"composite" poems
.
In a costume of conflicting emotion,
of crossing diamondic colour,
with regal posture in grief,
the Harlequin and the King,
a display of opposites
creating a composite being,
that eases her body
gently into the waiting water,
to float away serene,
on her journey to the nether.
Midnight blue and emerald green,
the regalia of ermine,
both ostentatious and humble,
robeing the aspects,
understated in crowning splendour,
the gentleman King bows,
and the Harlequin laughs,
the bi-polar reaction
to the tragedy of misfortune,
with a sting in the myth-tale.
With the dark hues of mourning,
a legend passes on her way,
across the streams of time,
on a voyage to discover herself,
carrying her Harlequin in a purse,
holding her King to her breast,
owning them both in her heart,
the medicine wheel spins,
knowing the grapes of wrath
yield the wine of spite.
The motley speckles of attire,
a starry parody of night skies,
lighting the decorated funeral barge,
gliding along the rivers of space,
worn with the mantle of sorrow,
and it sails into the sunset,
as the Harlequin and King observe,
the mandala turns,
the bier of the Queen departing,
bears their sadness forth.
The Harlequin laughs and laughs 'til he cries,
his heart grows cold, then withers and dies,
whilst the King, statuesque, memoirs his life,
lamenting the legend of a Queen, his wife.
© Pagan Paul (24/07/18)
Jul 25, 2018
Jul 25, 2018 at 5:51 AM UTC
I start way up high,
with others like me in the sky.
I am a raindrop.
We are all the same.
None of us are the cream of the crop.
None of us are lame.
We are waiting up here.
Just waiting to go.
Up here in the atmosphere.
Waiting to flow.
First we must fall.
First it must be cold.
There is no warning call.
No sign of us getting old.
The warmth brought us here.
Cooling will do the opposite.
To allow us to fall like a tear.
To allow us to fall composite.
Then my journey will start.
I hope for great joy.
Like an actor getting to play their part.
Like a child getting their first toy.
I can feel the cold creeping in
and the warmth starting to fade.
Now my travels will soon begin.
Could my travel start with a glade?
Maybe I will land in a lake.
Maybe I will land in the city.
Hopefully not the latter for my sake.
For I may be stomped on without pity.
My time here is now done.
No more having to wait.
It is hopefully time to have some fun.
Falling, I will soon see my fate
Jan 5, 2015
Jan 5, 2015 at 6:07 PM UTC
I am the unnoticed, the unnoticable man:
The man who sat on your right in the morning train:
The man who looked through like a windowpane:
The man who was the colour of the carriage, the colour of the mounting
Morning pipe smoke.
I am the man too busy with a living to live,
Too hurried and worried to see and smell and touch:
The man who is patient too long and obeys too much
And wishes too softly and seldom.
I am the man they call the nation's backbone,
Who am boneless - playable castgut, pliable clay:
The Man they label Little lest one day
I dare to grow.
I am the rails on which the moment passes,
The megaphone for many words and voices:
I am the graph diagram,
Composite face.
I am the led, the easily-fed,
The tool, the not-quite-fool,
The would-be-safe-and-sound,
The uncomplaining, bound,
The dust fine-ground,
Stone-for-a-statue waveworn pebble-round
4.2k
Some time ago in the furnace below
Grew restless the ruler of sin;
He dug through His closet
Composed a composite
Consisting of a violin.
The underworld rang with
Delectable twang
As Lucifer plucked on His strings;
E'en angels flew down
Allured by the sound
Til Cerberus plucked off their wings.
Eventually Satan grew bored of this, too;
That thrill-seeking ******* must capture the new;
So up to the land of the living He flew;
Disguised as a figure whom everyone knew.
First on the agenda of any pretender:
Extinguish the genuine soul;
He arrived in Genoa
Disguised as a boa
And silently swallowed him whole.
With Europe His playground
The Devil, He made sound
That no one alive had yet heard;
He fiddled and plucked,
Gambled and ******
Until inside Him syphilis stirred.
