one single impression: love

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Love
Love

What is it about that word?

What is it that makes it different
From "Like" or "Admire" or "Respect"?
Why is it that after years of avoiding it
We give up on it, before ever really knowing it?

I-quit-I-give-up-Too-much-like-work, I said.
And life was simple,
Uncomplicated by some entanglement with Another.

Then came You.
Unannounced, and uninvited,
But welcome, for all that.

It isn't supposed to be this easy.
It takes work, takes effort.
Everyone says so.
Don't they?

But what if it is?

What if it is.just.this.easy?

I don't question it anymore.
I don't doubt it anymore.
I don't avoid it,
Not anymore.

How can I, now that I know?

I love you.

One Single Impression

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About this piece: It just doesn't have to be that hard.
I never knew.
Until I did.

About the photo: The gardens outside the UNC Greensboro School of Music. This image and several others are now available at My Redbubble Site

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one single impression: trembling

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Trembling
In evening's cool
The leaves, tipped in silver
Stir and rustle, speaking softly
Your name, carried on the wind
Wending its way to me
Like the bird that finds
With unerring accuracy
Its home when winter is done

With trembling fingers
I trace the delicate curves
I love so well
Feeling the silk give way
Under my gentlest touch
The glowing warmth beneath
Breathing its own perfume
Drawing me inexorably nearer

With trembling lips
I whisper back an echo
Of that music in the leaves
In hope that when the song
Is sung in two part harmony
Perhaps the season
Will cease to matter
And home will simply be home

With shuttered eyes,
I think of you, longing,
And the whole of my being
Shivers at the thought.

One Single Impression

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About this piece: We may tremble for many reasons. Sometimes they're the best kind of reasons.

About the photo: Jordan Lake, July 2009. Not exactly cool that evening.

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remembrance

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Remembrance
In a time not
So long before mine
The smoke of spirits
Bent but unbroken
Choked the sky in acrid clouds
Look, They said
There are your parents, your children
Your brothers and sisters
They said You will vanish
Wiped from memory
But memory remains
And so do You
Shalom, my friends,
My brothers, my sisters
Shalom.

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About this piece: Today (April 20th) was on my calendar as Holocaust Remembrance Day in Israel. My bad. Remembrance Day was actually last week. Today is Israel's Independence Day. So I'm remembering late it seems. Which is okay, I think. My feeling is that this remembrance ought to be worldwide. Today, tomorrow, and all tomorrows to come.

About the photo: Public domain image. Not mine.

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one single impression: mask

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Mask
I will wear the mask
The brave face of indifference
What choice do I have?

I will wear the mask
The brave face of apathy
You leave me no alternative

I will wear the mask
The brave face of the liar
This is the only path remaining

I will wear the mask
I will put on the brave face
I will pretend and even lie

I might convince my mind
I might convince the world
I might even convince you

But I will never convince my heart
That I do not love you
I am not that good a liar

One Single Impression

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About this piece: Sometimes a mask is just a mask.

In the process of working on this piece several songs came to mind (if you know me, that won’t surprise you). The top two were "Eleanor Rigby" by the Beatles ("Wearing a face that she keeps in a jar by the door”) and Billy Joel’s "The Stranger" ("Did you ever let your lover see the stranger in yourself?"). Why wear the mask? What do you suppose would happen if the masks came off?

Yes, please, let’s by all means have that conversation. I'm willing.
Call me.
About the photo: Yes, it's me.

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one single impression: vicarious

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Last One Chosen

I watch, my attention arrested
By the clan of neighborhood kids
Five of them charging around the corner
Followed by the dutiful beagle mix
Intent on keeping watch

They clamber into the cab
Of the neighbor's sturdy F-150
But the last one finds no room
Perhaps he was too slow
Perhaps the rest had a head start

I watch from my perch on top of the hill
As he shuffles his feet outside
Picks up a stick and throws it
But even the dog made it in
Before the doors closed.

