Escape

I had wondered at this proximity,
an intimacy of thoughts, like a nakedness,
unimaginable, a union supreme.
Distances were irrelevant, propinquity -
a word that applied, when our oneness
amazed, silences weren’t rude.

It’s said we seek mysteries; an escape
from the banal but in a meeting
of minds, could banalities intrude?

Perhaps they could if on barren landscapes,
mirages, mere illusions, had sated a longing
undefined. They could serve as preludes
to deconstructed lives scrambling
for slivers of reason to conclude:
the enchantment’s as real as the escape.

WHAT THE NIXIE SAID

When did the color of the door
change?
The door will open
to a new place according
to its hue, although
these places may look the same,
or similar, to you.
When did the radio tower
appear on the blue hill
above the saltmarshes?
You may say the green cars
& the red cars parking
have nothing to do with the saints
in the aquarium.
What was the mermaid's name?
What did she sing
to you? You must forget
all that. Did he put the brown
stone into his left shirt
pocket before or after removing
the pen from the satchel &
with no prior knowledge
the fauns in the copper mines?
You may notice an orange sheen
on things. It will only hurt you
if you let it hurt you.
Who stole the giant carp
from the basement? There is
no water in this flask. Who says
the sky is like a sieve
or a net? It's not so hard
to breathe the air. Opening
this door, the blue one,
that is hard. Tell me where
she hid the comb. Tell me
where this sewer goes. You
don’t know about the eels?
This thing here, in my right hand,
what is the name your people
give it?

Purple words

Truth is not purple
All reality pimps up
Is truth, naked truth

Pimped up truth looks white
The glasses you need are pink
Feelings black and blue

Last word still not said
Stumbling blocks are steppingstones
We grow a purple heart

buffin'out'the

bitter

Murray Gell-Mann’s as likely
to taste a quark in Dublin
as James Joyce, and it seems
to me that three draught quarts
would not be out of the question
when Muster Mark’s dry. Up and down
are dark and bitter like Guinness, perfect
brew for the world we know, taste
of Autumn on a gray day in September.

tag: poetry, quarks

lizard brain

i don't know if
this is a poem and
don't really care.
i've been attacking
the boston ivy,
the blackberry
creepers barbed
around the old pear
tree with my mom's
longhandled clippers.
horrors! what i
thought was the trunk
of the pear tree
turned out to be
the monster jade
plant from mars,
its spongy segmented
limbs surrounding
the fruit tree like
a garish ruffle, dis-
turbingly easy to
decapitate. Not like
the tangle of vines. No
epiphany to show for
all this work, i'm
in my lizard brain;
although later, pouring
myself a glass of
water i notice that
my hands are shaking
from all the effort.

but when forever hurts

a poem by my daughter Marlies

oil---and---wine

When I saturate, I reach every part.
No place to hide, I am oil, I transform.
I overcome, triumphant, pure of heart.
Even inner transcendence needs reform.

But then I refuse to blend with the self.
Holy oil meets flesh: I call for your blood,
pervading straddled boundaries in shelf.
Delicate flame illuminates to bud.

No private self, nor public self, I’ve met.
Are you ready to taste and break with sin?
Simple truth: what you see is what you get:
inside looking out; outside looking in.

Therefore I am, who I am. Be mine!
Arcane paradoxes none; I am wine.


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