#davinaesolomon
Sweet Angelica,
An overwhelm of your leafy
ramifications, waxed verdure
affections for a wayward wind.
My eyes caught the emerald glint;
now they glisten green
in a poetic apotheosis.
Should I deem you guilty
that 'twas the devil's walking stick
that sired you,
as virid envelope,
so delicate that every leaflet
would blend to a fine herb repast.
So I brave your prickly defences
in my manner of white tailed deer
and nibble of your leafy poetry.
A half mouthed curse that you sting
but your arbour rose
where none grew and I thought
you bloomed especially for me.
Rhizomes spiralled for life,
and the taste of muddied rain.
Other wanderers tried pillage
those jejune early fronds and
you recoiled in thorny armament,
a conflicted poetry I read on you.
Look at you now ...
largest leaf than any other in a North wind,
towering panicles that draw
a chorus of winged angels, quills.
These be the battlements of love
that will shed for life, in beauty
for when Summer leaves, there'll be Fall,
then the long rest of seasons.
Jun 21, 2021
Jun 21, 2021 at 12:12 PM UTC
We thought of us today as single cells
'Ciliating' across the universe of colour
under the coverslip of time; a microcosm
of pedalling plants or fettuccine of cells.
The hues of darkness are pink and bright,
in beach slippers tracing paths on glass,
and those springing Vorticella are flowers
we created in our fictions of science ...
But all possess a veneer bound
cytoplasm of affection, crawling like
Annelids across the void in a world
bursting in avatars of the invisible
or their transparent real selves
glowing like gemstones in the sky,
or simply opaque as we are, each
to the other under the play of light,
polarized views secreted within some
dark muddied pond, harbouring
the cells of love, shedding cuticles
of sorrow, laying the germ of tomorrow
or funneling delight in little green globes
that make food ... are food. We must be
blessed to be cytoplasm like them or cursed,
I don't know which, but it's all profound.
May 2, 2021
May 2, 2021 at 8:37 PM UTC
A lonesome threshold,
yesterday was light as confetti / from a wedding that
bled in thirty litres of martyred roses / How long are
three hundred steps from a church, to stucco walls
the colour of sorrow?
Soil, the tint of blood,
ichor of mountain Gods, deveined for lost embrace
of roots / Wind whistling away regrets in the dust of
liberated souls / Would it sing for her, embalmed
in the bowels of earth’s sanguine hum?
April heat, weighted with a dirge
of tears salted in ocean / rusting the trumpet
and violin strings / Who will tune the piano for mass,
now that those musical men sailed before her,
in paper boat memoirs?
The Goliath tree rooted in bones,
a giant on such sustenance / gatekeeper of souls
tethered to fleshy sinews in beds of solitude /
Will she be interred in fruit, as he suppers
on her animated putrefaction?
Suffering, twice a child,
once a lady, she didn’t stay long to be swaddled
in linens of pity, cottons of commiserations /
Where will I store the enameled chamber *** for
when I grow up to be her likeness?
Nightshades, funneling viscous memories,
trumpeting in a pastel wilderness, alkaloid racket
waiting to sound in the poisons of prayerful echoes /
When will they bloom, toxic with grief of a swelling past,
so I may sleep as soundly as her?
Apr 5, 2021
Apr 5, 2021 at 6:18 PM UTC
Cornrows forge a rhythm to the sun
and self love feels like a line dance.
A shake of tassels and silks that
unfurl in the nick of time.
Love flowers on a stalk, above, below.
The wind sweeps in an airy betrothal,
a surge and then a sway, sashay,
a whirl in the nick of time.
Pollen, sparkles, pixel burst.
How do the ears of corn know,
to listen to the wind holler,
to twirl in the nick of time.
In a Caryopsis, a synopsis
of self seducing passions,
crushed to cornmeal. Floury
swirl in the nick of time.
Mar 30, 2021
Mar 30, 2021 at 12:32 PM UTC
Off the shoulder of Orion onto the arm of Perseus / in sentient skin sheathing the tingle of nerves / a mortal hunger for a view of the galaxy broader than the Milky Way / an awakened pulse in a soulless being / stronger, brighter, speedier, warrior / yet now, wiser / lover / beloved / thirsting for life / unafraid of who he is / never hidden in the arrow flailing off the arm of the Archer / a philosophical spiraling through a riot of 200 billion stars / looking inwards to what he may become //
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It was the existential philosopher Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) who described authenticity as choosing the nature of one’s existence and identity. He linked the concept of authenticity to an awareness of our mortality, positing that only in keeping in view the inevitability of death can one lead a truly authentic life.
