Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
vircapio gale Jul 2012
the story went as though
she'd always known the sea
and trusted in its depth
to mellow any ill, caress her
open lovingkind as in a dream.
and dream she would upon the waves,
having settled into floating reverie.
she'd close her eyes and inhale being
there among herself caressing only
ocean, only breath, all sunlit space
to draw her earthly trials gently out.
softened beachside noise would fade
and let alone her ears to hear
the water oneness dipping clear
and deeper in the troughs, for distance
from the stranded holidays,
the beachy noise of seaside frills
and bear her boyancy to rest
in lilting motion, peaceful cresting sleep
atop an intercontinental,
earthsize water bed.
her trust profoundly spanned
the trans-atlantic rift
and any rift to set apart her undulating
ancient ocean mastery. moon
and sun were kneading vastly where
her snores were lost in starfish whispers balancing
the tidal volume set
to always fill and keep afloat,
or otherwise to wake in
sputters and a salty throat.
her body settles into swinging comfort
napping over waves so deep the shore recedes...
... what bright, kind, clarity cascaded in your dreams?
what heart you had, embracing open quiddity,
never sinking nowness breath alert in lucid sleep
and water surface mystic skyward shallow course?
to merfolk gazing up in wonderment
you limply crossed their bouncing sky,
just another flight of fancy in a world of mystery?
did you dream you were a whalesong
sphering out to carry sadness sonorously? did you
school the many impulse-thoughts to clump and flee
the jaws of time? did you bask in light
and find a shining womb of self
to nurture once again and labor out anew?
did gravity make sense to you?
i float sometimes and live that question true.
sleeping far you drifted out and out and in and out of view
and whistles drowned in gathered drama fear
'my grandma! my grandma!'
screamed my cousin at the lifeguard
sweating ******* and leaping over stroke to spash
into your side a breathless shouting mess for you to calm
and ask 'what's wrong?' and angle slowly back to shore
in fits of giggles, bubble laughter at commotion's reach.
they blink in crowds, standing herdlike on the beach.

and now you swim your last,
another summer day.
like any other i awoke
and fed you eggs, so soft
     (at first it wrinkled my nose),
but taste is strange, and slimy works
just fine sometimes,
like in the absence of teeth.
she never liked her dentures,
     (she said she couldn't taste her food)
and gummed her frozen dinner meals with a smile,
like it was the greatest thing in the world.
     (in fact she'd often say, 'that was the best meal i had ever had',
     and with a force that made me happy to suspend my doubt)
and who am i, judging
that which you select? your pills,
your diapers and your vote,
your shows, your nursery rhymes,
your crown manipulation,
your age?
i use abjection well,
as something not unlike a whetstone for denial.
performing daily rituals i abhor
i retrain and edit, revising social eyes:
dilapidated fictions, safer norms
and mores tailored to a loan
with interest from the self.

she didn't call herself a 'nudist,'
though she lived beyond the fence
living **** for decades saying
'i'll never leave, i love my home.'
we played dominoes 'til noon
'another kind of indoor game, one on a side'
her interpretation of my being there
changed soon, like my aversion
for the liquid yoke she buttered with a spoon.
our neighbors loved her and i,
and to meander down our path,
lay their towels and sit
like all there was to do was visit.
lunched,
she hobbles from her plants back to the sink,
and filling the cat dish, stands
century-old arms akimbo
in the doorway, with a sigh to wake the sun.
being of caretaking was never so fun.
holding hands i help her over roots,
around the rocky sections, through
the easy path and level now
she hobbles sure, the cane a decoration
for her pride at being old and young
at heart and quick at stories overtold
in grooves to satisfy the sense of time.
greetings shower us with beaming smiles,
inching to the sandy edge. denuding,
joining everyone, we stand engulfed
in air. modern digambar to don
a vaster cloth of letting be.
skinny dipping grandma, and me.
the water slips around
her fraglile skin, human driftwood
knotted with a smile.
a grand mother slipping through akashic cracks
to undiscover friends their seeing core.
they wonder at the shore
of hoary plight
and wonder on, once we're gone.
vircapio gale Jun 2012
let me structure you first:
there, now, ready, fly my owl
granting vision logic,
guiding thoughtform fair.
what softness in the earth gives way
to waterway, what forceful gust of air
to final quench of earthy thirst...
such unseen pyschomancy dusts
the wing-stroke of your flight,
and weathers well my musing trust;
you see with ancient zero eye,
and die to my dull interpret edge;
like a certain volcano jumper's
ox of oats and honey you
coat the stone of time to
symbolize my rhyme. hold,
softer, still, i do not need to cut
or pluck or forge with harshness --
your shrill screeching from the cage
of lines here summons more
than Athene's gavel ever forced.
otherwise than writing, you wait...
cradled darkly, unknown priorlife
of avadhuta colors mixing in,
of whalesong faintly felt
like stegosaurus moans,
like city-ships to overreach and then to rot,
forgotten tattva vidya shastra
forgotten sukha,
Megbe, Tirawa, Awen, Asha, Ichor...
(अवधूत avadhūta) is a Sanskrit term from some Indian religions or Dharmic Traditions referring to a type of mystic or saint who is beyond egoic-consciousness, duality and common worldly concerns and acts without consideration for standard social etiquette. Such personalities "roam free like a child upon the face of the Earth" (wiki).

