"refractions" poems
And gusts a wind that never sleeps
When at the pond arrives a breathless boy,
Knees kneel within the reeds and muck
To glimpse distorted carp beneath.
He counts his boundless hunter's luck
As shiftless as a seaweed wreath,
Then baits the wand that bears his angler's ploy,
And gusts discern he plays for keeps.
This boy roguish
As fish are coy.
And silent in the swaying deeps
The drifting dance of carps who dream and wish
Is ceased by ripples from a splash --
Refractions of the surface shake
As sinks an enigmatic flash:
Allure from realms beyond the lake.
The one that hungers proves the bravest fish,
And silent, at the lure he leaps.
Bravery
Aug 24, 2013
Aug 24, 2013 at 12:00 PM UTC
Violets are purple, and roses are red.
Because romance and the color blue are somehow different tonight.
On this one day of the year, the refractions of light
aren't bent to the left, romance just tends to mess with our heads.
So, what I'm saying is, this year let's just watch Netflix instead.
Because why be blue on Valentines day, amirite?
Feb 14, 2015
Feb 14, 2015 at 2:29 PM UTC
Morning Rainbow
Myriad prismatic crystals,
refract the morning sun-streams -
painting layers of spectral arches
across the misted horizon.
Eyes turned to the western skies,
we suspend our meteorological selves
acquiescing to miracles unveiled before us -
un-beckoned and scarcely earned,
proffering thanks for the radiant epistle
of healing, hope and promise,
artfully encoded in transfigured light.
Synthetic Refractions
A luminary ballet takes center stage
when synthetic refractors come to play:
crystal pendants bathe our foyers
with dazzling swaths of color.
Hazy coronas encircle streetlamps
discovered by headlights through the fog.
A science class prism slices light rays
into pre-ordered spectral strata.
If the sky denies us a rainbow,
we can always fashion one of our own
and we do!
Spectral Sound
Before there was music,
bird songs brushed our souls
and the murmur of woodland streams
held us captive by their banks.
Soon we learned to sing and tint the air
With prisms of wood and wire and metal
and to color soundscapes in our spirits
With songs of wonder, joy and longing.
Before there was music,
bird songs brushed our souls.
Robert Charles Howard, 2019
Feb 25, 2019
Feb 25, 2019 at 1:14 PM UTC
Somethin' about an empty room, depending on how the light asks to be let in on its edges.
An empty room don’t expect you to do nothin' whatever. And its floor responds in this kinda lilting relief when you tap-dance barefoot upon it.
If you sit in all its corners, with your eyeballs (try it!) you can trace the refractions and suggestions on the wall, 'specially the places where paint and odd plaster stick up like little men and cast shadows all their own.
You can spend hours doing this.
You, the impressionable film upon which the world's projected herself—you turn the world upside down and make sense of the image in this empty box.
You
Make art here.
Shout here! Run and kick and punch through the walls and
Love them as you do so, kid.
Something about emptiness itself, gets a lot of flack, you think,
cast as grave.
Hell!
Emptiness: potential,
Emptiness: casting being in sharp distinction.
Emptiness: sensual, like breath before the
action of the human magnetic.
You: the one alive in this your empty room and therefore acutely aware of
what you chose to project in such vibrant relief.
Today, it is newspapers and magazine clippings and a notebook and a blue pen and a book by Susan Sontag.
Today you lie on the woody floor, supine, eyes wide
and become part of it
your lungs breathe life into this ancient emptiness. And the air between its walls vibrates, and sighs, nascent, ‘thank you.’
Feb 18, 2017
Feb 18, 2017 at 3:01 PM UTC
It was 29° (f) degrees this morning with a waning gibbous (¾) moon. Still, as we started our run, it was dark enough that the world was rendered in black and white. Lisa was a sepia print of herself while Charles was a large, quiet shadow, a dark visual noise pattern.
We usually jog from our dorm, down to and along New Haven Harbor and back. Lisa and I love the ocean. The wind was in our faces this morning and there were no sparkling moon refractions in our direction, which made the water musou and colorless.
I’ve gotten my outfit down to a science, leggings under shorts, four long sleeve, dry-wicking spandex tops (layering is important), a power-wool-earflap-beanie, thermal neck gaiter and quantum, icebreaker gloves (with touch-screen compatibility) - you gotta dress warmly but be able to shed layers as needed.