Heidegger, Sartre and Camus among others have all discussed and debated the idea of authenticity, free will, freedom of action being a path to self realization etc. I enjoy the thoughts of these erudite thinkers and it brought to mind the most moving death speech ever recorded in cinematic history, that of the replicant Roy Batty from Ridley Scott’s ‘Blade Runner’ (1982). It is supremely poetic and for a replicant who tried in the course of the film, to find the meaning of his life and a way to increase his lifespan, it is filled with reflection in an awareness of an authentic self and a regret in his imminent mortality. The 42 word monologue what Rutger Hauer (who plays Roy) delivered after he had his way with the original version.
Tears in the Rain
“I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die’.
I have enjoyed the idea of the search for a meaning of life by AI that lack human consciousness. It’s a beautiful riveting moment in the film where the empathy one feels for someone striving to be human is much more than one would feel for detective Rick Deckard (played by Harrison Ford), who projects himself throughout the movie as less human and more of a replicant. What is authenticity? For an observer, it would be Roy Batty’s deathbed regret of not having lived to the potential he assumed he had if his lifespan were extended. It is the pain of losing his lover in the course of the film, the opportunity and the ability to show compassion to an assassin like Deckard, the hope of learning to be sentient, an escape from slavery of AI. This movie is quite a treat for the understated screenplay, the poignant moments, the inherent philosophical questions that arise. This poem is my tribute to Roy Batty who I believe, appears more human than a human would strive to be.
Mar 23, 2021
Mar 23, 2021 at 12:01 PM UTC
The clouds fell from their lofty perch onto her belly / wrapped in layers of time this Matryoshka/ flouncy in snowflakes / cold startles the birds / the trains are stillborn / marshes float on ice / and nights look like silence //
She fashions a snowman / they speak in parables of time / is it shaped like a sisal string or a potter’s wheel / does it appear like a falling star / disappear like a glacier / is it syllabic conversations at dusk / or chimneys brewing clouds into sky / while fires roast limbs of arthritic trees //
Her sundial is circular / like the lunacy of seasons / His, fractalizes into uncertain snowflakes / transformed by an arrow flung far to an unknown distance / Gaia awakens in ****** spring / a forced maturity squinting at trains that furrow the land / bleeding in cherry blossoms / wealthy as the emerald leaves she wears to a country gala //
The snowman computes time / stray facts the winter wind whispered into his ear / as he melts into January’s cloak / like tears shed for sparkling fractals lost forever / The Earth believes in the manner of faith , he will resurrect on her sundial / as she kisses time into momentary stillness, turns water into ice //
Mar 16, 2021
Mar 16, 2021 at 4:24 PM UTC
The streets fidget at this intersection at gazes of stone men / sweeping birds in the gusts of a smug exhalation / The signs say they aren’t meant to feed the pigeons / falling onto the pavement like confetti /hoping for crumbs of compassion //
In the morning hid behind a mask / we exchange glances of belief / truths etched in our silhouettes as the eyes / paint vivid portraits of what must exist/ in the blue, green, grey, brown / hazel or amber inlay of the other //
The times when our smiles were obscured in sunlight and streetlight / people bled onto the path in a diaphanous glow / The invisible slipped past our eyes / but not of the stone men / They have always been solid / sentinels of our displaced pulse / as we erred in the manner of stone //
Mar 10, 2021
Mar 10, 2021 at 12:25 PM UTC
There it looms, a life like mountain/ sheathed in fynbos, all shades of green/ while the cape drags in reluctant seaweed/ and the wind makes contrails of my hair/
I ascend too with the heather, the rooibos and the hottentot/ We climb/ now a collective of exaggerated beauty/ defiant in wind, spray and fire/
There are leaves as prone as a flat lined heart/ reeds as resilient as a returning pulse/and we all watch the hope of yolk/ of a Sunday sun dipping into the ocean/promising to rise again/
We creep up the leeward and the windward/ ensconced in the spiral of a soul entropy/ determined to survive every rock and crevice/ to hoist ourselves up the flagpole of the cosmic plan/
Mar 8, 2021
Mar 8, 2021 at 2:45 PM UTC