"effortlessness" poems
On one of the myriad bays
along the Maine coast. Keep the holocaust
at bay I said to Dave because
you’ll spend all day gathering
2,000 calories and still be miserable hungry.
An undiminished population of humans is risible.
Black spruce and balsam fir,
you can eat the inner bark
in a starvation emergency.
There’s plenty of Cornus—bunchberry—
each orange pith around the stone
worth maybe a quarter calorie.
Lots of sarsparilla but the fruits
not out yet and to date I have not
savored one. Let’s see—dandelion
of course and huckleberry but
the most important source of sustenance
would be seaweed.
Learn your mushrooms! for the protein.
Accept the situation
come the apocalypse.
I struggle against my insignificance
but it would be better to struggle
against my ignorance.
Less effortlessness, more fishermanliness.
That’s the lesson of this Maine vacation
there’s a lot you can eat when in need—
the hips of roses and the pips of grasses.
And an endless supply of seaweed—
bladderwrack, dulse, kelp and thin green lettuce.
Sep 12, 2023
Sep 12, 2023 at 6:09 AM UTC
Our trajectory is unknowable, you tell me: the planet
corkscrews around the Sun, sure,
but the Sun corkscrews around a black hole at
the heart of the Milky Way,
and our whole galaxy travels on some mysterious,
incalculable vector. But sister, I saw a photograph
in which two whale sharks were brought to
heel by men in simple reed boats just
off the coast of the Philippines. All that they had
to do was often feed
the sharks many gallons of grocery-store frozen
shrimp, poured from plastic garbage bags into
their yawning six-foot maws to portside.
Gargantuan, sure, but still
as obedient and eager for food as backyard
squirrels. I remembered a grainy
internet video—I saw it probably seven or
eight years back—in which
a captured whale shark was winched
ashore in Madagascar, or
maybe it was the Philippines again—no matter—
the thing still had life left
in it and struggled to breathe while a crowd of
people gathered around—there were
women carrying babies, girls holding baskets atop
their heads—and then the
men came with a long slender blade and sliced clean
through the whale’s spine, vivisected it
right there on the dock, and the onlookers stood there quite
unfazed—I remember
being shocked at the effortlessness of the cut,
the pinkness of the whale’s blood,
and the boredom in the onlookers’ eyes. Our father
took us down to San Antonio
on one of his business trips there when we were five
or six—I think
you were probably too young to
remember it—
it was when you and I saw the ocean for the first
time. We drove down to the Gulf
of Mexico, and we saw waves breaking
out near the horizon in pale
sunlight. I kept scanning for a dorsal
fin off beyond
the breakers, thinking that I might spot one—
sandy brown, mottled with
cream spots and glistening—so that I might be able to
say to you, pointing, “look,
sister, there is a whale shark!” Years
later we would learn
that he traveled down to San Antonio so
frequently because he was a philanderer. As
a child I believed that whale sharks
crisscrossed the ocean following
paths that we couldn’t fathom, that
their concerns were somehow
beyond our comprehension, but then
Keppler pinned down
the shape of the Earth’s orbit over four
hundred years ago,
and the lives of ancient sea
titans are sundered
effortlessly
by men with indifferent faces.
Sep 22, 2023
Sep 22, 2023 at 2:27 AM UTC
A tattoo is just a scar;
A person is just a human being-
Not much more than a Wendy’s bag
That looks like road-kill;
Not much more
Than a series of frames in a film
With a blackness in between
That our minds remove,
Creating an illusion of motion
Similar to the illusion of effortlessness
Created as we drive up a hill,
Pumping fossil fuels into the air
As everyone breathing outside the car
Rings like the aftermath of a gunshot
Or a screaming plea in an unfamiliar ear
“Stab me some more, dear,
Let the ink flow,
The film is running out
And I can see the blackness finally
Of the space that’s in between”
Sep 30, 2013
Sep 30, 2013 at 10:59 PM UTC
That smell isn't around anymore.
I didn't even realize it until I could barely remember it.
It's the smell of the old place I used to live
alone.
The smell of the doors at night
and the corn patties in the cupboard
and the leather sofa
and my old cat.
It's the smell of the doubt.
The lack of the light.
Being stuck in the middle of the tunnel.
The smell of the tunnel vision.
The smell of the fact that it was
midnight after the journey through the tunnel.