His physical shell He now had to retire;
Back to the depths of the black and the fire;
Forever above will the humans admire;
The legend of strings; the king; the sire.
Nov 8, 2012
Nov 8, 2012 at 12:48 AM UTC
I. Apply foundation in a tone more perfect than the one you're born with,
doubt that there's anything beautiful in the term "natural"
blot your lips with the cherries you deprive yourself of
and wonder, "What good is difference when it's not appreciated?"
stop reading this.
II. Forget how you were born;
every freckle,
every beauty mark,
every uneven line etched into your face are nothing to be celebrated.
Deprecate yourself, you are unwound and beg this world to shape you in its eyes.
skip this line.
Society speaks subjectively of happiness, but fill your head with lies
that we're all pretty if we can keep up our disguise.
The weight of this world upon your shoulders,
alludes to being big as too much to handle.
Curl into everyone's palm as if you're so fragile,
they have to pinch the skin on your bones with the thumb and index finger.
stop.
III. Draw on the perfectly plump pout, filled with nothing but
expectations of everyone else.
Your beauty is not a privilege for anyone,
but judgment that has defined your worth.
skip.
Emprises that market upon your insecurities,
admire that solemn face in the mirror
as the reflection discourages you
at the acknowledgement of any impurities
Start.
How To Be Beautiful Lifelong
Admire the history that lives within the heartlines of your palms,
how strong you've grown, once cradled in your mother's arms.
Disregard where it is you've come from, but how much further you've journeyed forward.
I. Apply the sincerity in your best friend's voice when
she calls the time you've spent together, beautiful.
Do not doubt the splendor that comes from wisdom.
II. Every wrinkle you've earned,
as time gives back to you from lessons learned.
Blot your lips during the release of laughter
as saliva mists through the air,
your joy so vigorous
the ghosts residing in the graves
regret no more.
You are as you should be,
a composite of everything that gives you life
and grants you purpose.
Begging for this world to love you,
there is no fault in this desire.
They speak of happiness as if
it's only a potential-oriented concept,
Do not let your heart surround the gossip
or it's golden armor become bronzed.
III. Draw on the canvas of existence
in the brightest of hues, in the purest of love.
Filled with nothing, but expecations for yourself
say farewell to the darkness
open the curtains to light.
Your beauty is magnificent
as your name will be transcendent.
In each day we decide to be ourselves,
the poise presents itself.
—V.H.
Sep 5, 2018
Sep 5, 2018 at 11:15 AM UTC
she wanted my soul
so I cut off a finger,
noting that this little pinky offering,
came from the same hand,
who, who went to the market
to buy her a love poem
all her own, because,
it was from the self same hand
that wrote:
*who, can cut a soul into pieces,
no one!
so one will still ask you,
who!
who will love you
in whole poems,
that are both past and future tensed
composite composted,
from words overly overused,
but still foolishly feeling brand new
when referencing you,
so you can believe with new fool-thinking,
this is your sole composition*
she wanted my heart,
applauded her determination,
gave her one eye to see me instead better,
so the visions she essays, to write,
like when I sit down to write
of women I’ve loved but!
they do not come from my heart pieces,
but from inside insight from of parts
that are blind to everything
but raucous untamable invisible desire
she asked me for all the world’s wisdom,
while standing on one legging,
I simply said, here I am,
telling you I’ll love you the way you requested,
if only to be loved in return
so with one eye and one leg,
you will observe, two is not more
than the sum of the parts of one love,
as I count to ten on my nine fingers
fingers that wrote of love not enough,
no matter how many he gave up
she wanted my brainiac left hemisphere,
said, sure,
the left side of me is where the baby poems
are created, and then angel-released when ready,
when needed, now that I
see you’re needy for pieces,
but still mistaken that pieces can be reconstructed into
a whole with spit and spirit
and an overarching imagination -
no!
