"intangibles" poems
~for better days for the poet betterdays~
mournful tunes play silently, but still too often,
eyes wet but in corners kept, recurring then the
memories, keepsakes, letters, books, small trinkets,
not dusty, but dusky, resting on in-between ledge of a
mountain-sized twilight of well lit shadowy haziness,
edgy dark brilliance, a comprehensible contrast non-comprehendible
tunes that bless with equal measures of grief,
comforting, by memorable card flashes of good relief,
a dividing line, hazy and frequented crossed, a sort of path,
with no destination signaled, as if the path itself was an end,
to a meaning, a solution, with no clarity divined, a division
of sight and insight, providing an ill fitting reconciliation
mourning is electric, morning is electric,
letters, words bottled up in evaporating perfume bottles,
seeking the comfort of dissipation unto a larger atmosphere,
the scent in everything tangible, stronger still yet, in intangibles
that can erode but never ever fail to return instantly when voked,
by vision, odor, a particular child’s smile, line in a poem volunteered
recovered, uncovered, a post first writ to be written, discovered,
when time and place coincidentally breathe together, at last,
beckoning you to places where memory serves only as a pleasuring,
upright mind marker, decorated in chains perpetual reforging,
absent pain, gleaming dreamings full-replacing longings for pasts,
new verses composed, passing, a grand addition to a child’s legacy
May 18, 2019
May 18, 2019 at 8:50 AM UTC
I agree, my life will not affect the outcome of history.
I agree, my death will not affect international relations.
My job, they can replace me in a relative short time.
My family, will do fine without me, as I would want them to.
However, seeing is not always believing, an old cliché,
I can't see what I feel inside me.
Love, hate, loneliness, happiness.
These are all very real.
Although, they are intangibles.
Even more,
What of the wind, and the heat from the sun.
What of the coldness on a clear winter night.
The Tree-of-Life must be what manages all this.
It is Mother Nature, at its best and its worst.
Even the planets and stars are subject to its rule.
The cycle of life & death.
Some unknown event created this amazing cycle
The source of the Mother Nature, the Tree-of-Life
The source of all the various forms of existence.
All that exists of nature comes from God.
It matters not how God is perceived.
Jan 6, 2013
Jan 6, 2013 at 9:59 AM UTC
Ha! and I had hopes
for a better ending.
Placing my hand on the window pane, I felt it knocking
outside, as the rain ****** buckets and washed my car.
Every few seconds, the sky was talking,
but I would never let it in.
I stepped down into a dour acceptance
and bought a moderately-priced raincoat.
The spitting sky would never cease
And I began to imagine which items I owned could float.
I wished I chose swimming lessons over piano,
but at least because of it I had one.
I figured it might become a useful raft
if indeed no one ever again sees the sun.
How much water can fit under the sky? I wondered,
and at what depth will my body finally rest?
I realized I hadn't the time to consider intangibles
or to issue to God any vague, indirect requests.
I pressed my forehead against the glass, just stop!
There was a moat between houses now,
with pets and telephone poles and trees as islands.
The chill of cataclysm began to freeze my brow.
Later on my roof wearing my raincoat I daydreamed
about the things I loved underneath the silvery-grey.
I waved to my neighbor and he sadly waved back,
and I held up my glass of wine and watched the world wash away.
May 26, 2010
May 26, 2010 at 5:29 PM UTC
we are just words on a screen
an impossible reality
Dec 2, 2014
Dec 2, 2014 at 11:44 AM UTC
You’d be surprised
What can be accomplished
With your eyes sealed to the world
Stumbling in and out of love
With the wrong person,
The right person
Standing still while
The crowd moves about
And you face the opposite direction
Awaiting the joy
Coveted and insured from bloom
As it swims past your bones like a ghost
The miles you drive
Without taking the sights
Or abiding the lines
You can point and shoot
You can win or lose
But it holds no concern
It’s the feeling of knowing you’re lost
But cease to admit
Because it looks like life
There is no sleep to be had
When you shut your eyes to the world
Just an endless reaching for the walls you built
Maintain balance
So no one suspects
And tramples the comfort you found
They only see brown rust in your eyes
If you never show the raw burning red
And the vacancy of motive
Nothing hurts so bad
If you don’t stare directly at it
Or ignore it altogether
But when you finally open them
Don’t be skittish about what you’ve found
It’s only happening one blink at a time
War and drugs
And wars on drugs
And automatic guns
Disease and regret
And misleads and misread
And greed over guilt
Smiles and words
All things absurd
Hunger and cures
Lies and truths
Bigotry and fake news
Decay of education
Tribalism
Bibles
Prisons
Capital
Collateral
Intangibles
But you’ve pulled back the curtains
And you’ve drawn in the light
So you must never again close your eyes
Jan 25, 2018
Jan 25, 2018 at 12:55 PM UTC
The ten commandments say nothing,
in the translations I’ve read,
against coveting my neighbor’s good
fortune,
timing,
intentions,
sense of style,
or the countless other intangibles
gifted by Nature
and our DNA's mischievous inventions.
