February 2012
25 posts
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Cave Painters
cathedral of stone that breathes lit by flickering flame torchlight too faint to disturb the restless dreams of leather-winged bats who call it home migrations of bison across a wall herds of horses in free flight outlined in charcoal to be filled in with pigments of metal oxides lapis crushed berries and chalk transfers from mind to hand to rock first artist drawn to create magic no different...
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Lullaby For A Philosopher
your miracles of thought need to sleep and dream existential dreams of purpose too abstract and remote from experience you have your angst despair and the other to out-reason and the absurdity of life to put in its place on the library shelf next to Simone de Beauvoir objectively existing subjectivity beware the look of the other who needs not exist for you feel your shame so sleep young...
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Apples Stolen From Richard Brautigan
along highway 22 a cafe called Breakfast Nook in the window a cardboard sign “Closed For The Season” my hopes of eating before spring dashed - I continue south
between Arcadia and Onekama a roadside market at the edge of an orchard trees loaded with unpicked apples limbs bowed piles of pumpkins and squash on tables I stop a man in the tin-roofed shed asks “what can we get for you?” I want to...
I'm coming to visit you.
Project for the next couple of nights: I’m going to visit each of the 200 plus writing tumblrs I follow and read at least the five most recent posts. Expect a lot of likes.
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Lover's Leap
we stood at the edge of the world she and I arguing about who would go first neither fully trusting the other would follow we finally gave up wandering off in different directions it was forty years ago and I have several times made the leap I sometimes wonder if she ever did
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Mad Scientists
I once fell for the daughter of a mad scientist it seems all mad scientists have a daughter a beautiful daughter with no mother mad scientists always seem to lose their wives that may explain how they came to be mad if the daughters are beautiful the mothers were probably beautiful too no one knows for sure because nobody has ever seen one
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Ear To The Darkness
put an ear to the darkness what do you hear barking of a dog train crawling across the map rattle of reeds in wordless wind what do you smell mustiness of melting snow diesel exhaust from the highway wood smoke from far away what can you see white birches against dark forest Venus rising the edge of the world what do you taste sweet sap of a maple sticky pine pitch a touch of bitter frost what do...
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Not Long
the edge of the pond cracks like china shrinking heaps of snow are black marble puddles reflect a world of warped things red buds appear on bare branches winter coughs it’s first death rattle it won’t be long now won’t be long
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Phone Book
I became the age that I am by a kind of time travel that steadily accelerates the first twenty years were an eternity twenty more passed in half that time twenty more in a third of that no sign that anything is slowing down the earth spins faster and faster and will continue this way until it spins me off into space for now I still have an address on earth it’s in the phone book but who even uses...
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Ice
when you slip on a patch of ice there is that moment when gravity and flight are equal and you are weightless the universe slips out of existence and in that instant of disbelief you ask yourself one final question is that all there is
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When Matter And Antimatter Met
there was a time when there was no time no you no me nor we when the past present and future all nested together wrapped in a cozy blanket of dark never before dark was defined then nothing blew up into everything right in our faces before we had faces super-heated plasmatic star stuff cooled and the non-empty spaces became places now here we are looking back through telescopes and the deeper we...
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Playmates
a lake with eyes of steel-gray met wind as clear and cold as ice they fell in love and married raised a family of dunes that became my playmates when I myself was young I thought of them as ancient but somewhere along sand-blown paths they shared with me it was I who had grown old
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Matinee Infamy
on Saturday there was the matinee double featured dark and humid cartoons cowboys and alien creatures from outer space with heads like large green light-bulbs that emitted ESP rays which explained why their lips didn’t move in the lobby two large mirrors faced each other from opposite walls and I was convinced that if you were exactly the right height you would be able to see infinite...
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What Then
how small are the spaces between days and if we could stand in them would there be no time it would be like standing at the edge of fog that has a river in it the river moves and we know it moves but we would not be moving with it and when our lives had passed by what then
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Doors
when I was young enough to be curious about simple things I took apart a mirror so I could look through it from the other side peeking through a small hole where I had scraped away the silver film is how I discovered that mirrors can see us later I wondered at the fact that the side of a door that opens against the wall can ever know what’s on its other side and how an open door is not a...
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Moth Dance
she or he there’s no way to tell flutters periodically across the television’s face while I’m watching “On The Waterfront” for the seventh time my guess is this little white moth is a she and is enamored of the giant black and white image of Marlon Brando
I want to stop her annoying fluttering but I’ve done all this before and if I close my hand around those...
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The Cup
it’s only a modest stoneware cup a homely looking little object glazed the color of ruddy moss
it spends most of its time on a glass shelf among prettier machine made mugs and cups looking somewhat sad and small
I crave the feel of it in my hands and my connection to the unknown artisan who made it I picture it on the on the potter’s wheel spinning between clay coated hands
I love...
