life – Page 4 – Poétique

One

Just going through the motions
Sometimes that’s all you need
Maybe we do it and don’t know it
When he was particularly aware of it
He felt strange realizing that he
Was always doing it naturally before
But now it felt forced necessarily
Waiting for the light to change
Sometimes just running through it
Do we follow every rule and fail
Or are these simply guidelines
Oak trees and moss continue on
Creeping in rain like patterns
Mystical fens flowing on trees
And the random birds chirping
In the air relief from the cold hard
Winter that was approaching briefly
Before it arrived we all stood around
A fire and laughed about the
Doldrums of the past year
A Native American song was
Shaking the background and
He recalled how to be strong
Again but it was for himself this time
He was out of practice because
He was always doing it for others
Going through the motions
Reiterating structure
Humming in the us factor
Problematically difficult
When he was humming again
For one yet both sides of him
Stood ready for two of what becomes

Choice

Grab a random hat
On your way out the door
Can we be happy in the momentary
Bliss of anythingness

Untreasured acceptance of
Being someone’s number one
Proud to be there for them
And one day wake up startlingly
To their absence without any
Why for explanation; gone

Choices were made for you
Who we become is exactly that
Even before we are exiting the womb
Of transitive existence
Thoughts on who you are to become
What great things you will do
Born into the disability
To disappoint the expectations
Of the choices designed for you

As he contemplated the coldness
Of it all there was more than
An empty reminder beating
At the core of his agenda

This is your opportunity to jump
This is how you choose
Not for someone else
But for you

A tale told of folks long ago
Saying,
‘You can choose the life you want.’
In many ways we do
And in many ways he did
Of the available options
To his character

Where was the warning?
That there will be many opposing forces
When will the playbook arrive
Condoning the unrelenting
Unrequested actions happening
Upon us as we eschew them into
Gifts for our benefit
Twisting scripts

One mentor said,
‘You will have everything you need,
to get through the life you will lead.’
And believing he was capable
He made the choice to believe

Another guide said,
‘It’s going to be really good.’
And in his head that was enough
To look forward to
To get him out of bed

Again choices would be made
And how frigid could we all stand it
How many nicks at our chins
Could we take
How many knocks at the door
Till we break
How many smiles would be left
For us to fake

Is there a number for that?

As the light dressed the day
And the night went to sleep
He stood up from his slumber
Of counting tie dyed sheep
In the movie theater of his mind
And chose to breathe again
Another day involuntarily

Contemplating the fantasy
Of the life he’d one day leave
To begin the choice of such a life
He’d yet conceived

Mechanics

He was more than just a piston
Brain control seeping in trying to
Creep into his mind what’s the reward
To be eighty years old and prove
“I too can be a hard nose!”
(He exclaimed)
Whoopee.

Life is so condensed fitting
Our parts into smaller and smaller
Shapes and sizes to accommodate
Our lives into finite dimensions we
Float away and around
What brings us back on track?

In the order of all belongings
Tallying before we lay
Beneath the red marbled stone
That reminds everyone who we were
Do they drink tea in our absence?

What is it to be nineteen again
Learning the world before we knew
Anything grasping at love like
We were running out of air
And knowing almost nothing
Except for how to get from
Here to there
Oh and…
How to make out with a pear
I remember having no clue about
How to pick one out the Bosc is
A true delight in which one should
Have a romantic affair
Lips curled around
Delicious juices filling his mouth

But that was college and now
The ground is thirsty again for
Knowledge and experience
Getting out….

He was doing the work to remember
A recompense for painting instead of work

Raised in a jerkwater town
Moving away was like holding ground
In a place where culture was hidden
Until he lifted the lid one thousand
Four hundred and ninety-two miles away

And the incense was different
The smell of the future unlimited to his
Slippery imagination

A train car is running only a foot away
What’s under the hood?

Ducks

He was forgetting because
Change was pretty stupid
After finding the formula
And being perpetually bad at math

No one stopped to ask him
How things were coming along
Everything looked so put together
Peering in from the outside
There was no need to wonder
If it was working just how he did it

Maintaining a smile while
Keeping the peace he had
Perfected his ability to find reverie
Stepping around, not beyond bounds
As well careful not to mince words

No more questions to others
About how people end up so guarded
Now that he was older the reason
Made presently obvious
Yawning was even a pleasure

He could see the grass crawling
Up in between the cracks of the sidewalk
It felt like nature was winning
In some way though the human intrusion
Was grossly apparent

No lobbying for amnesty
Just a brush on a canvas
Chatter from any bird
A duck’s quackery
Could answer his call
In the lifelike pond he faired

Hopscotch

Wake up and the point is moot
What a relief no need to harp
Or uproot any more of that
Ridiculously obstinate tumbling

Found a rock in the street
I’m convinced that it’s magical
Powers will carry me through
The rest of the week rain or shine

Hopscotch chalk is melting
On the sidewalk underneath
What’s left of the pale green
Tree moss and pine cones
Rolling around like the neighbors
Kids did late summer

