opportunity

where is opportunity?
     does it follow its master,
               lead about on a rope
               for passers-by to smile at
                                           or pat on the head
                                           or ask questions about?

opportunity,
      do you hide
               in grandmother’s cupboard
      behind the cornstarch and paprika,
               crumpled and forgotten
            beside the dried mint in a twisted
                                                                 brown-paper bag?

is opportunity
           out at sea?
                   on a small sailing-vessel
                   playing in the rigging,
                           trailing behind into the saltbody,
                   combing with frivolous
                           and invisible fingers
                        the long, stringy, wind-ravished hair
                          of the young wife
                        of the silver-haired, linen-trousered,
                        tanned-wrinkle-squinting tycoon
                   whose heart cannot contain
                   the hurricane of peaceful bliss
                   that is an open ocean?

opportunity,
       is that you hiding
                    behind the soulful eyes of a stranger,
               filling heads with notions,
               giving novelists a firework of inspiration,
            letting the young man hold in his mind
                                             a strength, a woman,
           and the child in her heart
                                             a beauty, untainted hope,
         blooming optimistic into reality of meetings
                     and cups of coffee
                     and the sharing of lemon custards?

picturesque
      is the curve of an egg in the carton,
           the wind-ripple of a llama’s fancy fur,
    the swells and valleys of the syncopated sine curve
          of music in my life,
                           in my brain;
and the way my questions go unanswered

but i keep breathing, don’t you?
i keep breathing.

 

another rain one

.
if i have enough
caffeine in my bloodstream
this once to rise and set and run
not away but long and far in the rain:
full and natural and pouring and floppy,
mindful of nothing but gravity,
touching everything greedily, boldly,
with thousands and millions of tiny temporary fingers;
everything everywhere feeds its falling-folly
with every offered surface
(uplifted or defensive) 
adjacent, juxtaposed: vulnerable and welcome
(like shy, hungry skin)

then i shall be compelled to martyr my good hair day. 

like a brownie unforgotten

.

like a brownie unforgotten

in your bag all day
is the walkabout opensmile of million
{sun.shine.}
daisies in my noisy yard.

like cabbage for lunch and {browniemuffin}
cabbage for dinner
—a great Nod, zeus-like,
a great Affirmation,
a Very Yes—

and life decisions undulate
like the most daily
of moon/for ocean

 

‘after their tea when life begins again’

.
life is here, something of a
Breathing way to be
and a Looking,
shining We the pinpoints of
consciousness
[having been] deposited
in a here&now
like the molecules in a crystal
or the plasm in a cells
or the stars in constellation
or the lines in a concrete
or the tumbling row of tumbling clothes
in a launder-laundro-laundrymat.
(but of course all with the Life amongus)

impossible, We the probable
and the Defined,
needing the We, needing
a Looking from You
meaningful
like the way a movie hits your insides
or the health of whole,green to digest
or the sunshine relentless to your skin
or the real,sitting hills in a distance
or the Orion that burns with passion
in the vulnerable-anger moment.

simpleBe=simpleLove

now all the fingers of this tree(darling)have, by e.e. cummings

.

now all the fingers of this tree(darling)have
hands, and all the hands have people; and
more each particular person is(my love)
alive than every world can understand

and now you are and i am now and we’re
a mystery which will never happen again,
a miracle which has never happened before–
and shining this our now must come to then

our then shall be some darkness during which
fingers are without hands; and i have no
you: and all trees are(any more than each
leafless)its silent in forevering snow

—but never fear(my own, my beautiful
my blossoming)for also then’s until

heart it chokes

defiant orion burns bright tonight.
‘i will fight for you,’
he says,
‘i will always be here for you
and love you
and fight for you,
through all these lightyears
i will burn out my love eternal
with all that i am 
and can be 
and can’t be
for you.’

Bells. by Edgar Allan Poe

I

Hear the sledges with the bells – 
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells – 
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

II

Hear the mellow wedding bells – 
Golden bells!
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!
Through the balmy air of night
How they ring out their delight!
From the molten-golden notes,
And all in tune,
What a liquid ditty floats
To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats
On the moon!
Oh, from out the sounding cells
What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!
How it swells!
How it dwells
On the Future! -how it tells
Of the rapture that impels
To the swinging and the ringing
Of the bells, bells, bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells – 
To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!

III

Hear the loud alarum bells – 
Brazen bells!
What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!
In the startled ear of night
How they scream out their affright!
Too much horrified to speak,
They can only shriek, shriek,
Out of tune,
In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire,
Leaping higher, higher, higher,
With a desperate desire,
And a resolute endeavor
Now -now to sit or never,
By the side of the pale-faced moon.
Oh, the bells, bells, bells!
What a tale their terror tells
Of despair!
How they clang, and clash, and roar!
What a horror they outpour
On the bosom of the palpitating air!
Yet the ear it fully knows,
By the twanging
And the clanging,
How the danger ebbs and flows;
Yet the ear distinctly tells,
In the jangling
And the wrangling,
How the danger sinks and swells,
By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells – 
Of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells – 
In the clamor and the clangor of the bells!

IV

Hear the tolling of the bells – 
Iron bells!
What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!
In the silence of the night,
How we shiver with affright
At the melancholy menace of their tone!
For every sound that floats
From the rust within their throats
Is a groan.
And the people -ah, the people – 
They that dwell up in the steeple,
All alone,
And who tolling, tolling, tolling,
In that muffled monotone,
Feel a glory in so rolling
On the human heart a stone – 
They are neither man nor woman – 
They are neither brute nor human – 
They are Ghouls:
And their king it is who tolls;
And he rolls, rolls, rolls,
Rolls
A paean from the bells!
And his merry bosom swells
With the paean of the bells!
And he dances, and he yells;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the paean of the bells,
Of the bells – 
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the throbbing of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells – 
To the sobbing of the bells;
Keeping time, time, time,
As he knells, knells, knells,
In a happy Runic rhyme,
To the rolling of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells – 
To the tolling of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells – 
To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.