Thirst
I have drunk clear cool water from a spring where it bubbled from out of the ground on the hottest day of the year
water directly from the earth just beginning its long journey to the Atlantic Ocean I lay on my belly face to the ground parched lips puckered warm fragrance of forest floor filling all of my senses no water since has tasted as sweet or has so completely quenched my thirst
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Shit
a slick politician named Mitt felt disdain for the poor just a bit he caught them you bet in a big safety net and treated them like they were shit
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Death By Poison Words
sing a song of the apocalypse that starts with a pocketful of rye thrown upon some crescent on some fertile ground it grew into a city with walls that crumble now the king who should be fixing them is busy in his counting house the wise men have been thinking they claim they’ve found the truth but all that they’ve concluded is that each of them is right the granaries are bulging the...
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Last Waltz
it begins slowly with music that gets us on our feet movements clumsy and stiff gradually improve with practice there are two steps and foxtrots to learn jitterbugs and quicksteps mambos and tangos cha chas and sambas we dance them all we dance them all and if there is time with legs grown tired and aching feet there may be one last waltz before the music ends
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Aurora
I was listening to rain on the radio it’s what plays between the other stations it seems to be raining always there a million drumsticks pounding endlessly on a metal roof a monsoon of sound some call white noise but I hear the greens and blues of an audio aurora when I close my eyes
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My Sunday With Dickens
I met him in a park on an unprecedented sunny January afternoon we shared a bench near midday warm sun bid me stay read awhile so I opened a pocket edition of Pickwick one I had just bought from a used bookseller at Borough High Street near London Bridge I heard the gentle clearing of a throat looked up across the empty expanse of bench saw him looking in my direction and smiling but only slightly...
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Rosey Posey
Meaghan often did her studying between her college classes and work in a small coffee house on the avenue. It was quiet in the afternoon. Only a handful of customers, soft music streaming. She sat with her notebooks and laptop, shoes off, feet tucked comfortably underneath her. On a blustering Wednesday she sat this way working on a creative writing assignment when cold wind coming in through the...
January 2012
42 posts
2 tags
The World Was Flat
through the twin lenses of an old Yashica reflex camera loaded with Tri-X film I removed from the world the blues of the sky the pinks from young faces the greens from windrows of dancing trees and amber splashes of sunlight it was as if the color had been leached from the universe and all that was left was the weightlessness of light and the burden of darkness pressing itself down on us...
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Keys
lost in the garage (who knows how long ago) is a cigar box full of the other halves of things that have never found their mates and a mysterious ring of keys to things once owned and perhaps owned still (nobody will ever know) there are large keys to unknown doors who’s locks were changed (I don’t remember why) there are small keys to luggage or padlocks (some of which may live in the...
An Argument
I don’t know what this poem means or even what it’s about. I was inspired by two strangers in an online chat seemingly talking about religion. I rewrote what I thought they were saying in a more poetic form and here it is.
Jelliu: The Beauty of this world doesn't seem to be working for you.
Fzzl: What you think beautiful I find ugly.
Jelliu: The complexity of this universe doesn’t seem to be working for you.
Fzzl: What you find complex I see simply.
Jelliu: The order of this world doesn’t seem to be working for you.
Fzzl: Where you find order I see wonderful chaos.
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Lament Of The Owl
owl why do you make that hooting in the morning when I go out with the dog at dawn for her morning ablutions are you talking to the crows looking for carrion in the road from the tops of the naked oaks is it a sad song for the snow man that stands in front of the house on the corner left on his own to alternately freeze and melt until he is no more or an answer to the black locomotive at the rail...
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New Tumbler Site For Limericks →
lookingforwisdom:
I went on a little Limerick writing jag a couple of days ago and I have moved them to their very own tumblr. Feel free to follow and submit. Also, if you would like a Limerick about your own tumblr drop a request in my asky thing.
Need Followers
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Half Past Five
it’s half past three time to heat some water for tea how quickly has this day gone it’s half past four there is a definite chill in the air how quickly has this summer gone it’s half past five the street lights have come on how quickly has this life gone
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To Go
their eye contact lasted only a moment less than the life-time of a meteor just an accident of proximity or perhaps it was only imagined
she had the brown-eyed look of a river that he wouldn’t have minded drowning in he flashed a look of pure obscurity a chaos of primitive potentials
his wish was that he had not so quickly looked away from that face that seemed stranded on a sandbar somewhere...
