A word,
A juxtaposition, perhaps,
Old thoughts reconsidered in a new slant of light;
And—it seems almost magical!—
A messy tangle of life-threads is unknotted,
Liberated threads, like quantum waves, suddenly align,
Converge in a singular, particulate moment,
Now!
Fecund with Possibility,
Promising as Eternity,
Fleeting, fragile as Earth.
I’m cleaning off my desk again
Been doing that for a time
Trying to find an answer
Of what’s really on my mind
Sometimes, I sneak up to it
to grab it while it sleeps
But that never ever works
It hears me as I creep
Sometimes do Tai Chi for it
To grant it peace and space
But it never seems to help at all
It likes it’s messy place
So I give up trying to sort
I guess it’s meant to be
And truth be known (to those who care)
Its clutter comforts me.
“Le seul vrai langage au monde est un baiser”
– Alfred de Musset
The curse of the learned mind is reason;
how else can we know, can we truly gain
unless we interview and ascertain
complexities of psyche’s sweet delusion?
Too much. Too tilting to the grander scales!
Attraction of these elements is light
and only light, original and slight—
what is the weight of souls? Of no avail!
Instead, let interviews slip where they may:
A touch, a stolen moment, entertained;
“Le cœur a ses raisons” and this, enough!
Let bodies lead and lips brush brighter stuff
where stars press ancient paths and moons maintain.
We are, and speak a language of our own,
together, at a distance, or alone.
–josephallennichols–
(I’m sure everyone, just like me, hates when you go to a poetry reading and the poet spends 23 minutes explaining their poem then 33 seconds reading it but, in order to prove my gift of prophecy so that, perhaps, you, gentle reader, might pay more attention to my prophetic posts in the following days of late spring and early summer (where I most likely might say “Look right here, this is a prophecy” so don’t feel like you need to concentrate that much) here is my response from last year’s Lexpomo to Phillip Corley’s poem posted 6/17/2016, where my third eye is clearly documented. While I use no dangerous tools, tarot, I Ching, or ouija, bones, entrails, etc., it’s disheartening to know the future – I suggest not trying this)
You’ll piss off the poets, pouting and pretentious
Derange the dilettantes, deluded and dumb
Shallow sheep smashing storefronts
“You owe me a TV for your blasphemy”
We’ll drink beer and watch the riots
When all the cool kids have shunned us
(yes, I did change a word)
Strange biscuits, no jelly, just ‘lasses,
Neighbor house, feather bed, no Ma.
At dark night carried and left here,
Scared. Being took off is lonesomer
Than Pat being gone forever.
“Misery walkin’ up Foggy Holler”
Is how Pa named the cat. Foggy
Came to town with me, sad, cause
He ranned away likety quick.
Guess I could go, if’n I had a mind.
No Pat, no Foggy, no Ma, no Pa.
Sunshine Mountain way gone.
Rattler brought on the last straw.
Pearl is fightin’ the Germans, so
Could I run away to Foggy Holler?
Strange neighbor lady did say,
Maybe just one more day.
“Good things hop up like crickets
On hot rocks. Just wait, you’ll see.”
Surprises nowdays are terrible bad.
But I’ll stay, better this misery
With a bed and biscuits, right
Now no Germans. Gotta watch
Close. They might creep in whiles
Grown-ups hang rattlers on the fence.
A white-furred puppy sits on my lap
under early morning birdsong.
She came tail wagging and stood on hind legs
in adorable persuasion of simple love.
More than anything, she wants to beside me.
Together we watch the erratic decisions
of a common variety white butterfly.
It seems you can find these small beauties
flittering through their chaos anywhere
spring and summertime.
The pup, a papillon, sees it too.
She wants to go chase the thing
but she stills herself,
licking my hand and face,
our togetherness being more important.
Once in one of my darker times,
I decided to follow on of these whimsical creatures
never expecting to get much of anything,
being so hard to catch in non-linear flight,
but healing can begin even with the smallest light.
It led me through years of wrong turns,
hopping back and forth from light to dark
while teaching me about the people I share the world with.
Their friendship, unbounded love,
strong enough to shatter every dark
I used to like to think
that if I chased the right butterfly
it would lead me to my one true love.
None have yet, but I’ve met so many lives,
keeping me together when light goes away
and all this hope is curled up in my lap.
Papillion, French for butterfly, my white butterfly
is already here with me.
She holds me together in her coiled body
never letting me forget that love is real.
Dark and Lonely Night
Upon my shoulder
on a dark lonely night,
you rest your head,
having come to me, fleeing stress.
To reality, I wake, colder,
for dreams dies on such a night,
& you are no longer the woman in bed
with me. You are my poet’s particular excess
pondering of rain that falls upon a tin roof.
I hear it but it is unseen this dark night.
In lonely hours, I write poetry
about the love my heart seeks.
What more does a poet; sounds on the roof;
have to offer life or love than images? I write,
words; dedicate them to all men and women
awake on this dark, lonely night. I speak
silently to them with the words I write
in my pursuit of fulfillment pure as light.
When things go right in the Land of Saw Blade Flowers,
lightning bugs pour from saw horses,
string themselves above the deck
and disappear on the heel of the last shoe off.
When things go right in the Land of Saw Blade Flowers,
eyes like knives bite sharp on the task,
google around, spin to rest,
and sit with a cold beer softening off.
When things go right in the Land of Saw Blade Flowers,
fresh cut grass gets sucked into night,
makes a point; blossoms with talk.
Hard work pays off.
Amy Cunningham 2017
Anxiety occurs when the bed is too big. Depression occurs when the bed is too small.
so when he gives you
the apple, teeth marks
already beginning to brown,
of course you also
have a taste
you want to think
you have potential
to be more than
ribcage byproduct
for horny man