He pretends it doesn't matter
The sun is warm, the sky is clear
Who needs to pretend anyway?
The truck is going nowhere
After all

Minutes pass as I watch myself
Standing outside, looking in
I climb into the bed of the truck
And kneel on the toolbox
Behind the rear window

As if in prayer
To some capricious god
Who clearly has Better Things In Mind for me
Than driving some imaginary highway
With the ones I would call friends

The dog understands (they do that)
Makes enough of a pest of himself
That he's handed awkwardly
Through the driver's side window
To the lone figure in the back

I watch, my attention arrested
By my own black faithful friend
His attention riveted
To his brown-and-white counterpart
A shared understanding

My eyes trace the line
Between my dog and his
And I think
Out loud
"You got the better deal, kid."

One Single Impression

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About this piece: It isn't a story about dogs (as thought by someone who read it back when I wrote it). It's a story of the disenfranchised, the misfits. The "Vicarious" element is in the person shift in the 5th and 6th stanzas.

A true story. All the way around.

About the photo: If you haven't met Tonka yet, now you have. World, meet my best friend Tonka. Tonka, world.

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note to self

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Note To Self

Now do you understand?
It was always
A fool's errand.
You never listen to me.
Never learn.
Expose your heart
And watch it shatter.
Speak its words unfiltered
And behold as they become
The wretched pillars of
Some twisted New Religion
And curdle
Into something sick and depraved.
Now do you understand?
Keep your soul to yourself.
It will never be enough.
Lock it up.
You only have one.

Are you finished now?
True, of souls I have but one
But I will not leave it
Languishing in some dungeon
Of your making
Never seeing the light of day
I will speak its words
Unshackled by your chains
I will not seek
My future
In your past
You are transient
I endure
And if I have embarked
On a fool's errand
I am not too proud
To be called a fool
Yes. I understand now.

About this piece: I almost didn't publish this because it sounds angry (oh dear!). Make what you want of it. That's the beauty of poetry. You can do that.

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capitulation

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Read the final page
It will tell you everything
You ever need know

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You know more ways to
Hide than I know ways to seek
You can come out now

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one single impression: cognizance

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Undersketch

Consider
A painting
With its many layers
Brush strokes
Hidden from view
But no less a part
Of the finished work.
Those hidden ridges
And grooves below the surface
Give it texture
Give it dimension
Give it depth
Give it character

They cannot be known
In the usual sense
Cannot be analyzed
By cruel cognizance
That would peel away
The layers above.
They need not be seen
To be known
To be understood
To be appreciated
For their part in the creation.
It is enough to know
That they are there.

One Single Impression

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About this piece: I've been thinking a lot lately about the difference between what we see and what we know. We see the surface, the outward presentation, the finished product. We see the beauty that's visible -- literally and figuratively. And if we look closely, carefully, we can see the impressions of the things that are below the surface. But we can never actually see these things without peeling back the top layer. And in doing that, we run the risk of damaging or even destroying the beauty that drew our eye in the first place. We can't see the actual brush stroke underneath or the undersketch that was the foundation for the painting. We don't have to see these to know they're there or to appreciate their role in bringing the wonder of the finished work to us. But awareness of their existence enhances what we know, and love about the present version.

About the photo: Every year the agency I work for solicits contributions from all over the state to provide the artwork that hangs in our building. The new "show" was just mounted last week, and this painting of a Loggerhead Turtle hangs right across the hall from the stairwell entrance I use every day. Since I have a very good friend who's crazy for turtles -- especially sea turtles -- I wanted a photo of it. Which is what ultimately brought me around to this poem.

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TFE's Poetry Bus

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Chris at Enchanted Oak (there's your Technorati tag, you can thank me later) roped me into convinced me to take a ride on TOTALFECKINGEEJIT's Poetry Bus. Turns out the Bus is currently on tour and being hosted by various and sundry. This week our substitute driver is Rachel Fox who set forth a simple, if challenging theme. To wit:

1.Pick a favourite word. It can be a long word or a tiny word, a complicated word or a simple everyday one, a new word or something archaic that keeps trying to fall out of the dictionary. I really don't mind. Any word will do.
2.Write something using that word as your starting point. It can be a poem. But I use the term poem VERY loosely. Loose is good...in most instances.
3.Send me the link to your poem-post on Sunday 28th or Monday 29th March and I will add it to the Ramble Stop post on here. You can email me the link if you like (tidier...innit...send to author [at] crowd-pleasers [dot] net) or put it in the comments box here. I work different hours to our usual host-driver so if you send me something in UK daylight hours I will probably get to it fairly quickly but I don't work late into our night these days so if you send it during our (conventional) bedtime I won't get to it till the next morning. Just so you know. Plus we have family coming to visit on the Tuesday so I won't be doing much here that day either. OK?