I’m a strict constructionist,
when it suits me, and especially so
with documents carved in stone
by invisible hands
having no recorded fondness for the market.
I’d trade places with any nameless witch
caught cavorting in her coven’s canopied oases,
their cauldron-ringing capers
and care-free cackles cheered
by owl hoots and cricket song;
Or the smallish, self-sacrificing spider
who rather than a cigarette gets a close-up
view of his mate’s spinnerets dispensing
the silk sheets to wrap him
as a happy meal deferred.
I also envy their creepy hatchlings
who weeks later will climb to the tip-tops
of firry fingers, cast a single wistful thread
and wait for the wish-fulfilling wind
to carry them lifetimes away.
That’s how I could stiff this chill
that taps me on the shoulder, and chase
after a far-off warmth I’ve weened
since my weaning was done.
I count these covets no sins.
Nov 13, 2010
Nov 13, 2010 at 6:37 AM UTC
It was never a case of one more or less
Intangibles don't weigh on her scale,
They rest, balanced and immovable
There was a case of right or wrong,
So I asked her to pick up the sword and pass judgement
She severed you and I, all involved were cut deep
Bleeding, everyone bled
Blinded, she separated both flesh and spirit
The rights and wrongs seem less important now
Nov 24, 2014
Nov 24, 2014 at 12:38 PM UTC
Its times like now, Alone in the shade
All couth is feasting on my frowning and dismay
As I sit by my lonesome crowded mid-West
A heartbeat a smile a gentle caress,
Intangibles of acceptance of ease of rest
Longing for embrace I chase with the best
My heart is throbbing sometimes in sometimes out
You are fixed in site in distance in memory and distress
The surging of mood can cause me much bout
Knowing you are here though I’m thinking quite less
In the presence of resonance I vibrate in tune
My trunk is still leaning, she tutors my topiary
In lusting and thrusting she’s willing my harpoon
Limbs cast shadows over new found leaves of liberty
Soft bodies do justice and let evil eyes swoon
In the abyss of darkness she carries a light
I’m but a moth dismissing the night
For giving myself, for breathing another sight
Foreshadows of chaos only make sacred my plight
When I rise with haste and scurry away
My maiden is waiting and waiting to replay
The tune once heard before the nightingales’ call
Before the mocking birds reminded me from which heights I did fall
Proximity and temptation so conveniently placed
Would not I have been more True, more Loyal about-face
Let me wither in silence with the tapping of Ravens
If only Poe told me true meaning of dear Eleanor
Every breeze that blew by would not seem safe havens
I would have you by my side to ground me Evermore
Jun 1, 2015
Jun 1, 2015 at 8:16 PM UTC
Star pupils, interstellar eyes,
gazing across the frozen nebula
at stick figures in radiation suits,
lovers intertwined with reactant valves,
planted into unearthly soil,
a distant light from over our shoulder,
the good comet returns,
there might be an escape pod
for intangibles after all,
and once inside, images of moonbase love
and alien encounters,
that neither mocks the comically misjudged
visions of yellowed science fiction,
nor longs for some utopian future,
an environment that begs escapism
without denying humanity
Apr 5, 2024
Apr 5, 2024 at 11:31 AM UTC
it is intangible...
how I have tried
with high-falutin,
poetic words....
to describe
how I miss you..
but I never get it right...