I listen to audiobooks while we run. Right now I’m on book 5 of the ‘The Expanse’ series. I don’t have time to read anything fun these days, so I listen to science-fiction/fantasy while I workout. I love the new AirPod Pro feature that automatically turns the sound down if anyone talks.
I wear a fitbit charge around my right ankle and my Apple watch as well - they both track my run - the fitbit is more accurate but my watch sends my workout stats to my siblings - we’re uhh, sort of competitive.
At first, as we came up on the harbor, it was impossible to see the intersection of the two dark oceans - the great terrestrial and the greater galactic - but as we turned for home, there was an atmospheric scatter of blue at the edge of the horizon, heralding the sunrise on our retreating backs.
musou = one of the darkest shades of black
Nov 2, 2023
Nov 2, 2023 at 7:41 PM UTC
uoy ot gnis I
seuh derettahs fo yballul a
htrow dna ytilaudividni fo snoitcarfer
kni gniyrc neeb ev'uoy
em revo lla deraems
ynnuf s'ti, das os gnikool
I sing to you
a lullaby of shattered hues
refractions of individuality and worth
you've been crying ink
smeared all over me
looking so sad, it's funny
'sit scriptor aspiret invicem'
Should we?
we already are.
Each other we paint;
"blood from thee."
Jun 16, 2021
Jun 16, 2021 at 8:28 AM UTC
The wind's fingers reached into his collar,
pinching him with the cold
With another stroke of the paintbrush
The blue mixed with the gold
The walkers who ventured o’re the shore
Stared at the mumbling man
Whose teeth were stained with yellow
And drank to calm shaking hands
The burning lights blurred in the water
Pooling refractions and ripples
He captured the heavenly bodies
As the canvas he covered in stipples
Azure he blended with the indigo,
canary and honey and flax
The cool and the warm melded in one
candle and moon, wane and wax
Soft falls the light in the harbor
The stillness of night overcast
In the river he cleans off his brushes
And turns round for home at the last.
Mar 9, 2021
Mar 9, 2021 at 11:15 PM UTC
Revelatory refractions held in the disco ***** reflection, glancing off the wall.
Dim-lit dreams tilt forward, spilt into a paper cup, bounced backward and sprinkled up.
******* synonyms from the cold, dead pages of the riddle’s mask.
Breaching spatial avenues left for those who understood the task.
Taking hits from a dry-lit flask, leaving windows closed to bask
Clapped the snap back bass kit as it turned Wallace snitch.
The Wire drawn and laid on lawns boundless in the ditch.
Deaf to congruencies of affection, brought about by an adolescent ********
Blind spot in the centre of view. Rhythmic dancing, oblivious to the pew
Unplugged mixing, interlocked twisting
Pulsing in tune with distorted computation
Dehydrated seizures next to the watering station
Molly Mary caught in the flashing lights, blinded by the car’s brights.
A necklace found, nothing else around.
Body grasped for fun, stuffed, mounted, late night pokes meticulously counted.
Nov 4, 2014
Nov 4, 2014 at 12:37 PM UTC
This is not mine!
THIS IS NOT MINE!
THIS IS NOT MY HOME!
your diamond ***
intense compaction and heat
clear like hash gum
red as a cherry until it pops bittersweet
the end is enough
but victory feels naught
years of blood I cough
and hate is what i'm taught.
Away from sane
Pleasures of pain
Try and keep the loose locks chained
Realities plane
From what we gain
Oh life is tamed
From heart to brain
Your name is bane
Now I’m the same
These maggots of shame
Express my frame
The life of death is but a game
The fowls in your lies
They **** out my eyes
Streaking fire harmonize
Along the lines of mental suicide
now lost in higher skies
Known like when a ghost dies
Inegligible melting wax
With a sea of philosophical facts
Tearing your nails for satisfaction
incomprehensible refractions
why try to grasp such fractions
to only destroy your foundation?
like narcotics and communication
or the vane abyss of dead relaxation
Jun 14, 2015
Jun 14, 2015 at 7:16 PM UTC
*By amber light we sit here in this scintillating evening
By amber light we wonder at the treasures of the night,
Enraptured by the shimmer of the highlights in the wavelets
Across the bay the music plays to thrill us with delight.