the whole comes from only a holy place extracted
from the hole-in-one that is my entirety
give me then your utter essence,
the place of you
I, only I know exists, must exist,
but cannot touch to see
where you keep it hidden
from all the women who love you,
better than you even love yourself
if you want that, then collect it,
for it exists and lives on
in every woman that asked for nothing,
but was rewarded with more
than a thousand poems,
stored in stars, for her,
to be creamed and cleansed,
when she plucked them
from the night in the galaxy where exist
love poems, only
to she-one shone-shine
Jul 15, 2019
Jul 15, 2019 at 1:48 PM UTC
Days drift away, mind ease the pain
The rains wash away, passion still remains
I think of her smile and the lips as they purse
How I want to feel her skin between my tips
It gets worse
Because there's no privacy in life
No place we can go
The desire for romanticism, blown away by my ego
So my mind runs wild
Does she compare me to others
or do I not have her desire
Does she mean when she says 'I love you'
Or am I simply hallucinating
Whens she dreams, is it of me
because it's her when I do
In fact it's her when I don't
and it's here where I confess
that every waking moment I am thinking of her ***
I know that she might see this
and that it's too personal to be public
But I take leafs from her book
Stylistically, confessional release
Removed from zones of comfort
but I can't rhyme
I tried a few times
I try too to be a feminist, and to respect every boundary
But truth is, I want to let loose sometimes
Take her, make her mine
Show her that her body is perfect in my eyes
Use my body, pin her down
Make her head spin around
Learn every spot of pleasure
On her body, in her mind
Wishful thinking maybe
She'll never call me baby
That's a good thing maybe
Pet names are lame and lazy
She has more important things to worry about
Not my over stimulated testosterone fantasies
Of how I want to tear away her-
That would be crass, so I won't say it
Instead I'll load up her favourite song and play it
or open up her pictures, touch myself and-
Again I can't help myself
I hope she never reads this ****
Because it's truly my most personal composite
Every word I write, I'm hating it
So for that reason I'll end this bit
Sep 16, 2014
Sep 16, 2014 at 3:40 PM UTC
There's the mosh...sordid details that thing...
creeping of sort...retelling...to stay in focus.
A silent film whose black borders encapsulate
a slab of skyward white.
Visages...opening...opened...to interpretation.
"The apparition of these faces in a crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough."....ashen...
daguerreotype of a Zen Garden.
All of nature's pretties cast in an occult brew...
stirred, and stirring...composite sketches posted
and burned upon lampposts.
At large...ritualistic making-of-face...illusion
trafficking the ever present primes of lives...
"the center of which is everywhere, the
circumference nowhere."...attestation o' mugs.
Visages...plucked from a year of our lord,
to be...rendezous of all light's putting to...
years thereof.
Alien unto thyself...oogly boogly, yet mirror-imaging...
behold/beheld/beholden.
By sleight of Hand...visages, who'd otherwise
be as soon pruned and leathery, inanimate under the
sun.
Oct 14, 2013
Oct 14, 2013 at 11:19 PM UTC
her fantasy fulfilled
she guides him by pack-horse
up the craggy mountain trail
restrained by his inexperience
their destination above
her beloved secret valley
river far below, a faded blue memory
spying snow-coned peaks beyond
she fights the urge, for his sake,
to gee her horse the last few feet
almost there, past the jagged rocks
gap's a beckoning finger now
welcoming her home
so many years of separation
the valley bursts upon them
a composite of wondrous sights
compelling her to bring him
quickly through to hallowed ground
how many times she had returned
alone
she turns to him, a stranger here
only he deserves her secret place
watching his face
seeing elation and her radiance
mirrored simultaneously in his eyes
an expanse of horizon
mountain, aspen, florid fields, and water
nature's precious jewels adorn the vista
dressed with utmost care
to steal the unsuspecting heart
she leads him into the meadow
overlooking the turquoise cirque
cool waters in which she bathed
naked and contented
when last she'd journeyed here
meadow flowers cloak
the blanket she spreads for him
her fantasy fulfilled
his body framed against the sky
-limitless as their love- and
boundless beauty in this valley
Jul 10, 2012
Jul 10, 2012 at 10:37 PM UTC
HERE at right of the entrance this bronze head,
Human, superhuman, a bird's round eye,
Everything else withered and mummy-dead.
