(3 persons in one Universe)

I.
retinas read with rods and cones
as eyes watch
but who sees?
fingertips discern with nerve endings
but whose ears feel fear of library lips?
noses detect an old factory
but who tastes the aroma of rice
cooking in the kitchen?
membranes entreat tympanic vibrations
but who hears the mischief of schoolyards,
playgrounds and wind chimes?
who smells the movement of white water
in blue skies?
who envies a feather’s flight
and a fire fly’s light?
who listens for the whip-poor-will’s cry
and the songs of ocean waves and seashells?
who longs for the softness of your flesh
and the sweet touch of your voice?
more than muscle and tendon,
tissue, bone and blood
every cell in my body reactive
in thoughtful, mindful ways
but who interprets it all?
who am I?
who is me?
who, who, who-whooo?


II.
in my mind I am the god
of existentialism
creator of my microcosm
winding my path my way
but the world is dichotomy
an intertwined double helix
circumstances and choices
road blocks and detours
trial and error
failure and success
life is navigation
community is whom I meet along the road
responsibility is self and selflessness
as a good Samaritan thinketh
I wish I had wisdom’s words
and action’s healing hands
but this god lacks omnipotence
although strength and peace reside in me
human limitations foment fear
paralyzed intentions defer goals
like everyone else
my calendar works out day to day
at times my frustrations mount in muted rage
echoing like distant rolling thunder
sometimes I’m a gentle rain
nourishing the earth
other times I... am...LIGHTNING


III.
some look to the earth for their roots
searching rhizomes for past generations
finding themselves made in the image
of wise bearded irises
I look to the stars twinkling my call name
I hear them in night’s silence
and marvel at the lessons they teach
the patience of their traveling light
the wisdom in keeping their place
in the scheme of constellations
and knowing when to turn with the seasons
their acceptance of northstar as center’s attention
secure in the sparkle of their individuality
hearsay says we are made of the same mettle
we are the substance of stars
I imagine myself in their history
a child of the universe
traversing the zodiac before I was me
but now in this life reaching up to night’s sky
the heavens remind me
although I’m but a speck in its vastness
a blink in time’s eye
I have a shine and brilliance
that is mine alone

I have long sought quiet.
And please, let me be clear: quiet.
Not the quietus Hamlet desired,
No “consummation devoutly to be wished” for me.
No, with or without a bare bayonet,
UNBEINGNESS is hardly what I seek.
It is not the predicament of death,
But the quiet spectacle of the grave I envy.  
Originally a city mouse,
I am familiar with the urban soundscape.
I know city noise, amped up in decibels.
Noise-induced stress, shrill and enervating,
Add to the mix a working-class neighborhood,
Where someone is always hammering,
Using a power tool of some kind,
Repairing, improving an older, somewhat decrepit home;
But a steal as the realtors say.
Or vehicles, like Old Havana relics,
Held together by secular prayer,
And thriving underground Cuban capitalism.
Then just for fun: "Let’s send the ******* to war."
Tympanic membranes be wary and be ******.
Stretched and perforated,
Compressed and torn,
Shredded like wheat.
Pummeled by shock wave.
I was Lear wandering the heath,
Your ***-cheeks cracked:
“Cataracts and hurricanes . . .
Oak-cleaving thunderbolts . . .
Sulphurour and thought-executing fires . . .
Singe my white head!”
Cue Cabaret music (Cabaret (1972) - IMDb www.imdb.com/title/tt0068327): “Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome . . . to Indochine,”
First a Weimar-Saigon suckee-fuckee,
Then out to The ****,
Mind-numbing concussion,
Reek of jellied gasoline,
Charred meat,
Assorted red entrails,
Obliteration of thought complete.

Who needs
An infatuation
drumming their fingers
down your spine

when you can have
your own heart
escalating in innate rhythms
tympanic arrays
wrought from adventure

It is what's it, an o'dourves  on melody,
ears tuned to,
Again, again...again...
Beethoven or Mozart
timbers
threads strings dances on eardums
philharmonic, Building To sUch AN END!!!!
a pause, reposing low, resolving,
getting all the orchestra and Audience ready
for:
a little french horn, then flute...
tympanic growing
Violins again strumming.
A trill from a clarinet, a bass drum beating,
filling the lawn so full,
every soul on a last leg waiting
for the *******
END!!!.

Thomas said "Seeing is Believing"
But an optometrist knows that our eyes are like a sieve
Everything the light touches, Simba
Has been filtered by us before it reaches our brain
Unlike what we smell, unlike the sounds which beat into our
Tympanic membrane.

Why is it so hard to believe in what we cannot see?
If we know all perceptible colors, sounds, smells are not all that can be?
When we know that the lenses we wear over our retinas
Bend light to bring our vision into focus
And clearly see Mirages are not Water, but a Reflection of the Sky
It's hocus pocus to believe only what we can perCEIVE with our senses
When we hardly receive the world as it is.

The birds can see the infrared and ultraviolet
Snakes can taste temperature, and a map of your warm footprints
Dogs can hear ultrasound, like young children and deer pick
Up high-pitched frequencies whereas adults can no longer
See Santa Claus or Jesus or "Imaginary" Friends

Something about being human
Or maybe its just getting older,
Makes us too cynical and blind
To recognize rainbows and dark matter.