Winter is bringing a peaceful
Blanket to cover the chaos
Of people shouting obscenities
One more concert of roses left
To behold a chorus of color
Emboldened by their last
Opportunities to celebrate romance

Squirrels hanging upside down
Like bats in trees for the remaining nuts
The neighbors dog is still barking
Fixated on the possibilities
Of something’s to come apparently

A toast for tomorrow’s unpredictability
A magic punch for everyone to drink
I love the way the traffic lights reflect
After a downpour in the asphalt streets

No one likes the construction
Holding up everything especially
After a good nights sleep

Blue Snake

Blue snake you are sweet
You are like my dog I carry you
With me everywhere you are
Not dangerous although people
Fear you I warn them that it is ok
With a smile you search around to
Investigate from my pocket and my
Hand still trying to stretch away from
Me your neck gets smaller and smaller
Thinner and thinner but I don’t want
You to leave back into my pocket
You go and then I search around
And you are detached you have
Become a blue rope and twine
Where is my pet! Where is my snake!
Now you are red and not so long
Squirming a bit around like a bent stick
Of dynamite but still soft finding now
Who you are figuring out what you’ve
Become and I carry you away
And I carry you home to continue to play
And I am out in the field with a peachy
White colored dog who is happy to fetch
I am hitting the eaten up tennis balls
Now some of them only rubber
Throw them into the air for you to
Catch and the timing is everything
As I toss them up and bat them out
And the day is warm and the sun
Is bright and the lawn is luxuriously green
And the two men on the grass sitting
In chairs aside from me in sunglasses say
You’ll probably hit your target
If you just swing

What do you mean? Blindly I swing

Grandiflora

With a grandiloquent tongue
The boy could not tell a tale
Not even one could go unspun
Without the flowery need to
Spin the words forth hence
Were always chiming out
With eloquence for even in
A wake of abrogating tide
His inner workings pushed
A gale of winds with currents
Positive and wide and so the
Outbursts became inbursts
To protect the shiny smiles
And his sense to make the best
Was what he wore to yield the
Wilds but still with all the
Gorgeous things that could be said
There rested stories left unshared
Inside his head and thus he
Needed safe passages and places
To commune and let the words
With ease flow out to not implode
Find a place wherein the sagas
Could be shared that he did hold
So unsaid words were trickling out
Unexpectedly he found them
Eventually creeping and seeping
All about the tiny cracks between
His tightly fused upper and lower lips
His feelings were determined
To be heard and oozed unhinged

Manager

She is astringent neurotic and militant
About how she wants things done
Haphazardly calling the shots
Enforcing rules and making her rounds

I passively asked her to back off
When I told her not knowing how I
Perform by way of emails sending me
Off to do better tasks and tripling down
Makes me roll over with sickness
At night who can find peace when
This is a means for finding out

Authority never bodes well with me
You’re not good enough that you’re
Not keeping up with a new standard
That no one has walked you through
And I look up to a bright pink hue
That is glowing above me it’s
Just the sky but formally spoken
I almost wished that it was aliens
For a moment just thought it might be
Convenient living in a world with
No room for error even in the tiniest
Regard just a little breathing room?

Who can be the stickler to a
Practice they know nothing about
Parading around giving orders
To those whom you have not a clue
What their industry entails

To work it out it’s like managing mansions
When you’ve only lived in apartments
Your whole life and again the sky
Creeps in ready to assist me in
Forgetting about what the world around us
Isn’t really making an effort to
Understand and the grass looks red
In this arrangement of orange ambered
Sidewalks dressed in the remaining leaves
The frost is new and so is also tomorrow

Every Life

Drinking up every moment
Living every life
Barely keeping alive financially
But still the richest person can be
Existing without anything
Saving the lives of people
That took the lives of others
We are all damaged goods
None of us are free from the
Wind blowing through the grass
Who’s responsible for that?
It didn’t matter much to most
Which way the winds were
Blowing where I came from
So long as the car works
When you turn the engine over
I never had much use for
Complaining but as I got older
I guess it creeped in the redder
Your hands got or the less your
Tendons wanted to bend over all
There was a tiny corner in the yard
That felt more magical than the rest
Of the field kinda like ya
Just wanted to lay there longer
Even if it was time to go inside
Airports hadn’t really come
Into the picture yet but the way
You could miss someone
Coming and going now that
Was a feeling we could all relate to
Wondering if they’d ever come
Back or if this place even felt
Like a homestead does
Drinking up every moment
Watching the dragonflies
Living every life in my mind

Delicious

Obviously the goal is to
Leave something behind
What if to be legendary
A nugget of truth a permanent
Extension of an existence
That lusted for the answer
Called out to by itself
There is now only however not
Much time left destiny has designed
To hand off the rest of its clock to
Do something remarkable
Before it’s all gone
In each stitch we find
Another question
For when we die
Will we have it to look back on
Will it matter or will it shatter
Into a thousand meaningless pieces
For someone else to pick up
And perhaps make sense out of
In the perfect sandwich