What great tomb-haunter sweeps the distant sky
(Something may linger there though all else die;)
And finds there nothing to make its tetror less
Hysterica passio of its own emptiness?
No dark tomb-haunter once; her form all full
As though with magnanimity of light,
Yet a most gentle woman; who can tell
Which of her forms has shown her substance right?
Or maybe substance can be composite,
profound McTaggart thought so, and in a breath
A mouthful held the extreme of life and death.
But even at the starting-post, all sleek and new,
I saw the wildness in her and I thought
A vision of terror that it must live through
Had shattered her soul. Propinquity had brought
Imagiation to that pitch where it casts out
All that is not itself: I had grown wild
And wandered murmuring everywhere, "My child, my
child! '
Or else I thought her supernatural;
As though a sterner eye looked through her eye
On this foul world in its decline and fall;
On gangling stocks grown great, great stocks run dry,
Ancestral pearls all pitched into a sty,
Heroic reverie mocked by clown and knave,
And wondered what was left for massacre to save.
2k
*how this came and come to be,
from gone to come to gone rediscovered but unreleased,
a passage thematic that birthed
fully formed, formal in its inception,
contented in its first appearance and
its primary coincident deception
who wrote this? not me? could not be!
yet a scented hint of
eau d’familiarité
suggests that I may have
inadvertently
plagiarized
myself
this old poem mine,
we certifiably have never met,
but nonesuch a hail fellow met,
that upon our (re?) acquaintance,
the heavens marked the occasion with
hail and neither of us deemed it strange
so we well recall our ancestor’s words*
”there is nothing new under the sun”
adding our brand new imprimatur
”not even June or the Moon or other iconic loons”
*we may have borrowed from the insights,
recollecting what happened to us when separated at birth,
envisioning like the prophets of yore what was implanted
long before we remembered it well
upon its birthday
our intertwined twinning
fate befallen*
postscript
**quaking heart, trembling pointer
dawning and dying
simultaneous
neither tissue, cell, molecule,
i am but a composite of
letters, alpha bits and bets,
recirculated songs and tunes born
like me,
compromised, bridged,
newly un and recovered,
lengthy and unabridged,
my appearance faulty,
my eyes ****** ruddy and red,
my fingered tips blend and bleed
words acquired, words invented,
marching before me,
old lands recaptured,
new ones set free
take and give -
there’s no difference -
intimation, initiation,
all
bring me home
to where my boundaries begin**
<•>
this one, for the ladies who loved its
predecessor
https://hellopoetry.com/poem/2367267/the-temple-of-you/
Apr 8, 2018
Apr 8, 2018 at 1:45 PM UTC
when you love,
you’re a country,
pierced by daily border
exchanged crossings,
to your closest neighbor
and though,
one rerun~returns home by night,
to your prior defining borderlines,
somehow
the externals of the container has
had its internality's modified
for the lines that prior defined
have altered
by passing the
point of prior,
now by thousands of
tiny holes breaching the
thickened protective lining,
by love punches ‘n kisses of
pinprick punctures
the resistance,
pulverized
<>
you are changed,
new language combos spoken,
embrace another with a
bilingual tonguing,
a real treat
to entreat each other and
that hyphen,
that little tiny
linear
~
punctuation mark is
reflecting your creativity of a
Singular Duality
it is mark that
speaks to a new
U~no individuality,
blended and connected
somehow a duo of
someone’s pulverized lines
forms a single stronger
chord
first a puncture
then a patching
finally
an adhesion pleasuring
and a new working word:
composite
the opposite
of
opposite*
Nov 14, 2024
Nov 14, 2024 at 7:26 AM UTC
We smelled your scent
we signed a lengthy confession
we drew a composite
and picked you out of a lineup
yet still you walked away
scott free
time we implicate you
a little bit more
...