The smell of my heavy chest,
that I smelled with my head hung,
nose close to my heart.
Straight ahead, it doesn't have that heavy smell.
Now it smells of ethnic food.
And breath always on the side of my neck.
It's warm.
The smell of trying and failing.
I only smell success from effortlessness.
Jan 6, 2013
Jan 6, 2013 at 10:37 PM UTC
nonmeditation
is the best kind of meditation
not doing,
just being
not listening,
simply hearing
simply here
How do I write poetry
simple by being?
effortlessness is effortful
How do I show to the world
the way my brain should work
so that I appear
smart
articulate
thoughtful
d
e
e
p
when really I feel like spurting a string of thoughts that would not make sense to anyone, including myself, in any moment but this one
**** appearance
here's me:
_____-_
( . . )
( > ) ()()
( = ) __ ( )
xxxxxxxxxx )
Nov 3, 2019
Nov 3, 2019 at 9:47 AM UTC
you know
when i first beheld the icy greyness
of this giant sepulchral building
a giantness of Empty
a giantness of unrecognised surreal faces
a giantness of being sorta kinda lost
a giant lostness of slamming into glass doors
hurriedly breaking out
to a place i wanted to know
when i first beheld that giantness
i had never thought
imagined felt conceived
hell i had it all figured out
in what i thought was a deep deep experience
i had never thought
it would be that crisp
that quick
the creepiness of mounting heartbeat
pounding like a drumbeat
rising out into the rosiness of dawn
full of a wisdom of it's own experience
that it would be that supple
lifting me with effortlessness
like a wave of adrenaline
rush; gushing into my
guts; breaking out like
a furious river bent on
flowing with the vastness of the ocean
and the innocence of the sky
i had never thought
that is how you have a Crush.
Dec 18, 2013
Dec 18, 2013 at 2:59 AM UTC
I daydream of dreaming
a dream:
comfortable and surreal.
In it, an antique shop full of character
and the scent of mothballs and dust.
A haphazard maze of dark lit corners
pulls me to its depths,
where nestled in the back,
is a perfectly imperfect piano.
Ironic how the blatantly splintered key
is the most out of tune, no?
In this dream within a daydream,
I sit on a squeaking stool,
foot on a loose damper,
and play all that I know.
In this dream to be,
I know not,
or recognize what I play,
but know it's home
and find peace in knowing.
The name Chopin
would be the faintest
of underlying memories,
but the first upon waking.
All we are is what we are not,
and were I dreaming this dream,
that notion would live in my being;
in the pockets of my marrow
and in the pit of my throat.
No Steinway could produce
such a twang so unimaginably beautiful.
Only the physically appealing use the word ugly,
and only the true understand the word beauty.
In my dream to be,
I watch myself,
but feel the keys
as they disintegrate
after violently being yanked from slumber.
Would I dream,
I would gasp and reach in wake,
grasping nothing,
and yearn again
to live without
vivid self awareness.
Yet when conscious,
I seek lucidity,
despite the comfort
found in effortlessness.
So snap me out of it.
Slap the porcelain saucer
that is my cheek,
for I am no Poe,
and this no "dream within a dream"
but a waltz
with the idea of serendipity.
Sep 26, 2013
Sep 26, 2013 at 4:55 PM UTC
“The trouble is, we think there’s time”
Buddha said it so urgent
Complete with Sanskrit contractions
The baby delivering doctor saying we all have a cancer, no matter how slow
so pick up your passions with a god’s effortlessness
Play a concerto that makes your hair stand on end
because the music was more important than a reflective surface
Looking like a you were born in a stormy garret
Writing, thinking, and plucking, as if the gods set you there
instead of the million hopeless mediocre ones
No, instead you are brethren to those gods
All competing for immortal kicks – like mortal tail
Until the game board perspective ceases
looking down on the plebeian pantheon
and it’s just you and what you lived for
Jul 26, 2014
Jul 26, 2014 at 10:13 PM UTC
Maybe only slowly, can someone
come nearer, and closer, in thought,
where he might be a sliver
of painted visions on a glass
ceiling. Somehow, as thinking fades
and the colours take precedence. Blue
purple hues, taking place on the
pink of a lovely sight or thought. He felt he
needed to trample what I have come
to, shatter this illusion of a
benevolence. He cracked my gauges,
took the defenses right away. As my
last stroke failed, a broken lance of the
first. Silently he cuffed away his iciness, pursuing me
with a granite effortlessness. Then the impermeable
onyx kissed my mouth and went away.
