The Dissolution of a Condensed Thought
A pure idea turned briefly into a body made of glass,
Caught in the very instant it began to tear apart,
While time froze solid on the edges of its fragile shape,
A whole universe held in the palm of one dead moment.
A black spine grows at the center, like a root burned black,
It is its own reflection, a snake swallowing its tail,
Its vertebrae are questions that keep turning back on themselves,
A tower of darkness leaning on the void, gone silent.
And above, a yellow sphere burns quiet as a sun,
It is the core of truth, its last living claim,
Its light bleeds slowly through the shapes now coming undone,
An egg of fire hatching the death of its own glow.
All the rest is fog that has forgotten how to exist,
Outlines fading out, like dreams at memory's first light,
Matter turning gently back into the thought that made it,
An echo dying out in the room where it was born.
And I watch the idea unravel into a thousand shadows,
The crystal dissolving back into the air it came from,
Only the yellow sphere remains, an eye still holding on
To the memory: once a thought, then matter, then nothing at all.
edges loosen,
names unbutton themselves,
and every meaning wanders off~
a quiet migration
of once-certain things
into the softness of becoming
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately.
—Henry David Thoreau
In all his scheming, the wicked person arrogantly thinks,
“There’s no accountability, since there’s no God.”
—Psalm 10:4
Cat Woman in Vapid Dissolution
I ceased to hear the birds, not
because they aren’t there, but
the tweeting is on repeat.
I ceased to see the magnolias,
gardenias, and daffodils, fooled
by the rolling reels on repeat.
I ceased to see the glittering snow.
It has disappeared. It’s too late
for this year. I shovel serials.
I ceased to see kindness and mercy,
seated on the Almighty’s throne.
Basking in my goodness - worship me.
I ceased to be a human being; stronger
than that. I make the rules, don’t follow
yours; incompatible except with the cat.
I ceased to live my life; I bask in hers,
on the screen-scripture; I know nuances
of her lyrics, every curve, lingering gossip.
I ceased to be
I don’t care who I am
like the cat
Before the light could find my frame,
A breath of blue became the air.
I waited—not for hope or name—
But for a silence I could bear.
The self withdrew, then disappeared,
No shelter left for soul to keep.
All colors fell, as time grew smeared;
Just blue remained—too vast, too deep.
What burned was not a mortal flame,
But thought encased in frost and skin.
The world collapsed without a claim,
And left a hush that rings within.
Fractured by The Dancers of Dissolution
(A lone voice whispers)
I dreamt
As I sat alone at home
After church
One rainy afternoon
Dressed in my Sunday best
Thinking after you left
We were like two rare windblown autumn leaves
Meeting on a winter's tree branch
By chance
Hypnotized within that first magical glance
To think we would be together
Forevermore
Until the wickedness within the ever watching jealous world
Gathered around us
Like a wild scene at a new Feast of Bacchus
And began
To smile and dance
Salivating
At the dark thought and soul replenishing ominous energy
Linked to destroying
Another god given religious trance
Filled with thoughts of romance
(C)
Copyright John Duffy
Foundation of the piece.
Have you ever experienced a situation, when everything seems to be coming together in a relationship, then tragedy, suddenly strikes?
In the existential dualist realm,
with dark and immoral traits,
irreducibly distinct from the righteous strength,
human being breathed as God’s generous gift
the divine breath of fufilled life,
the source of creativity for love and harmony.
The enlivening enlightenment window
lets in the sacred sunshine of virtue,
highlights the positivity of the psyche,
enhancing the character strength,
the fountain flow of generosity and empathy
that finds the liberating pathway of spirituality.
The spiritual journey is a serene movement
from vice to virtue to high stratum of consciousness,
achieved by introspective dissolution
of the rigid concepts through transcendence,
as the separation of outside-in and inside-out dissolves,
virtue permeates the non-dual awareness.
_______________
July 31, 2022
Contest : Non-Dual Awareness
Sponsored by : Unseeking Seeker
October 30, 2022
Contest : 2022 Poetry Marathon Mile 18
Sponsored by : Mark Toney
Abstracts of a July Morning
David J Walker
I
I dreamed about a man selling
The scent of breakfast
He said I could pick the delivery
Date and time
And if I dared to imagine
Imagine an image of my father
That could replace the cook
And the rest of the fantasy (and breakfast)
Would be mine
II
The traffic lights glow reveals
the flow of lost travelers turning
from green to yellow then red
who thought they knew the way
and now no matter what they said
they are moving
among the absent and dead at the
cost of a mornings dissolution
III
What was your birthstone
who revealed your celebrations
do you remember the names
of the strangers who stopped you
from falling and bathed you in
the fountains of the Holy Water
from a garden hose
IV
July is duplicitous and part of a
Conspiracy to mute the coolness
Of summer mornings
There will be no
Weather warnings as
The day lingers into
Another warm summer evening
THE DEPTH AND THE DISTANCE
A story of Divorce
Because you would plumb only so deep Final
Before returning, too soon, back to the top,
Breathing in air
And your preference to swim,
Skimming along the surface
Like a flat-edged rock.