A preponderance
of the evidence
suggests duct tape
over rope
you're my willing hostage
you love something about me
but this is all about
keeping you quiet
Apr 28, 2020
Apr 28, 2020 at 9:49 AM UTC
Look no further than yourself,
be your own lamp
your own refuge*.
The rain washed sky found a mirror in his eyes.
Yet for some time as the end neared
he was hearing an echo
from the deep well of nirvana
urging his weary feet toward a home
his aeons ago.
The frail bones feeling the pull
drove his weary feet through rains
to be on that land one last time.
*Look no further
for howsoever long is the journey
must come to an end at home*.
That night as he lay under the śāl tree
they strained to hear him whisper
*All composite things decay,
strive diligently.
Oct 12, 2017
Oct 12, 2017 at 10:31 AM UTC
I've been floating in the sea,
Marveling an empty sky,
Bobbing up and down through waves unbound,
Towards an elusive horizon.
No sharks try to pull me down,
No seabirds help me fly,
No boats stop to pull me out,
But no one's left me abandoned.
I don't know how I got here,
Or what I'm meant to do,
Perhaps I'm supposed to float,
Maybe I'm just here out of the blue.
Rather quaint in size,
Compared to the composite surface,
This liquid surrounds me,
But it's motives are dispersed.
Dec 3, 2011
Dec 3, 2011 at 3:32 PM UTC
We were born untainted like empty canvas; a bud of roses.
But as time linger we digress from our innocence and actual selves.
We were scratched and polished, from diamonds pulvarized to dirt.
The facade we kept after succumbing to society’s propriety became us,
And the true face and being what we were became lost in time.
The mirror no longer reveals us, because we metamorphosed to someone else.
Another face in society, swallowed by the world’s expectations and encumbrance.
The appropriateness of etiquette, social conformity, and worldly priorities.
Day by day, we became less of ourselves, and more like everyone else.
Converging needs and wants, we lost our personal uniqueness,
And it seems like our attempt to be different is the same as everyone’s else.
By and by, we effort for elopement to get out of the box is futile – rather impossible.
Epitome of wealth and exclusiveness; highest degree of poverty and martyrdom.
In between those of extreme pillars, everyone seems to be in between and at both sides.
The world has become more dimensional, efficient, yet ineffective.
For our sweat and blood goes out for the wrong reasons;
And we fight against one another, (thus fighting against ourselves), to become the winner.
The winners aren’t actually victorious; neither are the loser the ultimate champions.
And this is only a mere microcosm,
to signify how the multifarious constituents that the world has formed:
a composite, complex, compound conformed convolution.
Apr 20, 2012
Apr 20, 2012 at 12:07 PM UTC
Wander from Argyle Street towards the pyramid shaped monolith
past the oddly named Benny Hamish - Sicilian Couture Tailors -
through the automatic glass doors of persuasion
up the revolving stairs of many stairs
sail by the portly security guard
(who looks like he'd be out of breath after a 10 yard dash)
along the imitation marble airstrip
passed neon facades and signs for proactive self indulgence
toward the carousel of smoked-mirror lifts
that take the well heeled to their desired destinations
without having to worry about their Chanel leather clutch bag
and newly purchased Christian Louboutin shoes
and I sit people watching,
writing this poem on a borrowed napkin
with a discarded betting shop pen
amid a horde of timid stomachs and twitching wallets
faced with a thousand fast food offerings
and gaudy coloured tables and chairs
littered in the remnants of repugnant non-ecological eateries
and Styrofoam cups and re-composite cutlery
under Noah's grotesquely beautiful steel ark
lined in industrial tubing and chrysalis shaped netting
and giant Art Deco toothbrushes
and 30 foot wiggly mirrors
and stretched rhombus sails
acting as a blanket barrier
to the blue skies and arched sun of the outside world
somewhere between
KFC and Burger King.
Apr 19, 2016
Apr 19, 2016 at 7:25 AM UTC
I have been singing for forgotten things,
beer bottles hidden in the hedgerows.
The opera singer, the strangled vibrato,
ash-filled cokes cans; the afterparty sunrise.
This recovery has been long, fickle.