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Limerick: Woman Scorned
to him she was just a distraction a source of some sexual action when she figured out what he was about she left him lying in traction
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Not A Dog
On a rare warm Halloween night I sat on a neighbor’s porch handing out candy to the little hoodlums who stalked the neighborhood. Our yellow lab, Ginger, lay behind my lawn chair passively watching the demons, devils, princesses and pirates as they ran from house to house demanding protection money.
One little Tinker Bell came up the walk by herself and held out her bag. After collecting...
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Waiting Room
we are the sick who sit and wait squirming in uncomfortable chairs rustling the thumb smeared pages of two year old magazines I play this morbid game in which the next person called will be the next to die a name is called I look up to see who has lost I’m sad that it’s the pretty young girl who never stopped texting I was rooting for the woman with unnaturally black hair and too much...
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Limerick: Particle Physics
A quantum mechanic named Mark Fell in love with a beautiful Quark. But all that she gave Was a particle wave. So he sits all alone in the dark.
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Death In The Library
I was killed in a library like any good mystery it happened on a dark and stormy night in a world ruled by rain and wind the white headed librarian distracted by lightning set me loose in an adult section ruled by the dewey decimal system I took to judging books by their size on the assumption the smartest ones would be the thickest I pulled one by one a hundred books down from the wooden shelves...
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Alzheimer's Ward
I held your name at the tip of my tongue but it seems that I have swallowed it I’m not sure but I cannot find it there it’s gone as last summer’s warm winds my recall of faces is paint by number without any shading or gradation or is chipped like an old Roman fresco that is missing its nose eyes or chin so if ever I see you again and I do not remember your name or I gaze too hard upon your face...
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One
one way ticket on a one way street one of a kind of one mind
the one on the left one up channel one can I please have one
one true god one nation under god one is the loneliest number one’s own kind we’re number one she’s the one he’s the one it’s a wonderful world I’ll take one I’ll buy one one true love one thing you should know I have one Buy one or be one it’s the only one it’s the last one...
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Silas Marner Redacted
lookingforwisdom:
Here is my “redacted” version of the George Eliot novel, “Silas Marner”. I have removed most of the text to leave a series of twenty short poems. It was great fun to do. I made no effort to leave the plot intact. Hope you enjoy it.
“Winter”
men experience vagueness as winter a long course ended beyond the signs of loneliness
“A Village”
a village of old sheep lay nestled...
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Heaven Is Full Of Atheists
heaven is full of atheists I’m pretty sure because who knows better how to be good than someone uncorrupted by any church who is less capable of judging another’s faith or has never slept with another god unable to take his name in vain or question anything he’s done
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Headlights
headlights splash on blacktop center line glows white movement edge of woods eyes glow ghostly stares I breathe hold death in tight embrace breathe out again loosen grip as specters fade in distance birches stand out against dark forest
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Worth The Price
pawnbroker take that ukulele down from on the wall so I might have a closer look I think you may want too much see this scar across the neck and this string here that’s frayed and about to break these frets are worn and these scratches on the top are a history of insults and perhaps of loves serenaded but never won yes in this condition you have set a price too high well the pawnbroker tells...
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Foothills
the back of my hand is a map of the places I have been veins crisscross plateaus and plains age spots mark cities and towns a mark left when a wrench slipped off a bolt during an emergency car repair marks a spot of no special significance freckles are fields of wild flowers that small crescent shaped scar among the knuckle foothills is the last place on earth
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Dull No More
a dull bird sits on the patio under the lawn chair taking refuge from the wind no flashes of bright gold blue or cardinal red on breast or back just a boring brown bird with shifty eyes and a short beak legs that look as though they shouldn’t even bear his weight he hops sideways back and forth trying to keep warm the sun breaks through a hole in scudding clouds he breaks into song dull no...
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Huntress And Hart
the huntress stands over him on leaf padded forest floor bow in hand arrows at the ready in case another is needed to finish her prey
her rough tunic leaves one perfect amazon breast bare to dappled sunlight he is pleased to die
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Break Each Silence
on a morning walk along the Lake Michigan shore I fell in love with a sea gull and was enraptured of a dune later that afternoon I gave my heart to a willow my soul to skinny poplar tree and proposed marriage to a tortoise this kind of love comes with no misinterpreted sighs or clumsy telephone silences no retributions or apologies no need to find the right gift say the right thing remember every...
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That Way Bound
I was this way bound on the expressway when it seemed everyone was that way bound at the end of holidays relieved to be going home from the place they no longer call home the place where the people they love but don’t like live back to home back to work back to a university where someone has put a price on thought back back and back again that way bound
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Blizzard Warning
Loyal to our nightmares, great winter storms cross frozen plains like dark steam locomotives pulling long trains of boxcars full of fear.
Expecting to waken buried alive under deep drifts like angry ocean waves, instead, we rise to find only weightless white layers of inconvenient snow.