Moving to the rhythm of a tango in the moonlight,
Feeling the sinuating warming run inside
Start the steps in synchro to the pulsing of our swaying
Roll the eyes in fun as we let our bare feet glide.
Shimmer on the wavelets in the balmy air of evening
Kaleidoscope reflection of refractions of the night,
Titilating trumpets to the pulsing of the conga drums
We meld our hips together in our tango's rich delight.
By amber light luxuriate as long as night’s forever
We’ve felt the brush of loving in a tangled, close perspire,
We’ve danced the dance of romance in these luscious shades of evening
To be happy and exhausted in a bubble of desire.*
Marshalg
In the magic of the peaceful night and the waters’ beautiful, shimmering shades.
Manou’s Harbourside Restaurant
Port Taranaki, NZ.
9pm 1 April 2013
Apr 3, 2013
Apr 3, 2013 at 12:57 AM UTC
Around your neck
not a stone
a crystal
shown
I relate to it
shine
so special
you let me touch
it touches me
in return
I relate to you
it's part of you
after
all
refractions
cloud my school day
it's physics
in the crystal
I C
Re: fractions
which in total
have no equal
and which apart
add up
to me
.. as time does
for you
in action?
you seem to be
anything but..
so.. so..
hypnotic?
action?
crystal as time
act eye on
cry s t a l .. a s t i m e
love?
and you?
it seems formulaic
the equation stalls
so sad
MC is square
not round
no cutting corners
2
let us go
on and oners
Love =
pluses and minuses
I guess
one kiss
would solve it
Thank 'Eee
awwww
(I'd be such an *** not to)
Jul 20, 2014
Jul 20, 2014 at 12:18 AM UTC
It hit the pressure point,
**** shocked electric joints,
Finger flounder, a weapon,
Cold recoiling aggression.
Regretful revenge,
Hmm, still not really cleansed.
The concentrated intents
Odd refractions been bent.
Apr 15, 2013
Apr 15, 2013 at 7:38 AM UTC
Stone of massive solidness, shards of gemlike flint
Crystalline refractions flash in noon day's sunshine glint,
Obelisk in grasses green, immense in grey repose
Has lain in place for centuries here, how long, nobody knows.
Created in the hellfire deep and ****** up from below
Molten in its’ infant form to flow with orange glow.
To work its’ way down mountain flank to plunge to cascade’s grasp
And tumble, grinding river stone, worn smooth in torrent’s clasp.
Rolling swift in flooded flow to beach by river’s edge
With grasses green against it’s’ girth in shade of leafy hedge.
Seasons come… cold rain and snow with baking heat in summer past
Millennia doth flow on by to leave untouched this boulder, vast.
Until this day I happened by, perchance beneath a clear blue sky
To rest my bones upon this rock, remove my boot and empty sock.
Admiring, in the midday sun, the snow clad peak and river run,
In wilderness of debris strewn from high volcano past it’s noon.
To notice with discerning gaze the rock, on which I sit, is glazed
With crystals of refracting fire to capture, now, my eye entire.
What secrets lie within this stone that lies so massively, alone?
What history has passed it by beneath its centuries of sky?
What stories could this boulder tell should I remove its silent spell?
Bemused, I tie my boot and yield,this obelisk to chosen field…..
Marshalg
On the timeless bank of Taranaki’s wild, wild Stoney River.
25 November 2013
Nov 24, 2013
Nov 24, 2013 at 9:31 PM UTC
beneath the stillness of my ocean,
there are currents overwhelming,
& it’s a gentle, persisent undertow
-
they pull me down.
-
I can not tell, at times,
when the sea only whispers,
those waves of wonder,
I am all smiles on my vessel.
-
but lo! at times, I remove my hat,
And without, I can see reflections,
(refractions too!)
of the sunlight, illuminating,
the trenches & dark spots,
the layers I seek not to swim,
-
it is there, where I search for a map,
but there is no map, or guide of sorts,
my ocean remains ever unknown
it is there, where I float alone
-
they pull me down.
-
what is the worst; to know not
your ship or self?
I do not see either…
I can only see the reflections
-
that truth is drowning me….
-
I have made my boat bright,
intertwining daises freckle
the sides, but it is not me
-
& true! the piece will work
but for how long?
