“Just Killing Time”
Painting by Tommie Olofsson
From haltavista.com
smashing clocks
with delicious
delirious anger
fed up with the
cruelty of time
bash the face
break the hands
kill the tick-tock
that arrogant
voice of a thief
sneering even
while dying in
grip of your rage
like he thinks
you a fool like he
knows something
special a secret to
take to his grave
“The Great Grisly Big Tree at Mariposa Grove”
Painting by Marianne North
From kew.org
takes a mighty man
one still hard with
plenty of bark on him
tall in his heartwood
stout fearless limbs
turned and ready to
swipe at his sickness
sweep its deep insult
of mordant affliction
from easy self-pity
stand head in the sky
feet rooted in pride
torso scribed by his
history rings marking
memories fraught
with his persevered
hardships his times
of abundance the
scars won in wicked
harsh seasons these
memories holding him
fierce in the face of
advancing disease
he has no skills to halt
but can nonetheless
laugh at it curse it
a boom to his voice
that the whole of the
forest will never forget
2012 Election Map
By Wall Street Journal
stark arctic Aleutians
steamy tropical keys
mighty arms holding
liberty out to the world
as totalitarians seethe
at their fingertips
shivering sweltering
punishing remnants
of dead Marxist dogma
sustained by resentment
of personal enterprise
shouted across narrow
waters so close yet
so far mere proximity
helpless to overcome
doctrinaire minds
meanwhile here in
the heartland our
pluralist strengths
undergo a malicious
conversion to weakening
forces inflicting
diseases of deepened
divides between
free-hating factions
that threaten to leave
this exquisite geography
uglified chopped into
isles of intransigent
red and blue stains
“Gentle Soul II”
Painting by Madeline Garrett
From madelinegarrett.artspan.com
none are so tender
as those who shed tears
for the pain of a child
for suffering innocence
none are so selfless
as those who give succor
where want is abroad
where despair keeps the clock
none are so loving
as those who raise prayer
for a peaceable world
for the gentlest of journeys
none are so human
as those whose compassion
informs every motive
informs every action they take
these unprepossessed souls
these rare undivine spirits
reveal to the rest of us
pathways to grace
(originally posted here April 2013)
“Bessie’s Shack”
Image by Hidden Chronicles
From bbgsite.com
Sensing mild adventure
My spring forest beckons
Boughs like green-handed arms
Overhead sweep me in
Crackling twigs underfoot
Start critters to scurrying
Darting through shimmering
Figments of latticework
Sun-woven shadows
Cast down upon air fairly
Pungent with pine-scent
And redolent bark
All the while looking
For traces of passage
Among mossy trunks
Around angular boulders
Half or more never seen
Dry icebergs that jut up
From brown-needled beds
Sprouting tussocks of turf
Alert for the odd bit
With color or form
Suggestive of artifact
Waylaid by history
Bull moose and whitetail
Track snowmelt-charged streams
Coursing rocky treed foothills
Where smugglers annulled
Prohibition by hauling
With oxen-drawn sledge
Furtive freightloads of spirits
Canadian contraband
Routes marked by ruins
Crude stopover shacks
Rotten planks overgrown
With woodland encroachment
Local lore hints one such
Way-station stood up
Right here on…
View original post 183 more words
“Addiction”
Painting by Howard Lancaster
From fineartamerica.com
neurochemistry
twisted and kinked
ropes of darkness
hang brains from
powdercoat gallows
transmuting the
psyche disabling the
organs of dreams
choking choice
freely burning all
natural identity
down to black ash
here the predator
heat of ferocious
scaled cravings turns
tissues to sopping
with alien moisture
the sweat from a
grim peristalsis
biology bent to
enslavement of
merciless purpose
destruction not
damage sheer
utter destruction
its ruin apparent
just look in the eyes
vacant pods sunken
sallow and sightless
all trace of a man
hidden fetal and deep
cowered under dead
layers of life from
the past wrapped
in skin of what
once was a womb
“Balance & Opposition”
Painting by Ibrahim Savas Pekdemir
From dart.fine-art.com
serenity suffers
standing on scales
of off-centeredness
leans to the drag
of a lopsided life
out of plumb
lost of level
deprived equanimity
too much of this
leaves too little of that
without balance
no temper can
modulate tones of
emotional swings
without tug from
dependable keels
every journey
tempts hazard to list
without equipoise
character never stands
upright and virtue
cannot offset vice
cannot neutralize
random embrace
of an ethical drift
overloaded by heft
of an unstable culture
caught up in the speed
of the sweep of some
popular thrill or another
its flywheel stopped
dead in the heart
Thermodynamic System
Illustration from Wikipedia.org
①
land and sea
warm and cool
in their time
in their place
without me
or with me
no matter
my powers
have paltry
affect upon
cycles writ
deep in the
arcane language
of chaos
on scrolls
of creation
②
I huff and I puff
paper boats
on a pond
destinations
a function
of entropy
③
diathermy escapes
greenhouse
boundaries
trading forces
with quantum
realms seeking
equations of state
casting changes
of temperature
pressure and
motion with
palpably human
intellectual
volume in short
discreet manifest
brain-sized
understanding
(originally posted here April 2013)
3 Cushion Billiard Shot
Illustration from professorqball.com
keen eyes consider
calculus of carom and kiss
more discreet than pool
“Innuendo”
Painting by Cliff Spohn
From fineartamerica.com
push your voice
through the tubes
time has turned
into ears
say the things
that will rearrange
meanings to smell
of torn truth
speak the cause
of opinion inculpable
drawn like a wire
through a die
utter sequels to
stories that grow in
the sunless suspicion
of fiction
whisper distractions
to alter the courses
known by the mind
of the wind
express yourself
shamelessly showing
us all despite words
who you are
Writer Lynne Sargent
Poetry Puttering by Pax & Company
Sometimes everything has to be enscribed across the heavens so you can find the one line already written inside you. Sometimes it takes a great sky to find that small, bright, and indescribable wedge of freedom in your own heart. David Whyte
"drink from the well of your self and begin again" ~charles bukowski
no dust here
Looking ahead, without looking back (too often)
flights of fancy from New Zealand
You're never alone, if you've something to share
All you touch and all you see / is all your life will ever be
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I am where the valleys are deep, the mountains are high, and the wind moans through trees...
rejuvenatement - not retirement
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