I say simple because it isn't as if she looked up some esoteric SAT word to throw out there. I say challenging because it means selecting a single piece of meat from an endless buffet. And in the last couple of days a great many words have rumbled through this dusty attic I call a mind. So picking a particular dust bunny to elevate to prompt status wasn't an easy task. Nevertheless, the word "discovery" seems to have floated to the top of the pond more often than usual, so there we have it.

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Discovery

Watching my son
Discover his son
This new life
This new person
I think of all the
Fathers that came
Before him
Before me
Before even
My father
Introduced himself to me
In a way I imagine to be
Not very different
From what I am watching
Unfold before me

In that moment
When life is new
And you haven't yet
Had the chance
To do anything wrong
Your child, your bond
Your moment
Is perfect
Unblemished by
Misunderstanding
Or broken curfews
Or missed recitals
Possibility
Is limitless

For other links to this week's theme visit Rachel's Guest Driver Stop
This image and poem -- along with many others -- is featured in my book Distant Echoes, available from Amazon.com

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(Just so you know: The two column layout isn't a literary device. It simply allows one to read the entire verse without scrolling. Nothing brilliant at work there I'm afraid.)

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one single impression: avatar

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Dredging the mud
And silt below it
The ocean sets the table
For the hungry sandpiper
The bird knows what it knows
That the ocean will provide
The bird fears what it fears
That the ocean will also devour
If given the chance
The ocean, for its part
Simply does what it does
What it has always done
What it will always do
Rake the bottom

And deposit the catch
Along the shoreline
For any who come
The birds know this
They come to visit
Take their fill then leave
To flock with others of their kind
Leaving the ocean
To do what it does
Secure in the knowledge
That the ocean will be there
To do what it has always done
Perhaps this is the reason
The waves sigh

One Single Impression

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About this piece: In Hindu myth, an Avatar is a representation of Bhagwan (God) in some anthromorphic form. Hinduism is not -- as it is often thought -- a polytheistic religion. It is polymorphic, with the underlying principles being that Bhagwan may take any form, and that when humankind has needed it s/he has taken such a form and appeared among us. They are joined by Greeks, Romans, Egyptians and others throughout history who needed to put a face on the almighty. To translate the divine into terms they/we could understand. Similarly, we confer human attributes on everything from dogs to automobiles to oceans. Thinking about that is what led me to this piece. (You had to be there.)

About the photo: Taken at North Topsail Beach in July of 2009 just after sunrise. The ocean does indeed provide for us all. Even the photographer hungry for an image.

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Refugee

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Balanced on a razor
Too sharp to stay on
Too high to fall off
The wolf is never
Far from the door
An exile lives
In the city of his birth
Turned out by circumstance
Turned into a refugee
Without a refuge
The light from over there
Promises hope
If he can only cross the road

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About this piece: Looking at this photo of the cars turning Tate Street into a game of Human Frogger, I thought you'd really have to want one of those subs to brave the traffic to get there. For most of us that's an inconvenience. But for the one looking for a break from starvation -- or a job -- those cars aren't just standing between him or her and some calories. They may very well be standing in the way of life itself. (Yes, I know, you can walk to the corner and wait for the light to change. It's a metaphor okay?)

About the photo: Taken in Greensboro, NC in February of 2010, outside Aycock Auditorium

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sky watch friday #75: shipwrecked

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Shipwrecked

Adrift on a trackless sea,
Anchorless, rudderless,
Unmasted and floundering.
With neither the energy
Nor the will
To stitch together enough sail
To hobble to a safe anchorage.

I sailed right into the teeth of the storm,
Eyes wide open.
Unflinching. Dauntless.
Trusting that my ship was
The equal of the gale
Never doubting
That I would reach the far shore.

Here and now
I wonder. I doubt.
I follow the line
On the map that brought me here
And question everything
I thought I knew.
Maps don't tell the full story.