-
I fear I have not made it strong.
-
still, I shall sit in it. it carries
me well…
I have made seat enough for two
took the time to fill them up
no! my boat is full…
-
I must make for you, a space!
have my seat here…
me, I shall lay on the floor!
-
yes, I like it better here…
I can see only the sky…
& for miles & miles, I will
dream of, one day, sharing this view
-
& we won’t have to tell at times,
what the undertows are murmuring
-
I will not listen;
I will not let them pull me down
Mar 21, 2013
Mar 21, 2013 at 6:11 AM UTC
Verse One
A simple complication
Shapes the way we see ourselves,
A fatal disconnection,
To be just like everyone else,
Find the spark in your heart
And let out the flames,
Kiss the scars on your arms,
You were never to blame,
Turn on the lights in your mind
And throw out the dark,
You were never made to break this way,
Trauma never fades to grey
Chorus
Paint with watercolours from your tears,
A prism you made from your fear,
Chase the spectrum and touch the light,
Crystal clear and it shines through the glass
Of your heavy soul,
You want to be whole,
Fill the cracks in the flaws only you can see,
Perfection isn't what it seems to be.
Verse Two
A desperate resignation,
Starve your body from the hate,
A fatal designation,
Purging pain until it's too late,
Put the nightmares to bed,
And lock up the door,
The voices will cease to exist any more,
Kiss the scars on your thighs,
And fall in love with your skin,
You will never break again,
You are stronger than the strongest of them
Chorus
Paint with watercolours from your tears,
A prism you made from your fear,
Chase the spectrum and touch the light,
Crystal clear and it shines through the glass
Of your heavy soul,
You want to be whole,
Fill the cracks in the flaws only you can see,
Perfection isn't what it seems to be.
Bridge
Rainbow refractions of years to come,
Mirrors that show the person you've become,
Crystal reflections
Will show unique complexions
Of yourself,
Perfect the way you are,
You've put up a fight and you've come so far
Chorus (x2)
Paint with watercolours from your tears,
A prism you made from your fear,
Chase the spectrum and touch the light,
Crystal clear and it shines through the glass,
Of your heavy soul,
You want to be whole,
Fill the cracks in the flaws only you can see,
Perfection isn't what it seems to be.
Jan 25, 2014
Jan 25, 2014 at 3:40 PM UTC
Seated on the edge of the riverbank
Watching raindrops fall across the city light's reflection;
A living Monet of color and fluidity and the sutble refractions of life.
The bridge above me is humming with traffic,
The railyard to my left fills the cold night with the timeless bellowing of midnight trains,
Used syringes lay amongst the driftwood here.
A crudely painted ******** adorns the trail head,
Overgrown with brambles bushes and blackberry vines.
A solitary ****** cruises the shallow dregs of shore
On an endless quest to find her mate,
Painfully unawares of his fate,
Fallen victim to a poacher,
Some careless fool with a greedy and discontented heart.
The tents and tarps of Portland's homeless, the lost and forgotten, line these hillsides;
Their many dreams and hopes lie broken amidst the rubble of this everyday existence.
I sit here often, smoking and thinking, and watching the ever changing lights.
Every now and again I take a picture, gather a stone, or fall asleep to the sound of rain
And the smell of earth and leaves and rushing water.
Oct 13, 2016
Oct 13, 2016 at 2:24 AM UTC
pull them weeds from yonder brick, be quick... bedazzle me with corduroy and ambergris
be thick as thieves; be all things faithful to the shadow, and in your passing scrye
the odd ghost. decry your abominations as the fodder of false hope clothed in the style of the regent
of Amiss. on the Isle of a Man.
clip the nettle from my tongue where i'm most stung by misdeeds. amplify my misery with a joyful
peroxide, the living thing in your chest of winters. your remarkable damnation in full blossom.
more awesome than fog diamonds in wet eyes grazing on refractions of something unknown
and that's how you see it.
a gargantuan
sliver
of
now
Nov 20, 2012
Nov 20, 2012 at 3:50 PM UTC
Beautiful Grey and Darkness
Stream and leaves decay.
Navy green, brown, clay-blue.
Subtle shades.
Cold bones, wandering mind.
What am I looking for?
