A Sinking Thrill

In the clouds
all the drops join hands;
the static and electric frictions
rub each other
in all the wrong ways
building to a split
second’s crack and gush,
to jettison the dissonance
and regret it in the hush.

*

Does the man with the flash bulb at the big game know

that televisions in everyplace imaginable flare noticeably

every time his finger moves

uninterested rooms fill with his lights

unwilling eyes snap curious and vexed

towards the source of this blinding instant

without an understanding of the cause?

His finger steers the eyes of the world

our cunning turns of phrase grow into war

and history is lousy with our careless left-unsaids.

*

A poem about post-modern epistemology which becomes more ironic the more you consider not only its philosophical claims, but the nature of its framework and the fact that it is scarcely a poem at all and does not really want to be. The poem will be followed by a separate discourse on the poem itself:

maybe the things we cannot know
we were not meant to question.
maybe the universe was not designed
for those who want to know things.

Notice the uncertainty with which the attempt to resolve dissonance is made. The very nature of the poem is a balance between what can be known and what can be lived in the absence of knowledge. Your experience of the words is clouded by the large sections of text surrounding what is perceived to be the central, and therefore most important, text. If any conclusions can be drawn, they can also be questioned. This is unimportant. The lack of rhyme is indicative of something, but the author felt it unnecessary to tell you what it was. Be aware that not everything in the poem is purposefully chosen. Many things happened at random, but were not deemed important enough to control. This is the nature of design.

*

Black Whole

I long for the day when your gravity has become so strong

that all my space

and all my time

are curved around you in a gentle line

ready to be consumed into a point of infinite density.

And if that’s our intimate destiny,

I rejoice!

But my lungs collapse

and my weakling voice

will always crack

when I try to shout “I love you” back

my dark energy mounts in counter-attack

or perhaps

the gravity that’s simulated

by my acceleration

fools me into thinking

I’m falling further from you

and the panic is the proof

that I’m safely in your pull.

But my ability to disengage

to see both sides of every page

to explain my pain in too many ways

is the thing that terrifies me most

if having the answer

is the answer

then I’m toast.

But if wanting

what you want

is really what you want

and feeling what is good

will lead me to your heart

then there may be some hope for me

if you can filter through my doubts

reach in the rubble and pull me out.

Through all this twisting and turning in cosmic circles I reach

the point:

I need you.

To compress my expanding, receding view into

the point:

I need you

To cross the event horizon and pull me through.

*

What some fail to see

is the immense value

waiting behind a quiet smile

or a misplaced laugh.

*

Dear everyone:

I love you

Feel good with me.

Just the fact that you are living brings me joy

and tenfold so when you are next to me.

*

Between us all the ice is thick
the thin layers of skin conceal
oceans of distance we cannot traverse
isolation we cannot surmount
glacial drifts of bitterness
and continents of paralysis.
Between us all the ice is thick
the cracks ice over twice as true
scars upon the skin of the soul
to remind us what vulnerable
caring men and women are destined to become.
Between us all the ice is thick
my eyes with yours, my stomach screams
“i want to love!” but think of how
the thousand tiny fractures
will splinter, fill and freeze anew;
The ice is thick between us two.

*

Is there a later we can lean on

if today is a but a sinking thrill,

a panic and a whisper:

“death is endless, death is near”

Is there eternity to crash through

a love we all must fall to

a bottom to our darkness

and a ceiling to our fear?

*