Coriolis

 

“The Touch” by Elizabeth Chapman

 

motion in motion

swirled turns of the air

bend straight lines

corrupt stillness

destination is

movement alive

with geometry

place but a placename

location a notion

no here and no there

inertia the illusion of

standing one’s ground

against progress when

progress is constant

every man all alone

in his mind on a path

every path a distortion

of spatial intelligence

measured by wishes

a traveler’s enigma

compelled by a force

not in need of consent

the momentum of

angular mechanics

a world whose inhabitants

ever observers inside

a perpetual motion

can never know joy

of a physically

fixed sense of place

and yet find themselves

cast as explorers

intent to gaze inwardly

eyes full of solitude

deep with discovery

learning their way

to the every last spot

of creation

the gifts of existence

that sprang from a touch

by the fingers of God

 

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“Yet it is in this loneliness that the deepest activities begin. It is here that you discover act without motion, labor that is profound repose, vision in obscurity, and, beyond all desire, a fulfillment whose limits extend to infinity.”      – Thomas Merton

Vanishing Point

 

“Figures in Motion” by Assadour Bezdikian

 

 

time exists to effectuate motion
like a shark undeterred ever forward
it cannot survive at a standstill
life is living and living is time
changing aging advancing inexorably
life is carried on currents of moments
in movements of undulant progress
each moment each instant within it
abandoned by consequent waves
become part of the past swirled in
troughs left to travel behind and
beneath rolling crests of the present

time and motion behave in an inverse
relationship causing all life to comport
itself tuned to precarious clocks
youth racing with ass-over-teakettle
carelessness bumping and tripping
for uncertain unreachable futures
while time crawls along at a maddening
slow young impatience-filled pace

time and motion so highly subjective
possessed of no absolute essence
we long-in-the-tooth live our motions
unhurried our fire for speed long since
snuffed by our time the same time who
accompanies aging accelerates cruelly
flies faster and faster approaching
velocities terminal punishing deadly

time exists to effectuate motion
like a shark undeterred ever forward
it cannot survive at a standstill
life is living and living is time
changing aging advancing inexorably
pushing bones in the churn of its waves
bones we fleshed with our too many days
moving dead for the eye of perspective
the center of everything into its cone
till that endpoint acute sweet oblivion
nothingness lives there our motion our
time and ourselves finally cease to exist

 

 

From my books Ephemera and Legacies (vol. 2)

Mysterium

“Focal Point” by John L. Payne

 

ninety degrees
north and south
every nowhere
in chaos of locus
lost latitudes
parallels pulled
into infinitesimal
vanishing points

cold antipodes
unmoving hubs
who arrange
for a massive
perpetual spin

every anytime
nullifies clocks
time and motion
detached from
each other
deprived of
directional
linear passage

their concepts
disintegrate into
failed phrases
of here to there
now to then
voided of sense
in the space of
these places

existence itself
hangs on questions
philosophers pose
to smug physicists
questions whose
out-of-reach answers
disturb arcane rigors
of science and faith

leaving open perhaps
an oracular role
for some poet
for syntax that solves
and demystifies
magical places
allowing for natural
dynamic of being
to flourish
against all the odds
every nowhere at
north and south
ninety degrees

It’s Not Their Wings

“Eagle Eye” – Image from pinterest.com

 

why do birds have eyes
for creatures
no others can see
what have they done
to earn private feast
biologically blessed
exalted by mute evolution
with powers to
measure and judge
every nuance
of movement
within seas of motion
like wavering acres
of tall flowing grass
or lamentable thoughts
that escape
down the cheeks
of a guilt-shaken man

(originally posted November 2013)

Sentinels

“Old North Cemetery” by Mary Sarg Murphy

 

I never felt wind
in a graveyard
flowers stand where they died
unscattered and dried
by the merciless
beating rays of the sun
perhaps stillness
is something ordained
by the stones
somber sentries
permitting no airstream
to move through these
wrought-iron precincts
except for the breathy
expulsion of sighs
that accompany whispers
from underneath
mounded green sod
asking “Why?”
then and now
once and over again
but no answer
has ever stirred
motionless mourning
no reason been heard
by the dutiful stones
or the listening bones
lying under their watch

(originally posted November 2013)

Perpetual Motion

 

“Halley’s Comet as Seen by Giotto” by Paterson Ewen

 

 

alive while they move
rippling wakes in time and space
afraid of stilled death
ungraspable entities
comets, the wind and our love

 

 

(originally posted December 2013)

Oblivion

“Living in Oblivion” by writeris

 

celebrate the life kinetic

before doors of time

close from age

stalling impetus

locked up in rebound

within four-wall baffles

ever slowing velocity

patient for when

taming inbuilt momentum

attains ineluctable

moment of inertia

when motion conserved

bleeds away into stillness

and even its memory

fades like a ghost

unacknowledged

Human Waters

“Waters Poetry #4” by Melody Cleary

we are but water

pure gift of the heavens

sweet essence enriched

by a few mortal molecules

moving in thrall to the call

of a soundless invisible gravity

washing the weight

of our liquidness

over the surfaces

under the skins

of terrestrial elements

pulled ever downward through

cracks and odd crevices

time has created

their edges relentlessly rubbed

to a smoothness

by force of our flow

yielding bits of themselves

to our fluid who

micron by micron

takes on altered character

making us something more slightly

at one with the parts of the world

that we pass through

the world we experience

each on our personal journey

of seeking that cistern

in which we can finally

arrive at our rest

leaving just enough time

to luxuriate learning the

pleasures of stillness

Ravens and Robins

 

“Birds of a Feather” by Candace French

 

 

the blacks and the reds
coexist in high greenery
flying these deep forest spaces
swift power and grace
in their unerring motion
creating an airborne ballet
of affinitive natural society

big and brash small and sweet
living life with deliberate joy
going on with their business
in view of my fortunate windows
unaware of my yearning
to join them and feel I have
purpose and wings of my own

 

 

From my book Onionskin

Sailing Stones

The Sailing Stones of Death Valley
Photo from whenonearth.com

mysterious motion

invisible forces

pedestrian stones

telltale trails marking

death valley sojourns

mythology courting

a barren lithology

hidden hands moving

metamorph chessmen

stealthy indifferent

progression across

a parched board

where nothing can live

but quaint questions

of wanderers wondering

why is low desert the

suitable place for

atonement where old salt

and alkali peel away

skin from the sins in

a game without rules

without tactics a chaos

of stumbling aimlessly

under a blazing hot

punishing ceiling of sun

imperceptible penitent

movements of sinners

confirmed by their

imprinted shadowless

tracks dragging pace

with the scored

playa racetracks of

slow sailing stones