Hidden world
Creep over my body.
Take me slowly.
Reality slips away and another replaces it.
Two actors, one protagonist.
Pale and melted
Colour floats on the water.
Dancing, finding
Folds and creases.
Reflections, refractions.
Mild cold
Makes its home in the empty spaces
Between fabric and skin.
Goosebumps.
In-between, twill.
everything and nothing.
experience and oblivion.
Hide me, let me
freely wander
inner worlds.
Careless in
Beautiful grey and darkness.
Mar 27, 2015
Mar 27, 2015 at 10:01 PM UTC
You send your words,
Directed to my ears.
My eyes they read,
Somehow they fear.
I imagine the others;
how they'd react.
I wish not to retalliate.
If I can forgive you,
I should forgive myself.
That agony, directed:
in reverse: through reflections:
of infinity mirrors: with refractions:
reverberated light: quantum waves:
perpetual motion: unviolated entropy:
Let me hold that forgiveness,
Let me offer it to myself,
I want to take the hostia,
The sacrificial bread,
The holy communion.
Chanel divine grace
Into my inner being.
Give me utmost peace.
Allow me such union,
I will consume from the chalice.
spilled liquidity: ripples in water:
splashing kineticism: frequency oscillation:
oceanic dispersion: moistened vibration
wettened wavelengths: aquatic repetition:
Will it not dilute?
Will this spirit stay mine?
Will it not disorient?
Will this wisdom remain?
Will it not expire?
Will this solemnity be?
Give me the strength,
I implore my higher self
If it is to exist
That is.
May 25, 2016
May 25, 2016 at 6:56 AM UTC
Her body. She scowls.
She counts the calories on the bottles.
She waits a few months between binge drinking...
That way she doesn't overextend her choleric intake.
She eyes me in such a way
That I can't tell if she's ***** or angry.
We both take another drink and we let
The best pieces of ourselves rot away.
She brings the flashlight under covers
Her smile is just water refractions
The room begins to fill with jewelry
Nothing between the bed and we.
I'm so alive with you nearby.
You make me want to die sometimes.
I wish that we could start a life.
You make me wish I could still cry.
I will think of you when I sleep tonight.
I'll hope that these next 3 years go by.
Without you I just might fly
But there would be no reason why.
I love you
You **** me
I love you
You **** me
I love you
You **** me
I love you
You **** me
I love you (You **** me)
I love you (You **** me)
I love you (You **** me)
I love you (Please **** me)
Dec 29, 2012
Dec 29, 2012 at 7:36 AM UTC
You see this world.
This I know to be true.
But you see refractions
And shadows of other yous.
Your cries are misrepresented
Seen as horror in the night
But I know that it's just Peter Pan
Making faces in the light.
You are different.
I'll give you that.
But differences are just
Glitter in the cracks.
Some may say that
You are wrong,
But you're not, their
Imagination is just gone.
You are beautiful.
Scars and all.
Scars especially; it's
Strength, not a downfall.
Hold on to the colours
Dancing in your head,
Because without them, girl
It will all be grey instead.
Sep 29, 2016
Sep 29, 2016 at 4:33 PM UTC
At six in the morning when the inches
of snow are still holding the sunshine
off with their vacant swelling hills
and troughs, I hear the passing traffic
a block east. Will the traffic stop?
When I say traffic, I mean the rumble of coal
cars two miles distant. I mean garbage
trucks full of yawning men I don't know
and garbage I've known for a week.
I mean the women leaving hospitals
bound for sunbathed sleep habits
and more long days of night. When I say
traffic, I mean the adolescent fox foraging
through the Baptist churchyard. I mean
the line of metal carriages trailing
from checkout line 10. I mean the blood
racing to my arm after we spent the night
holding each other.
When I say blood racing I mean the multiplying
and dividing of cells, beats in a symphony built
up, crumbling down by an ancient arithmetic
pulling us in, broken gravity we fight by holding
onto it, clutching it to our hearts as we step into
the earth.
When I say blood racing, I mean the tiny
blind lives bustling under flesh overpasses,
blood cells commuting perpetually even after
years of smoking cigarettes, lungs an oil spill
butterfly resting in the chest. When I say
six in the morning, I mean the dark hour,
my second wind, when I rise to clear our
tables and stack the dishes in the sink.