© 2006
Feb 24, 2013
Feb 24, 2013 at 6:36 PM UTC
She's crawling these days,
And it's a joyous throwback to
The wordless days, when the
Eye reflects sunshine instead of tonic
And there was someone,
Always someone up
To take over when it was too much. up
up
She's crawling in her own spit-up
And learning how to drown.
There's a certain effortlessness
To a downward spiral
And she's mastered it with the
Dedication of a carnie's mid-night
Reflections in a backdrop
Of cotton-candy and ****** expulsion.
The world has painted itself white
And she's the little blemish
Of hangnails and spilled cognac
When Atlas would rather decorate
With her broken winter smile;
Teeth to match the whites of his eye
And shattered eggshell.
She's crawling these days, amidst
Broken bottles that reflect such starry eyes
The way puddles muddy the sky
And house the most optimistic birds,
Unheeding the poolside signs saying
Shallow end.
The water is dedicated to darkness
And she's dedicated to falling.
Dec 9, 2016
Dec 9, 2016 at 4:31 PM UTC
like bathing, all of this waiting
stillness, silence
a pin submerged in water
or a wide-eyed boy scanning the sidewalks for his father
groping the dark
an abstract art
the effortlessness in the breaking of this vase
fine wrinkles in its maker’s hands, deep creases in his face
his pain disintegrates
a million pieces on linoleum
that beautiful vase.
silence,
golden
then suddenly
broken
becoming a chorus
of chaos and moaning
this waiting,
this hayride
my swollen balloon
it’s lifetime is numbered
in pieces of you.
Sep 25, 2018
Sep 25, 2018 at 8:58 PM UTC
I smile to myself
As sleep caresses your spine.
You fall under, covered in blankets,
Sheltered by thunderous peace.
I want to touch you,
To run my hands through your ebony locks,
To put my palm against your cheek,
And have your warmth
Melt my cold, cold soul,
Until all that's left of me
Is a puddle of liquid light.
You rest soundly,
With the confidence of a thousand lying politicians,
Your subtle grin defying the darkness outside our shelter.
I yearn to crawl between your arms,
To make your very being a haven,
To rest my head on your chest,
And listen to your heart beat,
Loud enough to drown out my troubled mind.
Oh, the effortlessness of it all.
How easily we tangle between the sheets.
How cozy, and breezy, and light we feel
On this cloud of a mattress.
And as minutes pass,
And months,
And years and decades,
Millennia upon Millennia,
Until we are covered by dust, and rust, and ivy,
We will stay here, alone together, in this bed.
Sep 18, 2020
Sep 18, 2020 at 3:33 PM UTC
I held on so tight to the string that was attached to the storm cloud of our relationship. Afraid that if I let go I will not see the sunshine that was once us.
I held on to the smiles of happier times and the looks of love. I held onto the effortlessness of our beginning and the passion in our kiss.
The cloud became heavier and heavier and some helped me to hold on, others begged me to forget.
I found my strength in remembering.
Every red flag that I painted white. All the dreams that died when you left. I remember the wasted time spent on forlorn hope of empty promises.
It took me awhile to realize that I was holding on to a mistake because I took so long to make it, blinded by the fantasy of what we could be. I cannot continue watering a dead plant.
I’m ready to let go of every ‘what if’.
I’m ready to let go for me, for a heart that doesn’t lie and a love I can believe in.
Nov 23, 2019
Nov 23, 2019 at 1:29 PM UTC
Let anger be(go).
Doubt comfort.
Be the joke.
Too something.
I don't quite believe everything.
We always forget where we came from.
Mitsugi Saotome
Glory be to the father and to the maker of creation.
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be
World without end:
Jah Rastafari:
Eternal god:
Selassie I.
And it's all in order to create effortlessness.
Aug 18, 2013
Aug 18, 2013 at 2:23 PM UTC
Clutch this passing away...gold-fleck
with outpouring hands this sable
workspace.
Ruffle angelic feathers in a fit of
loving zeal...oblige them holiday.
Tear thy body to pieces of giving...
for lack of better place.
As there shall be places in store where
being may be moved.