Ask the Giver to give me back my sight and feeling
Because I am reeling with the realization that I live
In a mere sliver of the Entire Spectrum
And can only contemplate it with a tenth of my mind.

They run down corridors, penetrate
Eardrums, tympanic membranes vibrating
Sounds of whispered ignorantia, injected
In minds, spewed out of unclosing mouths.

Actively engaged in spreading the word,
As meticulous news reporters committed
To divulge, unfounded information, undercover
Agents passing off as martyrs compelled,

To fulfil their duties pretending
To reluctantly execute a social service, yet,
No one knows whether the lady down
The street truly cheated, nor if her daughter

Also slept with the alleged lover, while
The audience is convinced and has convicted
The adultery of the first sentencing the second,
To shame and long-lasting denigrating fame.

The punishment assigned to the free walking
Defendants, found guilty by a jury of their peers,
A public court rising to judge an offence
Sickly existing merely in those insinuating

Voices, inundating the tribunal corridors
Of the neighbourhood, the city, the world,
Tv and the web. Leaving the only words
That count engraved in marble, epitaph

On the tombstone of a suicidal man,

‘In loving memory of Mallory Dupe.
Beloved husband of Helen and loving
Father to Giselle. Shamelessly killed
By rumours. No redemption granted.’

I don't think I ever wrote anything that scary
But just because you happened to dare me

I'll weave a tale of fear and dread
A story so vile it'll stop your heart dead

Deep in the night when you're asleep in bed
An creature most foul enters your head

He slits open your papery eardrums with his claws
And sneaks on through without even a pause

He runs his sharp nails along your tympanic cavity
And blood rains down as he licks at it absently

A slit he cuts in your middle temporal artery
Then he slides on in like a thief on a robbery

Riding the current on twists and turns
On the crimson tide he is now a foreign germ

When he reaches his prefered destination
It is here he will wreak his final devastation

Behind your eye he works his claws and drills your bone
Until he hits his mark and lets out a gleeful moan

From his mouth comes a proboscis long and sleek
Then out it's tip a rancid fluid it does leek

Turning your eyeball into slimy mush
He ***** up the fluid in one long gush

Then he squeezes through the hole that he made
And in the eyes remains is where he lays

When he wakes it's through your eyelid he tears
His furtive scrambling's on your face does pierce

As you wake up and the pain you can feel
Screams of terror as to your mother you appeal

The blood streaming slowly down your face
Is acidic and burning as it leaves a furrowed trace

Looking into the mirror in shock and dismay
You realise in horror that in your eye eggs have been laid.

My drum has perforations; now flawed
Mylar parchment once taut on bone
Leaks prose; but each metaphor pored
Percussive skull reverbs teeming tome

Waning instrument yet waxing lyrical
Tympanic threepenny opera still plays
Snare split - verbose ****** spiracles
Whip quick flick of offal; tongue flays

Well weathered but - oh still sensual
Drum bongo crammed with lyrics learned
Skin leathered; worn – still beautiful
Spills tales – well told – well earned  

©pofacedpoetry (Billy Reynard-Bowness – 2018 – All rights reserved)

Let's ring like a siren
Higher octave than ever
We are going to fight the fire or
bringing the dead all over the town
It's just the same
Let's celebrate

We are going to
puncture some tympanic membranes
until all bleed and the sound
is merely just a slight touch
they can't ever recognize
So tell the young girl
not to sell earplugs today
Today is just not right
Today is an umbrella day
for there will be tears everywhere
of parents
of children
of strangers

What we won't tell
Today will be
a flood day
And those who can't swim
must know how to drown
Because merely floating
is an act of disgrace

So let's ring like a siren
So let's celebrate
For the burned and the dead
For the loss and the grief
For the unheard sounds and voices

Today will be
Our day

strained, tympanic
idling, to a panic
urged internally
yet stuck eternally
due date for a do date

I whistled a jig while hoofing a pea gravel trail , in earshot of a tail fin on still waters ,
the chirp of a wren traveling the -
morning forest
Pinecones stair stepping the bough
Patient dove held fast neath tympanic thunderheads
Morning cardinals dressed in red
Seedlings flurried to their cool clay berth  
Ballads of sylvan mirth and Mother Earth
A katydid saws a fiddle
A tickled toad taps time
Maw Heron renders a figure eight
The ' honkers 'are headed home like they're -
running late ..

We fought with carrots, celery and onions
Lightly browning our flour in butter
We brined and we dredged and we baked with our love
If there's an abyss, I'm gonna full it with food.

She offers up thanks from the depths of her heart
On the way up it passes the svirfneblins and kobolds,
Who see it as an alien phenomenon and are unsure what to do with that.

It brushes the tail of the Bandersnatch,
Who hesitates a moment, sniffing the air.

It carouses with quetzals, flirting briefly with each feather
Before slipping up through the skies and stars
The galaxies and quasars
Up through my love's throat and into her voice
Celebrating happily as it reaches my tympanic membranes

Silently I congratulate these thankful elves on their long and hard journey
And maybe a few of them are dancing in the mashed potatoes when I serve up our dinner.

These time, they'll be freeze-dried,
But Poppy doesn't care.
And we stay warm for the winter.