In your vision you are the only thing with bloodshot eyes.
You always wear a robe
that speaks seven languages... and a bank of fog is at your feet
nipping at your naked heel.
In your vision you remember how your arms feel in sunshine.
It is intense.

Your can-opener is hissing an etude
that alludes to wise men...
who bathe in miracles
and roam the world,
untarnished in Poverty.
Your can-opener whispers in hush tones
about barbarians at the gate. And they say
' they've come for the Linen ! '

You are not deceived.

In your vision you are the only thing that can backward engineer
a Universe.

On your way back to the homeland of your algebra
you hesitate. “ you may have left your keys in your Other Robe...”
The Robe that hallucinates constantly~ Carrying on about
' The dire consequences of leaving terrycloth alone with the keys '
and, afflicted with Prophesy Tourettes
the piteous tide of doom ' sayeth the robe '
you must suffer.

In your vision, you are the only one
looking for the keys.

Everything An Etude

Your cooking, your yoga,
Your diet, your posture:
Everything a try,
Chance to be brave
Chance to be plucky:
Symphony unfinished;
All’s a laboratory.

Everything an opportunity.
An exercise to make you better.
Never best.
There is no best.
So rest in knowing
Everything is etude.

Everything Is Etude 4.11.2017
The Processes; Creative, Thinking, Meditative II; Definitely Didactic; Vaguely About Music II;
Arlene Corwin

from her window she could see
the shells of buildings the bombs battered--gray concrete
ghosts, haunting in their silence

Father said his ears
hadn't stopped ringing since the attacks, though he still
could hear her playing

and he expected her practice to continue
for one day, he promised, prayers would prevail, peace
would return, and her song would be heard

play, he entreated, for ivory, black
and white, has forgotten the evil of men, their carnage;
the notes know nothing except to be played

and to give pause for hope, when
more trenchant sounds demanded one’s attention,
still the song must remain

Our footsteps echo through ancient halls,
                where here is everywhere
        and every time is now.

Caesar’s twin-edged conquests are our own
                as is Brutus’s fickle knife
        and Marc Anthony’s cunning speech.

Plague steals across our Europe
                like a remorseless highwayman -
        rosies all ringed and falling down.

We wait in Wien's Kärntnertor theater
                for Schiller’s An die Freude    
        to shine anew in Beethoven’s score

and are ushered in at Menlo Park
                where Edison's tungsten faintly glows.
        Tomorrow will bring sun to the night.

There's Jonas Salk at his microscope.
                One more test will crack the code
        to banish polio's scourge.

But nature’s caprice strews logs on our roads.
                We are dashed by a Tsunami’s rage.
        Katrina’s torrents have swallowed our homes.

Prides of warriors wade rivers of blood  
                and Darfur bullets tear into our chests.
        Nuclear Toys ‘R Us shelves are fully stocked.

We are the heirs of each triumph and treachery.
                We grasp the keys to tomorrow.
        What have we done? What must we do?

The pierced ego sees
through an opaque lens;
a vestige of hope,
humor and  
intellectual solidarity.
Effigies of forgotten ethos,
the culmination of a
fated dream;
unrequited ardor, abandons
identity to an irreducible
fervor,                      
subtext of tension,                    
enduring ****** privation;
etude of a paramour
ending torture,
tasting mystical polarity.

The wounded heart
once intruded,
bleeds effusive;
the ornament of humility.
Flattened collateral
damage,
primal search,
proves illusive;
portals of hurt, slivers
of pride,
assembled fragments of
thereness
absorb the loss
of my English muse.

Poetry and devotion
punctuated murmurs
of piety,  
depth perception
virtue unfound;
expectation - access
to suffering;  
disinterested love
present,  
desultory carnage
of rescission,   
absurdity personified;
euphemism
of adieu,
the sound of no sound.

The discarded image
finds no favor,
the salt lost it's savor
unquenched thirst;
desire of
diminished purview,
the saporus stream
deferred;
vision eclipsed;
saturated self
hidden in the text.

Poverty asks the
question,
absence summons
ethereal substance
merged into
the immanent frame;
integrating,
in solitude signifying,
mediating - logos
contested
the humiliation of
the word.

Lyrical enigma,
where did I go?
provisional
personality
scorned,
renouncing nostrums
of the prosaic,
surrenders to the
the realm interior
sovereignty
assumed in
provenience,
native
horizon of the next.

©2008 & 2011 W.S. Warner

-I've got bored of words.
-You tergiversate... Small world.What this bouquet of flowers is doing in the intermediate?It's a date?
-Ah... such prolixity... More champagne?
-What's the point?
-My aim? Mmm... to try to oscullate you.
-... What?... Such profane elixir do you desire?
-It'll be more than tasty.It's alleged...
-But, don't you distinguish the mayhem's reflection below?
-Your solicitude.. Ah!... What a nice champagne.Hmm... Cake? By the other way or not there's nothing at the ceiling.
-You've perused my protocol... A small slice, please.
-A kiss a skirmish.Palatable as this recipe... Well... apart from an armageddon...
-Stop pushing on boy.
-I already vanquished the inception, you know...
-Catastrophe is your trophy, but I disavow your apocalypse.
-I was expecting something more digestible.How's the alcohol?
-Standstill...
-Hm!... As everything surrounding us.
-Ahhh... No... They just don't move.. don't have gravity...
-Funny waiter... Hovering waiter.Did you emend your canon?
-Champagne and desserts will not litigate your anticipation.You know.How strange is...
-The room? No... Is normal for it to circle upside down.
-A hug?
-In this desert? With all those people?
-They are frozen, and... before I veto, quivering in a hurt heart.
-Blown sand... popped champagne... Oh, I didn't notice the light fixture's embroidery.
-The sun's in the bottom.Look up... Its obumbration is into the typhoon.
-Standstill, nothing's synchronized...
-Is your tranquility dissipated? gone?...
-No.If isn't yours.
-I just still want that hug.
-Hmmm... I forgot you're a cold person...
-And you a hot girl... Irony...
-You'll melt...
-I'm apt to it...

Then an aurora flash
And splashing glass
Accompanied by springing sparks
Shattered bass walls
Begetting noctilucent dark and dusk
A hurricane, breathing the sun
Just dust to dust

Another day has come; and gone...
Come the night we’re on our own.
Lay us down and tuck us in,
And let our sleep come when.

Suddenly we have no say:
Unbidden dreams take us far away.
Our minds will rapidly unfurl:
We belong now to another world.

Finally! morning lights our eyes awake.
Dreams’ murky memories we try to take.
“Hush now; say your goodbyes.
The sun arises in his skies.”



For Rickets.



Copyright © 2010, 2013 by John Russell; all rights reserved.  No reproduction allowed in any manner whatsoever without permission.

And here’s another religious theory:
craving the sweetness of fruitless purpose,
we hunch with our loads under the big above eye
and scurry a little faster.
Looking only up or down
-at the sky or on the ground-
and deriving no drive from our surroundings
(the universe erupting in the beauty of our limited spectrum rainbow)