=======
life
is
to
find
your
missing
link

Written by
~~~Jawahar Gupta~~~

As I walk through the graveled paths
When the stinging stones speak to me
Of the pain ****** on trampling feet
I see you in the unlit alleys of my memory

As the wind blows from a covert hide out
Twisting and shaking the branches of trees
Causing them to break and fly off the trunk
I see you in the torn pages of my life’s tome

As I listen to the song of lone birds
And their doleful notes fall in my ears
I am jolted out of my bohemian ways
And feel a plaintive tone floating to me

Wandering along the sprawling beach
As I hear the roar of waves
And when a humdrum of voices fills me
I hear your voice distinct like the beat of my heart

Like the pain at a needle point that shall always be
Like an intruder nudging to steal the inner space
Like the small tremors after a fateful seismic quake
I now know that in me you stay like sleeping fury

Even when I walked away from you
You stubbornly stuck to me
Like a leech tenaciously clinging to the skin
Oh! How hard I struggle to get you off!

Andi Balise combined a half page of a short story, “Thanks Going Without Saying” by Liz Balise, with half a page of an essay by Klee, “On Modern Art”, from a book called Modern Artists on Art, 10 Unabridged Essays, edited by Robert L. Herbert. With some small edits and line-breaks comes this miracle of a poem:

Painting a Function Different

I peek out over the railing of reality’s magic
Beyond the porch-floor
Minerva hangs her wash
making the invisible visible
Eighty two and three quarters deaf
she doesn’t notice  
But this is, in fact, reality
Has always been this way—
Bent and bird-like existence  
Balanced on two twigs—always busy—

Her task, is the ******* of space  
Cutting coupons, crushing aluminum cans, ironing
The three phenomena which I must....

Things no one notices—
climbing on the abstract surface of a picture
Switching the curtains  
God! I wish from the infinity of space..she wouldn’t…!

It figures that—
Rusty, her cat, is weaving in fortune or misfortune  
I try to fix them—
Her ankles now
And she curses at accidental quality
from the corner of her mouth
which has only one form
Clothespin or cigarette?  
Long johns and animals and men in heaven
and bureau scarf and sheets—all, non-infinite deities
surround us translucent, contained
  
I decide what to get for her birthday—

We are good friends
through painting a function different

For me?
Predestined necessity.

Minerva?
forgets her manners
and eats like a survivor—

Thanks going without saying.

I found an old homesite
in the woods,
next to a church, or at least
what looked
like the remains of one

Rocks overgrown with weeds
and vines, a doorway
leading nowhere
in either direction, and

I think
I thought
I was maybe Christ

I think there were birds taking flight
from my open hands

The laughter of children
buried like bones
beneath
the terrible blue sky.

hickory nuts
and wind trees
are keeping
at the old buckle bay
light house corners and
shaker church craft
slip anchor on the southern tip

secret legions
and phenolic board
tuck in at gout dock
bands and nations
and miracle speak
fill in the center hall

sand hooks
and water domes
cover wharf road
***** bay toppers
and seven horse chugs
scatter the swollen upper deck

packards and pushers
and rusty back rails
skirt the night
lanterns and sterns
and navy gulls
steady on task

sand cakes
and drift wood
held tight on
the mystery tour
yellow tails
and tide pools
flat line
at royal reach

paddles
and cables
find ripples way
smugglers and smitties
take cover
from a
northern gale

down on
pocket shoal
there’s a graceful hue
~ they’re serving up
belons and xan…
it's time to get in
for a fill