Reckless optimism and the science of failure
collide into the colour
of a Daniel Johnston cartoon,
or a songwriter's sense of humour.
Disused pencils stand as monuments
to old dreams of grass-roots art,
the fragility of neurotic *******
drawn with innumerable straight lines
that composite a woman's naked body.
I have been drawing on memories
and hoping for a brand-new image;
dissolution of old borders - a strangled voice
in a room full of opened tongues.
The Hawaiian shirt made light of depression
in darkened hours and wax smiles.
Plastic cocktails, the pending brides;
desperate men - the post-work demise.
I have learned a lie ever since.
This recovery has been imperfect, a fraud.
Swollen truths to satisfy the concerned,
only myself left to fool.
I have found the early morning
but cannot reach a sober conclusion.
Redundant habits mildew my mind
with the backwater of yesterday,
familiar street names to mourn
those who became strangers,
the negative bias of my mind's eye.
I have been writing words of action
from the safety of my desk;
all that the desk-lamp can illuminate,
all of which words can make sense.
This half-lived recovery is bunk, irretrievable.
Working poverty and untied knots
are co-morbid in meaninglessness;
chains to hold me in Plato's Cave
whilst her skin freckles in the sun.
Disused and living outside of love,
morning curtains open to a sheet of light
that obliterates loneliness
in the presence of shared heat,
only for it to return again, come night.
Mar 8, 2015
Mar 8, 2015 at 3:25 PM UTC
sew
sewn
sewing
stiches
stitched
to my sleeves
tears soaking
simplicity
magnify
times
me
in
i
find myself
me'ing me
perfectly
time hurdles another fence
passport in hand bus stop timed
frequently flown boot soles
composite toed mistletoe
kiss me rosey cheeks
love me dearly
love me
most
love
me
ghosts
learning to sew
?
...
..
.
Jan 5, 2018
Jan 5, 2018 at 11:22 AM UTC
I've both toasted and buttered
having been served equally well
with marmite and marmalade.
I've dinned in Brugge and Halifax
trod the true path of kings
in places of requisite legend
still flavour claret
in truer climes
and tried to sting like a bee
composite and true living
slight of hand yet self assured
May 19, 2014
May 19, 2014 at 8:03 PM UTC
Instability.
Keyword: instability.
Mid-May and the room has a blue cold, runny nose, condensation clasping the window like a quiet leech. Through the narrow chinks of my cavern, I can glimpse a computer surrounded by world in peripheral; fish eye vision like religious fervor, I realize life has made a lasting impression on whatever I am.
whatever I am.
Dream fades to life, life fades to dream, some alien language crash landed on Earth and now we all speak English (except, you know, the ten thousand other dialects all branched from the Indo-European earth worm). People like to say that everything changes. Nothing stays the same. Does the fact of change never change? Does that not make constants a possibility, even if only within the Many World Interpretation of Quantum Physics (capitalized! it's a name and 'Quantum Physics' likes playing the smiling subtitle ( :) ) ) now I wasn't in Copenhagen the day a jury of physicists decided on Reality; but I was in Reality (capital R) so I'm sure that counts for something.
They say they don't know who 'they' are; as if a brief allusion to a greater network somehow invalidates the point (but 'they' is the 'you' you decide to ignore; the 'you' composite of influences 'you' simply grew around; 'they' is the part of yourself 'you' keep tucked away comfortably like a newborn child that doesn't know any better).
Jun 16, 2013
Jun 16, 2013 at 2:06 AM UTC
He. Opinion is not worth a rush;
In this altar-piece the knight,
Who grips his long spear so to push
That dragon through the fading light,
Loved the lady; and it's plain
The half-dead dragon was her thought,
That every morning rose again
And dug its claws and shrieked and fought.
Could the impossible come to pass
She would have time to turn her eyes,
Her lover thought, upon the glass
And on the instant would grow wise.
She. You mean they argued.
He. Put it so;
But bear in mind your lover's wage
Is what your looking-glass can show,
And that he will turn green with rage
At all that is not pictured there.