I just miss,
the warp and weft,
we weaved between us,
those links of the fabric
of our lives.
small threads and large,
words and silences,
smiles and tears
oh how I miss, I miss...
simple touches, shared laughter,
a cup of tea and a seat in the
evening sun...
I miss, I miss, I miss...
I am not alone or lonely.
I am loved and love.
but... I have not become
reconciled to the absence
of you..... I don't think
I ever will...
I am resigned,
but oh how
I miss.....
Jun 27, 2015
Jun 27, 2015 at 9:39 PM UTC
Disturbance Twin Pines
The simple fact this revered and honored holding location is almost perfectly triangulated it also holds
Ed and Virgil but on the sixteenth of July faint as flecked gold or the most gentle mood like reading
Someone’s mind or trying to cause loose sand to hold a form without a mold the only possibility if it was
Laying on the ground and moisture had formed a crust but you still couldn’t lift or move it to handle
The tenderest expression has to be left to the angels they are capable of both worlds solid earthly form
And the intangibles just beyond your finger tips the hoary frost on glass it is an ancient mystery visible in
The present the mist moves stands without seeming properties to allow it to do so that’s the richness
The almost unspeakable there are times that you can speak of such hushed things and talk with loves
Intensity with such depths it all lost to most even the most discernible eyes you have crossed boundless
Borders truly the frontier of the unknown has been bridged this is what appears ever so briefly and
Wondrously on marble cut to make the statement in its self this stands for permanent observation the
Parlance of deliberate and lasting meaning so how treasured that these words would appear you read
Them between the lines that say with heartfelt truth forever together so you have all of the above
Working and the truth invades your mind these words written on sacred stone can only be dreams that
Flow without end though the body hesitates and turns to immortal strands together formed by spirit
And Glory but in dreams these facts coalesce like on the deepest sea and from the depths a ship
Resurfaces two walk its deck receive structure get fluid motion unspeakable lucidity dancing in the mind
Leaps from the tongue steps that jumbled together some growing faint now sharp and keen the
Pleasure shared in mental stimulation exhilarating an all consuming flourish of peace holds you like the
Sweetest caress words spilling scrolling down hardest stone it is read and shared by the departed this
Connection is the result of celebration and the marking of another birth year has arrived on the calendar
What better time to stir the deepest emotions that you have shared Happy birthday I. M. I know you
won’t but just the same never fail to believe and know this writing was viewed on beloved stone.
Jan 11, 2012
Jan 11, 2012 at 5:33 PM UTC
how do I fall in love with pieces of myself
that died many years ago?
emptiness hangs in my mouth
like some fickle aftertaste.
and deep down, my thoughts are like
frightened fish.
i cut the world out of a magazine and
held it in my hands. . . how easy it seemed;
to crush it. to crumple it.
turn it into heartache origami.
i suppose i'm possessed;
a mourning era––a morning light,
a bowl full of teeth.
i have laid myself to rest so many times that it seems i celebrate my funeral more often than my birthday.
Oct 26, 2020
Oct 26, 2020 at 2:00 AM UTC
I must've heard the phrase
hundreds of times by now.
"My life's going to hell
in a handbasket."
Or some such variance.
Only recently have I become able
to tell you what that actually looks like.
See
you start with a cute wicker basket.
The kind grandma might give you muffins in.
Then you place all the things you've managed to hold onto
inside of it.
Your friends, your family, your job.
Next goes in all those possessions you hold dear.
Your car, your house, your dog.
Lastly
in go the intangibles.
Your hope.
Your dreams.
All your positive feelings.
Then you set the mother ****** on fire
and watch it all burn away.
May 4, 2016
May 4, 2016 at 12:36 PM UTC
You've changed something inside of me,
it came about as a swelling tide of intangibles
peeking just over the horizon.
A silence of the mind
vainly bracing for the impact.
The under current,
the rip tide,
will surely pull me under.
I just go,
I let it carry me
to where I need to be.
I just go,
let it wash away my sins
to be left
at the bottom of the sea.
I just go,
I give in to the everything
that I cannot see.
and I'm swept away
to another world...
hopefully you'll catch up with me.
