rolling a boulder blissfully up this steep hill.
Tripping over our own thoughts like loosened cobblestones,

We  no longer see the reality directly in front of us

The truth is a truce we struck with certainty ages ago.
After losing the desperate struggle...
To cling to some kind of hope buried deep beneath the root of ourselves.
I am fearful of fully failing myself and yet
I love myself best when I am alone with eternity.
Feb 2019 · 1.6k
The Hole in the Whole
Igor Goldkind Feb 2019
The measure of suffering is how distant you are from your own happiness.
There is no distance farther than that.
It’s a gap people carry around with them, sometimes oddly, with pride:
‘Look how long-suffering, look how hard working,
Look how good doing I am.’
Small wonder we’re exhausted all of the time.

Because there’s the whole of our lives to account for, to ourselves,
To the you who is listening to this.
Sure, it’s your hole and you’ll sink in it if you want to
But to me, it’s just another drain pipe, a wound for life to drip out of
Everyone can see right through you
Until you find a way to plug that hole yourself.
Feb 2019 · 655
Let Your Mind Run Free!
Igor Goldkind Feb 2019
If you love your mind just let it go.
If you lose your mind don't worry
It will find you again, eventually.
Trekking across the tundra;
Scaling the icy ridges 

Crossing a vale of tears.

At midnight, in the dead of the night,

Your mind will tap you on the shoulder

and say ‘Here you are’!

Sitting all alone in the last place I looked.

While you are merely moonlight, 

Pausing to reflect on still black waters:
Make sure your back gate is left unlocked,

The next time you set your mind free.

— The End —