It is right, as breath need not mind
to do so...as yet it does.
There's only rise in effortlessness...
and in that rise what is innate divulges
itself.
Oct 24, 2014
Oct 24, 2014 at 11:51 AM UTC
Love's the base line
Let us be and what would we lack?
Love's no elixir nor intoxicant
Love's the pure undifferentiated state of joy
Love's where we go when we let go of ourselves
And we let go of our games and our desires
And our pasts and our futures and our fates and destinies
Love is tasting good food and chewing till it's paste and sitting back and smiling feeling it energize every cell
Loves hoping everybody wins the poetry slam
Because what good would it be to be in it for yourself
For one person
Against the universe?
None of us are opposed in love,
We are the unbroken chain
But every link is not connected to just
The link in front and the link behind
It is connected to every link at once
It is connected to every link ever forged with the blacksmith's love
The chain doesn't draw a line between us,
It wraps around us and ties us together
Oh love is all I knew before this poem
And love is the effortlessness of every word
Because only Nothing could be easier than love
And love is to BE nothing
Because who could resist such loving completion?
Nothing is the soul of the universe
And anything at all is Nothing but Love
Love is finishing my speech and sitting down because I'd rather hear yours
May 1, 2013
May 1, 2013 at 12:31 PM UTC
Within some experiences I am “there,” within others, I am “not there.” In the latter sort, it is either anxiety-laden hyper-awareness or sardonic dissociation from minutia-made-material. In the former, it is effortlessness, freedom, gliding bones through sea, the waves pushing me down its throat and breathing me back out, moistened and changed. In both forms of existence I find myself; this is not something to reconcile, but to accept. I have realized myself as one contradiction—a noose round the neck of a flower, a gardener of thistle and thorn. The blue sky stretches across the horizon, and my mind removes itself to a distant branch. I find myself both here and not here. This space between body and mind is the closest I have to freedom. And so I add a layer to myself, or uncover one. And this, always, is where I find purity, where I comprehend the contradiction, where I taste the essence of that which I cannot otherwise know.
Mar 14, 2017
Mar 14, 2017 at 1:49 PM UTC
You really seem quite nice
and your brain is just my size
and I tell ya man im not an easy fit
id love to have a chat
pick your brain about
this and that
no better way to possibly spend my time
but when I get to talking
theres this voice that comes a mocking
and I find my self in a war with my words
and im shuddering
and im stopping
and im wishing that I could just find
that perfect and clear combination of words and sounds
a conversation
some discourse
a verbal interaction
its and itch thats needed scratching
for some time
I just wish I could give it a try
see iv been running around in circles
pushing boundaries
stepping backwards
even gnawed my foot down to the bone
communication at its finest
effortlessness interaction
the kind were we can see each other new
iv love to get to know you
iv got lots of things to show you
but im choking
and im gasping
purely willing my self to spit out
that perfect and clear combination of words and sounds
a conversation
some discourse
a verbal interaction
its and itch thats needed scratching
for some time
but I never can get it quite right.
Mar 12, 2014
Mar 12, 2014 at 7:47 PM UTC
I have not been honest with you and I think that it is about time that I am. Ever since I first saw you, across the park with both of our heads bent over some sort of controversial art, I have always thought you more mind than matter but contrary to my indecisive head you always put me before my words.
If you were still here listening to what I have to say I guarantee you would compliment more the effort I may or may not have put into my hair this morning than the effortlessness of the trash spewing from my lips.
I should have seen the danger of this after your constant affection of my ears and chest and toes - you adored every bit of my that you could see - but I was too caught up in you being caught up in my eyes that I could not see that you didn't like them for the shine but for the shade.
I think I finally started to understand when you painted pictures of me doing normal things - cooking, writing, smiling - but nothing natural, like sleeping - which I often and always mused about in prose about you, my dear - or just thinking. They must have been much too mundane.
Your sketches of clothes and trees and urban sprawl were impressive but lacked depth. It was as if you were unable to see past the surface like every lake you stood and stared at was covered in a silvery film you were unable to pierce, even in the most shallow places.
We were too unalike - I trained myself to see each person as a character with a blank slate for hair color and texture and the size of hands and feet, but you saw only freckles where they shouldn't have been and fingernails too long or too shorts and although you found it all beautiful, it took more than aesthetics to find a tell tale heart.