अव 'ava':

favour; off, away, down.

धूत 'dhUta':

shaken, stirred, agitated; "rinsed"; fanned, kindled; shaken off, removed, destroyed; judged; reproached; [neut.] morality

अव-धूत 'avadhUta':

"shaken off (as evil spirits)"; removed, shaken away; discarded, expelled, excluded; disregarded, neglected, rejected; touched; shaken, agitated (especially as plants or the dust by the wind), fanned; that upon which anything unclean has been shaken out or off; unclean; one who has shaken, off from themselves worldly feeling and obligation, a philosopher; [neut.] rejecting, repudiating

\|/

tattva-vidya-shastra:

"discipline of knowing reality" (one modern sanskrit term for philosophical enquiry -- the language having no straightforward equivalents for 'philosophy' or 'religion')

sukha:

skt. for happiness, comfort, ease, pleasure, bliss, light, space.
    fr. Su(good) & kha (“sky,” “ether,” “space,” orig. “hole,” particularly an axle hole of one of the Aryan’s vehicles, thus “having a good axle hole,” while dukkha meant “having a poor axle hole,” leading to discomfort

Megbe (African):

life force exists in blood and bones

Tirawa (Pawnee):

'force which moves all things'

Awen (Welsh):

"(poetic) inspiration"; also considered a force or
energy forged from an indivisible source that is the power behind the
physical

Asha (Avestan):

'truth', 'existence', 'right working', "the decisive confessional
concept of Zoroastrianism" (in Vedic language ṛta). "The correspondence between 'truth',
reality, and an all-encompassing cosmic principle is not far removed
from Heraclitus' conception of Logos." (wiki)

Ichor (Gk):

ἰχώρ is the ethereal golden fluid that is the blood of the gods
and/or immortals
So Jo Feb 2014
deep into the wet and salt
uncried tears bracing cheeks
don't matter

run before the wind
slipping on the moon's reflection
lose the world behind  
in whalesong

turn back only then
when the swell has tossed
all inside shifting still

turn back to the world
torn pockets spilling sand
keith daniels May 2020
needles scraping bone,
heel and sole.

sliding cold inside your boots
you bear the weight of all you love,
while inches underneath
the giant gods of other worlds relay
their shepard songs.

empty aqua loneliness.

they disappear,
soaring softly into darkness and
sinking,

willing,

deeper than the sky is wide.

their dreams are of a solid state;
the breath that leaves their backs a
force of nature,

strong enough to rent the field on which you stand that now,
to us,
seems still as stone.
Humpbacks roaming beneath the ice in winter. Hearing and feeling their vastness in the deeps below. An otherworldly experience.
Jewel Yuzon Jan 2018
In the heart of us are a set of bagpipes
that blows the beat of a drum
but is described as a hollow *****,
like one in a church that echoes deep whalesong
in the midst of a funeral.
Our mom had rules for visiting the newly departed, lest their spirits attach to ours:
Take home no food, or the dead will hunger.
Wash your clothes, or the dead will wear your skin.
Don’t go straight home, or the dead will follow.
Starved and naked, we wandered
through IKEA and nearby coffee shops
to deposit our lost and beloved friend in a final resting place
before heading home
our empty and quiet home.
darkness
is becoming Light
my heartbeats
a whalesong
sleeping in the void
with you