This image and poem -- along with many others -- is featured in my book Distant Echoes, available from Amazon.com

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About this piece: It's a metaphor that could be applied many things. Read it the way you need to to make it work for you. ;)

About the photo: Taken in North Topsail Beach, NC in July of 2009, and not really related to the poem other than in its nautical theme and mood.

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too late

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Satisfied hunger
Empty promise of the sign
Likely just as well

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About this piece: Looking at the photo I was struck by the "not" implied by the darkened "Open" sign. The lights inside (which accurately suggest that the place is, in fact, open) tell a whole story themselves, just not this one. But I didn't really need that double latte at this hour anyway now did I?

About the photo: Taken outside Coffeeology on Tate Street in Greensboro, NC. Ironically, I took several shots trying to catch the flashing "Open" sign while it was lit. Eventually I did, then decided I liked it better this way.

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i am not dreaming

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I don’t remember dreams
But if I did
I would remember the one
Where I stand on the beach
Scanning the ocean
Just beyond the breakers
Where the riptides don’t reach
Where the swells are steep
Where you are.

But this is not a dream
This is the reality,
Metaphorical but no less real
That clings to my consciousness

I know you must do this
Must make this journey
I know you’re strong
A much stronger swimmer

Than I will ever be
I also know
The mighty, indifferent force
Of the ocean.
So I search for you
Among the swells and the foam
Amid the ocean’s vastness
You are not afraid I imagine
Not nearly so terrified as I
Who can only watch and wait
For you to return to shore.

I pray for your safety
Pacing the shoreline
And weeping at the need
For you to be so far out at all.

If I remembered dreams
I would remember this one.

This image and poem -- along with many others -- is featured in my book Distant Echoes, available from Amazon.com

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About this piece: It's hard when someone you care about is struggling. It's harder still when the most helpful thing you can do is watch, listen and wait to be useful. Who hasn't been there?

About the photo: Taken on Front Street in Beaufort, NC in October of 2008, and not really related to the poem other than in its dreamlike (to me) feel.

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when

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 This image and others available for sale at my RedBubble Site!
Also: This image and poem -- along with many others -- is featured in my book Distant Echoes, available from Amazon.com

When you think no one cares
That no one understands
When you feel the ache of loneliness
Your heart heavy
And your soul too weary for another step

Someone somewhere feels for you
Aches for you.
Someone somewhere echoes your loneliness
And sits waiting
To offer a hand, a shoulder, a heart to lean on.

When the sun is warm
And the wind is at your back
When the road rises to meet you
And your spirit is soaring
And cannot be brought down by any force

Someone somewhere is smiling
In silent celebration
Someone somewhere echoes your joy
And sits waiting
To encourage, to sustain, to validate.

When you are quiet
And still in contemplation
When your mind
Reaches out to the horizon
And your memories stir

Someone somewhere is hoping
To be found in those thoughts
Someone somewhere thinks of you
And sits waiting
Hoping to be remembered fondly.

Someone
Somewhere
Loves You.

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About this piece: I don't know the girl standing by herself by the door, but her single-ness stood out (to me) from the rest of the crowd. I suspect she was simply waiting for someone. But the scene made me think of all the people who are alone in the crowd, and what they might feel.

About the photo: Taken at Aycock Auditorium, UNC Greensboro before my son's concert with the UNC-G Symphonic Band February 19. An experimental shot using a slow shutter an panning the scene slightly to create motion blur.

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one single impression: "aura"

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Pyrrhic Victory
On a ribbon of fire
The rocket rises
Clawing for the sky
Trying to escape
Its own fiery tail
Knowing
That it cannot outpace
The fire within it
And that in the end
That same fire
That propels it
Will destroy it
Its only redemption
Found in the awe
On the faces
On the ground below
The spectacle
Of dying well.

One Single Impression
 This image and others available for sale at my RedBubble Site!
Also: This image and poem -- along with many others -- is featured in my book Distant Echoes, available from Amazon.com

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About this piece: The photo was the chicken, the poem the egg in this case. I was considering the photo and thinking of how the very thing that drives a skyrocket is the thing that ultimately destroys it. It serves one purpose in its life, and if the weather is good and the powder stays dry and it doesn't sit on the shelf too very long it does it well. Neil Young put it as "Better to burn out than to fade away." Using it for the "Aura" prompt was a bit of a stretch, but the photo should make the connection.
About the photo: This is an older shot, taken on New Year's Eve 2008.