While I continued, delving deeper down,
Beyond, where even, the Sun’s light
Stopped, broke rank and dispersed,
In a rout back to the top.
I continued, alone, in utter darkness
Descending into the depths.
Until, crashing here,
At the turgid, bed-rock bottom
Where only the limestone bones of the dead
can be found
Like the mystical Elephant Graveyards.
You had gone for the distance
Where I settled for the depths
Both diametrically opposed
And at constant right-angles
to each other,
Thus, destined, to never
See things the same way
And that we even met at all
John T Tansey
Money, divorced from fame
Divorced from talent
Divorced from blame
Feelings, divorced from logic
Divorced from judgment
Divorced from pain
Words, divorced from reasons
Divorced from praise
Divorced from gain
Divorced from the moment
Divorced from the instant
Time—divorced again
(Dreamsleep: June, 2019)
When the repellant acid rain came,
the silica image gloomed darkly
into sobbing disintegration
Embers of flickering hope
smouldered deep in the heart of despair
Passion dying to be re-ignited,
only sparked
a saline immolated tearful incineration
Distance was a skeleton key,
overcoming temporal relativity
was a spatial mistake
Stretch marks of lost time ...
candles snuffed
on the anniversary cake
Emotional composure
had an elasticity expiration due date
Hardening of the arteries —
love can’t flow in a vacuum
Premature, incubated promises
won’t grow in a dark room
Umbilical desires
got an ultrasound hole cut in the chest
Covers unturned ...
pillow sighs smothered a feeble breath
Bosom reasons for embracing neglect
is a mirage yearning
Borrowed time is an unrequited debt,
paid by the spurning
When the Venus rains came,
the mirror image burned brightly ...
then disappeared, ever so slowly
Death of an icy love affair,
dissolved
in glacial, decomposed fashion —
As misty, crypt wails
ascend in the deserted air
I remember my childhood in the good ol' USA
Fireworks at the lakefront every Independence Day
But that all was concluded twenty years ago today
The Union was dissolved
It simply was decided we could live toge'r no more
No armies took to battlefields, there was no Civil War
You'd think the dream so spoken of would be worth fighting for
But the Union was dissolved
Former states combined and formed alliances anew
Some banners wave above in Red and others fly the Blue
That the Stars and Stripes would last forever ne'er could it be true
So the Union was dissolved
Some abolished taxes and declared abortion banned
Established Christianity the faith of all their land
They placed their trust in Jesus and the Invisible Hand
When the Union was dissolved
Others turned their economies over to the State
Said they'd guarantee equality and put an end to hate
Imagine all the dreamers thinking wouldn't it be great
When the Union is dissolved
Nary a former state now has a strong economy
Most of their resources go to field their own army
Twenty years removed and hardly anyone is free
'Cause the Union was dissolved
June 5, 2017
I cannot walk on your eggs
I better lie on oyster bed
I am not impotent, you know, but afraid of coition
Because your eggs are fragile-terrible
Shattering like a pouncing wolf.
It is a strange job -making love with you
But it is elemental -both love and fear
Dominated by the passage of time
Both have to be silent with time
Both have to be sheathed by my poor mother's ghost.
I am not impotent, you know, I have affairs with **** snails
On the street where strange voices raise questions
Minatory shadows surround my ashen face
And look straight through my window
It is an affirmation that mom has not come tonight.
Sands are receding baring turtle eggs
Sea slugs frig around
Hungry foetuses are waiting
Clouds are gathering absurd eyes to lift me up as a song
Deadly legs drive through the hills.
Nights still stretches ahead of me
Like giant captive crabs.
I am stepping onto a savage world.
In a trance I kiss you, I am not impotent, you know
I have to collect my early morning pearls
Before the final war begins.
Dissolution
She dwells in the pitch-dark attic
full of cobwebs and
dried autumn leaves,
in the half-open oval window, a
minute aperture quenching
her thoughts of passing,
her back badly swollen, slowly
leaning against the wall
feeling the throbbing pain
in nailing a fictitious comfort,
pinching her tiny fingers right
through the withering mural of Saint
Michael slaying a twin serpent, she
grasps her left-hand, while
chanting an inaudible
eloquence of tantrums, then
pulls out a golden ring
from her bruised finger, and gently
inserts among the gaps, among the
forsaken she stares, as the
pretentious etched door adjacent her
screeches, as if time freezes and
palpitation creeps through her veins,
when a temper in full absence of
calmness inches towards her, and from
the ashes of her self-inflicted
incarceration, she rushes out to
rendezvous with the advent of play, a
misleading image, a fallacy of her
vision or a miracle in progress,
hands to her an elusive indictment,
sparing her a moment to exhale again.
Great joy together...
Hearts now torn by love and hate...
Solution: Divorce.
It all began with "For Better or Worse",
But the words afterward became very terse.
Divorce was the answer she decided upon
As with me she didn't want to go on...
The only other answer was to ride a hearse.
Two people in love end up in court and for a divorce sue,
It would never have happened...had they not said, "I Do"!
(Top - Haiku, Middle - Limerick, Bottom - Single Couplet)
For Poet Destroyer's Divorce Club Contest
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