Jun 9, 2011
Jun 9, 2011 at 3:27 PM UTC
Chasing, rushing, grasping on
Falling, running, can't keep up
Your lyric is my melody
My pulse, your heartbeat
Couldn't quite say it
but felt it in your hot gaze.
Oct 5, 2012
Oct 5, 2012 at 8:08 PM UTC
Where the first candle was lit
At midnight mass,
You greaved forward the light
And blessed the joint,
Took a puff and inevitable
Like the cries of the kids
Chasing the raspa man,
Said puff puff pass.
Over summer 95 with
An eternal cusp of weathered
Youth we drove the neighborhood
In the Accord I was given,
At times I believe for graduating Jr High, your unbeatable design
To get us laid was never like the fated quartet moon
That you held in respect almost
Soldier like.
Remembered C-5 Galaxy and the base we could never get into,
A roar of sunset glow and the
Colors we flew for our street
Wer more than the rainbow
Could bear,
A spectrum of a place and
Time that only
A whispered gallantry when
You took that knife for me,
Always the duo,
Once alone,
Taken with the ways of men.
I did nothing with my
Pano, the red handkerchief
That all the homiez through
In a sea of red,
I swear I heard the Taps
Being played by Carlos Santana,
I took a breath and lay
Out a cry,
One that still runs the barrio,
Mi amigo,
Once the road in a present dream
Taken like the winds
And a memory's glance,
You are there
And I still,
My Friend,
Westside intangibles.
Sep 25, 2017
Sep 25, 2017 at 11:27 PM UTC
Love From Above
Every day the sun shines into our lives accomplishing its life giving work fulfilling joyfully its dutiful work
But it waits with great anticipation for the shining it will do on Easter because that day is when Christ
Sets on His throne and from His being light goes forth in all direction the source of heaven’s illumination
Is truly love ablaze this dazzling empowered energy contains the fount of serenity tranquility bliss in
Portion to all of earths seas settled over all of it is mist filled with mystery the intrigue that bounds
The mind heart and soul in a drift that flows with golden ships that are filled with gifts for peoples all
Over the world babies new found love for those who are falling in love the first time and the glow that
Parents and grandparents show when they look on the new faces of bundles of joy that just created a
Lifetime tidal wave of pleasure joy thrills interest wonder that flows out into basins of generations I
Could go on but Jesus’ has arisen with His hands he takes theses intangibles as they stream in lines and
He bends them toward the sun the sun flushes with joy as these rays join his and race toward earth to
Bathe every living one with a portion of what heaven owns if you like this piece say thank you Roberta
Merrifield this is what flowed from my heart in answer to her wishing me a happy Easter
Apr 7, 2012
Apr 7, 2012 at 4:01 PM UTC
Linguistics for the intangibles -
would that be manageable?
: For one person to sit and create
some words that none can negate
fully explain all which we feel,
those words and verbs
we know to be real.
- To further iterate
our experience had;
words bigger than “happy and sad”
Jun 27, 2010
Jun 27, 2010 at 3:28 PM UTC
Remove me from existence, please.
I no longer wish to be.
There is a pleading melody.
That I would like to flee.
And as the buzz of people,
Draw so near and far.
I putter down the county road,
In my little car.
I gaze upon the cattle,
The sparkling city lights.
I ponder upon sleeping pills,
I begin to see blank white.
Perhaps I may have overdosed,
A mistake I should not make.
I cannot hear his mutterings,
And I do not partake.
Like stepping on intangibles,
Or eating blanketed air,
I cannot hear the inaudible,
love what is not there.
And as I creep into a room,
Filled with dust and fear,
A bit of nostalgia,
Falls into my ear.
It dances to my brain, you see.
And then into my heart.
It is a terrible sin,
missing such a part.
Like a robot armless,
Or a flightless dove,
I want simplicity and untruth,
Human and God above.
Apr 17, 2011
Apr 17, 2011 at 4:23 PM UTC
I know what it is like to be a survivor. I know what means to be redeemed. I have fallen down with a hard crash, but I can walk, today. I've experienced hate, but also love. Indifference has gained plenty of territory in this age, and fatigue is no stranger. I've grown weary of the daily grind and sometimes feel like a pretender. Nevertheless, I have found much to be passionate about, and I'm glad to be a part of the Beating Heart Association-also known as "alive".