© Marialenn
Third Eye Candy Jul 2017
Oh, how carefully you chrysanthemum
and parlay with whalesong and surgically remove.
you think of summer as a day, and swing from chandeliers
too brazen for prime-time, and too often brilliant.
you caterwaul at the gods like a pinch of rain
in voluminous hush.
i've seen you halt
while spinning
and thought you
remarkable.

and now.

i feel
the
same.
Qualyxian Quest Sep 2020
Rieko and Takahiro
Visiting in Taiwan

Rieko in Staunton
Her beauty lingers on

Asia is politeness
Asia is the rains

Asia is my childhood
Asia is the trains

Fantasia is the music
Whales sing mystic strains.
Third Eye Candy Jun 2018
You can live a lie. But then you can’t be you.
Hard to simplify a box. Or a simple truth.
You could live
to die.
But that’s nothing
new.
Time had a plan...
Before you were
You.

I can push up daisies but I’m too lazy to off myself.
Safe bet i’ll double-down
on nothing less… I’m sure
Oblivion can wait.
But if not… tough ****.
I know a guy that knows a guy…
Can make -
a straight jacket
Fit.

There’s a whalesong with a note, no whale can hit
Like a pinata’ in a hurricane. A swing and a miss.
There’s the impossible and then there’s the way it IS.

There’s
you and a bat -
That came with a Belfry.
You're ringing
the Bell
Or cracking the
**** thing!

II

You might be lost
but I found you…
so let’s put a pin
in that.

For now -
I’d like to know,
how many butterflies -
Have ever asked you not to
Laugh?
Qualyxian Quest Jul 2023
Let me not give up on the USA
It ain't over yet
John Brown's Body
Her body I can't forget

Help me, Dr. Thomas
Keep on pushin' through
Mario Cuomo long ago
Long ago at Seattle U.

Tomorrow a little basketball
My 3 beloved sons
I've known some Jesuit priests
Saw some Chicago nuns

My life is pretty boring
I dream of two who women
Ashes to the ocean
Whalesong and a-swimmin'

                  Bulkington!
Qualyxian Quest Jun 2023
I would like to be important
To the English language
I was once an English teacher
Fairfax. Reno. Taipei.

Oxford at twilight
Dublin bus
Gamla Stan
San Francisco. xie xie

Long live Lina and Doon!
Egress
Awakening
Californ I A

Birdsong
Whalesong
Ping Pong
Shakespeare play

                   Cordelia!
Third Eye Candy Oct 2020
Anchored to the tip of a vicious pin
too whalesong to cog
careful to strictly wither
with a liberal eye
at the foot of a moon
smelling salts and assaults
upon absolute time
like a
cage-breaker
mending
cages

with smart
hands to the task
at hand -
but dumbluck
for parchment
and large blocks of flotsam
charging into dawn
with an ornate spear
for the heart
of a mundane
dark.
lest your heart
be your
gallows

( tin star
and
hole ).
Qualyxian Quest Jun 2023
Lost the flow on the last one
Grateful for DVDs
Gratitude for Facebook
Wind in willow trees

Rabbits, little rabbits
Peaceful, not much to do
If you wanna view Paradise
Just enjoy the view

Summer of cinema
Misty grey day rain
Have been to Baltimore
Probably won't get to Spain

            Whalesong plane ...
Qualyxian Quest Nov 2022
At times I get obscure
A kind of free association
Like my Irish grandma
So I try again

I want to touch your shore
A kind of meditation
My words echo thus
You take the money and run

Catholic but not orthodox
Bipolar elevation
Jacob's mystic heart
Whalesong in the Deep

You plant a demon seed
Desire dedication
Fire on the Mountain
I serve the Secret Flame

  Green Arrow take aim ...
Qualyxian Quest Jun 2023
Guilt, regret, panic again
Please help me relax
One for Uncle Marty
On at Uncle Jack's

Maybe Cinco de Mayo
Slowly in the rain
Whalesong, Hong Kong
Rosalita, Spain

Please protect Chicago
Divinity School in sun
Snow, winter snow
Both serious and fun

           Trappist 1!
Qualyxian Quest Aug 2020
At 51 my failures
Far outnumber my successes

Curses come all day
Only twilight blesses

God speaks far more Nos
Than He speaks Yeses

But look: Thar She blows!
Whalesong like caresses

— The End —