She. May I not put myself to college?
He. Go pluck Athene by the hair;
For what mere book can grant a knowledge
With an impassioned gravity
Appropriate to that beating breast,
That vigorous thigh, that dreaming eye?
And may the Devil take the rest.
She. And must no beautiful woman be
Learned like a man?
He. Paul Veronese
And all his sacred company
Imagined bodies all their days
By the lagoon you love so much,
For proud, soft, ceremonious proof
That all must come to sight and touch;
While Michael Angelo's Sistine roof,
His "Morning' and his "Night' disclose
How sinew that has been pulled tight,
Or it may be loosened in repose,
Can rule by supernatural right
Yet be but sinew.
She. I have heard said
There is great danger in the body.
He. Did God in portioning wine and bread
Give man His thought or His mere body?
She. My wretched dragon is perplexed.
Hec. I have principles to prove me right.
It follows from this Latin text
That blest souls are not composite,
And that all beautiful women may
Live in uncomposite blessedness,
And lead us to the like--if they
Will banish every thought, unless
The lineaments that please their view
When the long looking-glass is full,
Even from the foot-sole think it too.
She. They say such different things at school.
1.4k
Remember art class in the big room
with spray painted concrete ground
where you were given a tiny mosaic
square and asked to recreate it on a
much larger piece of canvas when
you knew full well you weren't an
artist and you never would be? You
spent the time mixing blue and white
acrylic paint together on a small piece
of a former gallon of milk, adding and
adding until there was more than you
would need but the color matched
perfectly and of that you were proud.
Now you're older and you know a bit
more about hue and saturation and how
difficult it can be, working with imprecise
mediums, to do that, to make something to
fit a very precise set of guidelines with no
missteps, no miscalculations, no question
as to its perfection. You wonder if the color
really did match back then, or if you are
remembering something that never really
happened, if you wanted it bad enough
that it changed your recollection.
That day, everyone's large square canvas
pieces went together into designated
spaces on the wall to make a composite
image and all the blues were different
shades and that made you frustrated
and nervous and disappointed in the
other third graders sitting around in a
circle on wobbling stools wearing dad's
old dress shirts as smocks and throwing
brushes at each other and giggling as
eight-year-olds do. You stared at the
tidal wave on the wall made up of all
these disparate pieces and you told
yourself that you'd notice when things
matched as though they were meant, as
though they were destined and divine.
You see the waves lapping at the beach as
we stare out at the vast Pacific. We stand
on the shore and you tell me that my eyes
match perfectly the colors of the Sitka spruces
reaching their arms out wide behind me. Your
flannel shirt matches the gray November sky.
It took all the way to Oregon until it happened
again, but you keep your promise to yourself.
You notice the matching colors. You
smile to yourself and look down at me.
You grab my hand and pull me closer.
Oct 18, 2013
Oct 18, 2013 at 6:29 PM UTC
Mammy knew the five second rule
Long ago:
"Don't worry. You'll
Eat a ton of dirt before you die."
Now I wonder on dirt's composite:
I swear I'll die talking ********
May 28, 2014
May 28, 2014 at 9:22 AM UTC
My heart yearns for what once was
my mind fighting to hold the line in a quiet battle
Time, relentlessly persistent in its attempts to erase
dragging my life forward into fading memory
Moments attenuating, absorbed by the past
distorted in all but the essential
But their essence is distilled in my soul
dormant in an archived strength and purity
Occasional mindbursts of beauty are released
refusing to be contained or denied
A certain scent in the air, a certain quality of light
a lyric of song, a touch of breeze...all catalysts
Spontaneously transported into a joyful state
I'm consumed by a déjà vu of carefree ambiance
Bejeweled compartments spill their contents
washing over my mind in a composite nostalgia
Familiar waves of concentrated being saturate
my existence for a compelling glimpse of the idyllic
In those fleeting reveries of peaceful contentedness
I feel completely at home within myself
Dec 26, 2013
Dec 26, 2013 at 3:54 PM UTC