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rail bridge

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Train rolls overhead
Metronome of steel on steel
Sings a man to sleep

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About this piece: As far as I know, there wasn't actually anyone sleeping under this bridge, but I can't ever pass over or under or even near a rail bridge without wondering who might be. This is especially true at night when darkness hides the things we don't want to see.

About the photo: Taken in Wake Forest on Halloween night 2009, not as a part of the photo scavenger hunt at Tiff-o-ween 2K9.

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sky watch friday #74: my end of the sky

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My End of the Sky

Are the stars different
At your end of the sky?
Does the moon come closer to you
Than to me?
Are we so far apart
That the very skies themselves
Take a different form?
I hope, at your end of the sky,
The days are warm,
The evenings cool and fragrant
Brimming with promise
I hope, at your end of the sky,
You are smiling
Living
Loving
Happy

My end of the sky
Is very different
I speak to it
It listens with indifference
If it listens at all
At my end of the sky
The moon
Is cold
The stars
Too far to reach
I am, at my end of the sky
Living
Loving
Hopeful
Is my end of the sky
So very different?

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silence

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"Silence is Golden."
Who says so?
Who decided,
And why,
That silence is
Something to be valued,
Prized as gold?

Who was it
That was possessed
Of enough wisdom
That he could know
The nature of something
That by that very nature
Is unknowable?

Is silence gold?
Or is it dross?
Or is it neither of these?
Is it as it appears,
Simply formless, shapeless
An absence of anything, really.
A void.

The airless vacuum
Of the space that
Surrounds me
Engulfs me
The highwayman that
Steals my breath
My sleep.

If only
I could bring
The silence without
Inside where it might
Serve some purpose
Quiet the chorus within
I might feel differently.

This image and poem -- along with many others -- is featured in my book Distant Echoes, available from Amazon.com

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About this piece: I'm not a morning person. Never have been. So waking up at 4 AM is pretty disorienting. Nothing else is awake at that hour. Not the birds, not even the squirrels -- the absence of which someone I know once called "the last word in stillness". Turns out though, that it can inspire... something anyway. Not just this piece, but the "prequel" of this one were born from it.

About the photo: No, I wasn't out shooting this one at 4 AM. I was looking for an image of silence, and you have to admit, she's not going to say much.

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one single impression: murmur

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Murmur (II - Prequel)
In the twisted dark of sleeplessness
The ceiling fan murmurs
Mocking my attempts at rest.
My dog murmurs
Dreaming whatever dogs dream.
I rise.

In the cool, damp dark of pre-dawn
The highway murmurs
As truck tires sing a weary work song.
My heart murmurs
As the silence presses in from all sides.
I listen.

In the jumbled dark of my mind
The ocean murmurs
Its pulse echoing my own.
My lips murmur
"I remember".
I remember.

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Murmur (I)
A hundred miles away
The ocean murmurs to me
A single word
"Remember"
No others are needed
And in truth
Not even that one
I remember perfectly
I cannot forget
The streaks of frozen crystalline white
Punctuating perfect blue
The sketches the birds drew
On the canvas of the shore
The biting wind, the brilliance
Of the sun unfiltered
How we laughed at the sandpipers
Fleeing the waves that feed them
Marveled at the tide
Pulled up tight like a blanket
Under the shore's chin by a maternal moon

A murmur, "Remember"
I remember
A laugh, a touch,
A kiss I'd dared not hope for
In my most unbridled imagination
We planted our flag
Claimed the beachhead as our own
In that pristine moment
Only you and I existed
A day in a life
A life in a day
If I am dreaming, never let me wake, I said
If I am awake, never let me sleep, I said
It seems long ago
Since the searing blue of boundless promise
Deepened to the purple ache of longing
And a restless heart
Alone in the night
First murmured your name
Just to hear it.

Please say you remember.

One Single Impression

These look out of order perhaps. There's a reason. I wrote Murmur (I), couldn't decide whether or not to publish it, wrote Murmur (II), then decided to publish the first version. By that time the second was already posted. And in reading them both, the second one read like a prequel to the first. So here we are. Just me being my usual neurotic self. Nothing to worry about.

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