I mean the hour you finally went to bed
after we fell asleep on the couch, again.
I mean the hour I crept into the hall
to take out the trash, tight hand-rolled cigarette
patient on my lip.
When I say six in the morning, I mean the time
between the milk man and the sunrise, I mean
the minutes falling around the decaying beauty
of gold and scarlet leaves prostrate on cold
sidewalks.
When I say decaying beauty, I mean the wizened
grey tree, standing naked, no, stooping
over the fence by your road.
When I say stooping, I mean the man draped
in a scarlet vest and goldenrod button-down
wincing himself upright on the stool, unconcerned
with the dark pub behind him or the faces bent
through his glass in the dim refractions of the Open sign,
faces bent over mostly empty glasses, empty faces.
Mar 2, 2012
Mar 2, 2012 at 3:06 PM UTC
Loneliness can be pressed into a jewel
and hung in the window.
Spinning prisms across the walls of my
empty room.
It's brightest when the sun is shining;
the facets deep and ever-changing.
Light and shadow;
time and distance.
This is when it stings:
Every perfect evening (gull cries and clear skies)
hangs on the walls of my room in light-tricks.
Vignettes of sunsets; only refractions.
The daylight oranges over his long back,
it goldenrods in his hair, shadows lengthen
his crooked fingers, strong wrists.
He looks west.
The sun says: follow! The light is chasing me.
His loneliness is a jewel that he saves for me.
Mar 9, 2014
Mar 9, 2014 at 1:29 PM UTC
I would re-name the planets after galaxies in your eyes.
The stars finally know what it feels like to burn with envy.
There are constellations tracing the soft skin of your back.
Following dips and curves, I would draw maps with two fingers
of everything that matters.
Freshman science taught us about untouched miracles;
and just like that-
the ultraviolet cosmic phenomenon
fixed us to spiral arms in far-away planetary
nebulas, like the ringed Cat’s Eye.
The milky skies whispered
so that only we could hear,
"Heaven's dust will fall"
You feared last night you could hear the earth
cracking under the weight of the universe,
paralyzed with a crippling guilt
you'll only see the stars after they've died.
Neighboring nova would spectate
our telescopic wavelengths-
needing the prisms to reflect on
our kaleidoscope refractions.
No matter the efforts of a tangible spectrum,
one could never quite touch our frequency.
Between lazy and lively,
our whitecap love remained visibly invisible.
Our infrared vessel to space, raced clusters of runaway stars
past post-distant intergalactic bodies,
shooting through beasts, astrologies, gods.
We window shopped stellar bursts of dust clouds
above our clouds, a gravity shelter.
Meteors became our faithful companions
glowing gassy flowers of dusty debris.
The pressure (we couldn’t touch) generates combustion;
atoms gazing psychedelic pinks, greens,
soothing tones of aquamarines.
Ever since then you've been the glittering
black hole, heaving me in.
The only thing I’m able to taste is
the way your luminous Milky Way kiss
gives gifts of halos to terrestrial light rays.
But the flavor of your lips are the
battalions inspiring the star shining front lines-
Integrity a marathon taking laps
to the moon
to Pluto and back, the long way.
Blizzards of stars rewrite our language
in the moon beams,
guiding us past lost letters to Pluto.
How do you sleep among dancing stars
while the rest of the universe watches?
I made my home in your eyes
and you made your home in the sky.
Feb 17, 2018
Feb 17, 2018 at 10:06 PM UTC
Two beautiful moons,
galaxies apart
Turning circles
held there
by the obligations of gravity.
But one ever seeks the other,
Sensing they are destined;
They feel the pull of the other
Through the void of spaces.
In their endless revolutions each
Counting the twinkle of the stars,
down to the one Lunar turn
when they align paths
only seconds to Tell
of a universe of love
in that moonbeam,
eclipsing Each others spaces,
their refractions touch.
Particles of moonbeams close enough
to mingle in each others high hopes,
but the universe has
its own time scape
At least as they drift,
further from the rings of their bounds
Each endless cycle,
drifts them a fraction closer to their hearts;
and on that glorious night
when their hearts collide
the universe will see
a brilliance of love
To eclipse every sun.
Oct 31, 2013
Oct 31, 2013 at 9:11 AM UTC