We are warriors in a battlefield, because there is a war going on out there. I've wanted to shake hands and call a truce, for I've needed the peace and quiet. I needed to take hold of my thinking, for I think my punches were landing back onto me. I'm often guilty of self-deprecation, so don't look for lemonade from me. I'd just as well hand out lemons.
Sure, I love happy endings, for it is a distraction from many harsh realities. This planet surely contains conundrums. There are many amazing things in the world as well as there are many things that are far too perplexing. I have had plenty of doubts in God, others and myself, but still manage to maintain a flicker of faith. How it gets rekindled is what makes it divine. Everything else in this world will end up old, useless and discarded, but such intangibles have staying power.
Visions of hope make this world possible. An existence without flux is an existence most stagnant. To conclude, throwing in the towel just cannot be an option. So take note: You can still see me walking down that Yellow Brick Road, experiencing the journey that is full of bumps, twists, turns and surprises.
Jan 29, 2017
Jan 29, 2017 at 1:57 PM UTC
You talk of tangibles
I'm stuck in intangibles.
Highly doubt if you'll ever see
Questioning eyes, I can no longer hide.
Who'll believe, if not you
My smiles deceive, do you know.
Not you, but myself
Eagerly waiting, to be caught.
Nov 21, 2020
Nov 21, 2020 at 3:36 AM UTC
If you go and try your hardest to figure me out, you will fail. All the intangibles are in place as you will see, but you will die from complete exhaustion with your first attempt. I do wish you the best of luck for trying. So seize that moment and let me hear your silent screams!!
Sep 23, 2014
Sep 23, 2014 at 3:55 AM UTC
Overwhelming sense of death.
Consumed my thoughts, my actions.
I grabbed onto anything
and held as The Fall began.
Sudden jolt and I am aware
Soft cries come from downstairs
it is too early, something is instantly
wrong.
The drive to my house is long
the last moments of being blissfully ignorant.
Pull up
the driveway is filled with
cars, I don’t understand.
The front door, rushed,
People everywhere
demeanor drops
My mind races with the Intangibles.
Led away, muffled cries
then panic,
Hysteria, disbelief, dreaming right?
Little brother sits softly on my mother’s bed
he doesn’t understand, I don’t understand
as she tells us about
a heart that failed
a heart that stopped
a heart that was too large, too generous
to handle.
Crying. Stop. Shower
Naked, yelling to a god
that no longer exists
coughing as steam rises
apologizing for nothing.
It was the last sentence
I spoke
It was the last time I couldn’t
bear to look.
Screaming episodes
an ambulance
blood in his mouth
the phone and anticipation
screaming from the top to emergency workers
“Hurry the **** up”
I sat crying on two small steps
trying to accept this desperate shell,
this blind man was my dad.
Two months later, a room full of people
where my friends saw me cry for the first time
trying to accept that some solemn heavy casket
was the same man.
Jul 16, 2010
Jul 16, 2010 at 11:07 AM UTC
We're surrounded by many blessings in life.
Roof over our heads,
Food on our plates,
Clothes on our backs,
Families, friends and partners.
Yet, why are we not valuing what we have,
But valuing what we don't have?
Are they needs, or just wants?
Tangibles versus the intangibles,
Can you differentiate the importance?
Money isn't the only measure for wealth.
Switch your perspective around.
From materialistic views, luxurious riches,
To small but equally beautiful qualities of life.
Not all that sparkles are treasures,
Not all that glitters are gold.
Only when one appreciates what one has,
No amount of gifts will ever please.
"You only know what you have when it's gone".
Dec 5, 2016
Dec 5, 2016 at 3:52 AM UTC
The dark can see
Wooden door squeaks,
To wheezy breeze
On creaking antiques...
Eerie silence echoes,
Spilling nebulous images
As haunted psychos
From all entrapped cages.
Voices of invisibles
Heard from hidden hosts;
Illusory intangibles
Manifesting to be ghosts...
Goosebumps ripple
Into waves of gooseflesh;
Fear evokes a *******
Entangled in scary mesh.
"The ghosts're real"
Apparitions of restless spirits
"We could **** or heal"
Our actual and factual secrets.
May 19, 2016
May 19, 2016 at 5:58 AM UTC