You lost mine beneath the lake waters.
Jul 9, 2014
Jul 9, 2014 at 2:30 AM UTC
Effortlessness is what empties a room- a mind also being a room- and extends a willowy collection of bones that you hope you can touch in your attempt to communicate the context of the rooms, so that the enigmatic hand might grasp at least a flicker of recognition that the moment has passed, and now She must be going, receding ever sublimely into the airiness of a nascent week’s end- how contradictory- and so am I, begging for peace and quiet and crawling instead into the raucous night, like a blind centipede that is expected to scare away the house, making the true Resident Rodents their rightful place at the throne- the bejeweled Rat Regent rules the underworld, but She has ignored the portal and it has vanished- perhaps never there in the first place- perhaps She and the Rat King both made of smoke. A vestige of a vapor. A room within a room- windowless, wall-less, and wafting in and out of seeming existence like a flame- could it have been the same flame as was before? Could ever a flame be reborn, revived, said to have previously existed? Can one say this flame could not have already been? And is this room, this space, new or old? Perhaps recycled? Is it a fluctuation, regeneration, or is it a continuation- like infinite space? And when considering infinity, what to make of repetition? Pattern, even? What is to be said about consistencies? What can the ants see that we cannot? What is this perspective that we are given? And by whom? And our language- where does it bring us? To the next essentially empty room? Or do you feel the life pulsing right under your very nose, in the hidden eye of the void- do you sense the deaf-dumb omniscience of consciousness? And is it growing or dying? Is an ice-age approaching, or truly, is this a momentary lapse of reason- a period of time where reason (matter and the mind) take shape in the disembodied womb of consciousness? And how can one ever measure a moment?
Jan 25, 2016
Jan 25, 2016 at 10:23 PM UTC
Cutout smile pasted to my mouth
as my head hits the pillow. I feel at peace and myself.
This effortlessness of our time spent is
like a diamond to be treasured and
coveted.
I float on our memories in
my thoughts and dream of the day
when I will be with you again.
Dec 6, 2011
Dec 6, 2011 at 12:03 PM UTC
I strip the sheets off my bed
I put my clothes to wash
But there is still nothing that can erase this
Not the rubbing of my skin raw to remove your stain
Or the brushing of my teeth to get rid of your taste
None of it can erase the feel of your lips and tongue drafting novels that should never be published on my back
Or your fingers painting life onto the blank and ordinary canvas that is my leg
It doesn’t help me forget, it doesn’t help me hurt any less
Because I can still smell you on my bed - the smell of you and old love I’ve grown too attached to now
And I can still hear your breathing and I shouldn’t - but if I think even a tiny bit harder
I can see every strand of your left eyelashes because those were the last things I memorised before you woke up
I memorised the tightness of your hug and the effortlessness of your goodbye kiss too
But I’m not prepared for the torture of remembering these details - I’m lying down and you’re not here to wipe these tears
Feb 4, 2014
Feb 4, 2014 at 8:56 PM UTC
I am desperate –
for all the effortless things
just so my blood has a chance to
sing for something
again
but out of all the open air that
has kissed my skin
and all the people who
were lucky to love me
the only easement I knew
was you
and before, during, after
well,
I was never enough for myself –
not once, not ever
so I find myself
aching for the effortlessness
but not aching for you in the way
I used to
I can’t find it – my effortlessness –
without you
because I believe they
are one in the same
so I wander –
a drifting soul –
from progression to progression
congratulations
you seem so happy
I am so proud
all these tangible things –
they will never bring me the
easement I knew from only you
Apr 16, 2015
Apr 16, 2015 at 9:32 PM UTC
WHEN YOU ARE OLD.
When you are old and dim and loaded with rest,
What's more, gesturing by the fire, bring down this book,
What's more, gradually read, and dream of the delicate look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows profound;
What number of cherished your snapshots of happy effortlessness,
What's more, adored your magnificence with adoration false or genuine,
In any case, one man adored the traveler soul in you,
What's more, adored the distresses of your evolving face;
What's more, bowing down alongside the gleaming bars,
Mumble, a little unfortunately, how Love fled
Furthermore, paced upon the mountains overhead
Furthermore, shrouded his face in the midst of a horde of stars.
Oct 19, 2017
Oct 19, 2017 at 12:30 PM UTC