You can find me
Hidden in plain sight
Through the ebbs and flows of life
Through the cracks and veins
Of the Acropolis’ stones
You can run into me
In the most shadowy corners
Of suburban alleys
Skating fluidly on metal bars
Impervious to any scratches and scars
You can spot me
At the first bolt of sunrise
Skimming over the water
Until the twilight fall
You can come across me
During your rest at that cozy inn
At the end of the downhill road
Or
During your usual antics in that rowdy tavern
Lit by endless stained-glass lamps
Whilst drinking from a bulky glass of beer
Enjoying the company of your peers
Who am I?
Perhaps
The reflection of the light
The darkest shadow of the night
Wandering freely before your eyes
It is me, right?
The one you claim
To be hard to find
To identify
To pinpoint in space and time
Well
I am all over the world
I am the elephant in the room
Boldy and gracefully stepping outside
At all hours of the day and night
For I
Am the essence of life
Always hidden in plain sight
The Journals find their way,
easy, inspired self delusional displays,
one or two ,
written most every day,
but as the months now years begin their exit call,
the words flow more fluidly
than time alone can recall,
written down along line and page
the secret refuge of mind sway
left to random flutterings and utterings
the missing points of this aging sage,
hide in the accumulated books
shelved on dusty nooks
of private enterprise without lie
the wordings not for you.
A child’s smiling face
A sunrise shining on a field of flowers
An orchestra fluidly keeping pace
In this World of ours
A hateful cold man’s face
A bomb’s blast sees ash from flesh makes rock from towers
An ocean of starvation born of greed’s embrace
On this Earth of ours
A distracted blank face
A mind of apathy denies thought empowers
An era in darkness begs light to erase
In this Time of ours
(“Depth Psychology Merit Badge”, 2015, original oil)
The mind is a mysterious thing
Handling the conscious and unconscious
Simultaneously,
A true multitasker behind its multimasked face.
So much remains below the surface
Monitored, projected and reacted to instinctively
Without even needing to rise to the level
Of conscious awareness.
And what does rise, getting all the attention,
Is often the same old stuff
Patterns and habits, worries, hopes and fears
Wearing deep grooves so hard to erase.
Below, the current shifts, fluidly
In tidal rhythms but with a constantly creative
Playful air that seems to defy
Its survival imperative.
How can the mind be so accepting
In the face of change’s annihilation?
Maybe it knows something in the depths
Which we mere mortals with rational logic reject.
Something fluid, tidal and creative
Something both above and below
Something which is a nothing
But the light reflected in her face.
(10/7/25)
The words are waterfalls down the pages,
Fluidly descriptive of time and place;
Pieces of text from different ages,
The words finding meaning in their own space.
They live in the books within the covers
And tell their stories of life through the years ..
Of family, friends and long-lost lovers,
Of lifetime experience, hopes and fears.
The books bring to mind a life at its best,
Simple and quiet, relaxed and at peace;
Those pages of print giving times of rest
Recalling the hours that will never cease.
Memories of times piled high on the shelf,
Those days to be shared or just for yourself.
My youngest
of three AfricanAmerican adopted sons
has profound nonwhite
nonstraight
nonverbal cerebral palsy.
Profound
in at least not being privileged
or victimized
by internal LeftBrain dominance,
violent micro-aggressions,
zero-sum competitive thinking
Either positively True and Good
or negatively False and Bad,
laughable
or humorless
Sacred indigenous consciousness
feels more Right-Elder brainstem
bodymind nondualistic synergy
friendly energy
which is my son's political blessing
and his capital secularizing
segregating
colonizing
economic disabled curse.
Youngest son communes
with music
more fluidly co-empathic
than linguistic communications
He touches
and sings
and chants
through echoing shouts
and exclamatory barks,
short nonphonetic phrases,
lip smacking,
and belly laughs.
When he cries,
which is seldom,
he cries silently
No vocal cords
Profound inhaling wet gasps
and exhaling sad sacred shakes.
He laughs unconditionally
from his root chakra
warm unguarded soul
and bicamerally cries
from his buddha
co-empathic eyes.
Its hard to write about sadness
Its hard to write about happiness
Sometimes its hard to write about anything
Words flow fluidly from my head to my pen
But connecting a feeling is seldom genuine
I know what sadness sounds like
I know the words of positivity
I've written of love from the age of twelve
But I have yet to know the feeling
Sometimes I'd rather hold hands with myself
I write for the people
I write to make them relate
I know what people want to hear
I know how to make it seem like I hear them
without listening to myself
Christmas crazies conjure confections in candy kisses.
Wee whimsical winter warlock wistfully wishes
Dreamy darling dolly deliberately does dishes,
Fluidly forever fixing finest fluorescent fishes.
Seasoned sassiness scoring subtly in swishes.
Christmas crazies conjure confections in candy kisses.
I know the difference
between cooperatively intended sympathy
and solidarity of empathy
more easily articulated
by identifying sympathy's antithesis
as dissociation.
Sympathetic feelings
may be captured by:
Twinkle twinkle
little star
how I wonder what you are
from afar
As co-empathic compassion by:
Twinkle twinkle
big bright star
now I see just who we are,
new enlightening depths
mutually ajar.
Like the difference
between ***********
and regenerative
sexual ecology,
Asking for a thesaurus
for synonym wealthy choices
does not help
if my standard of healthy success
hopes to spin and weave
a co-arising dipolar chorus
Lyricizing analogies between theoretical God
and experiential Love
inviting our polyphonic
evolving metaphoric
spirit sympathetic
for EarthTribe's polypathic
healing reeling
revolving metamorphic
wealthy rocking
nature co-empathetic
Enough to know the difference
between cooperatively intended sympathy
and solidarity of empathy
more fluidly articulate
separating sympathy's antithesis
as silent
and neglected disassociations.
Amalgam vis-à-vis
of platonic enzymes,
intimate fireworks broth
enraptured,
unsatisfied mix
of protons, electrons
and neutrons.
web emotionally
strewn with
woven feelings
fluidly, are
matrix firstfruits,
pure words that
from the book don't run away
antimagnetic apples
that of the tree
don't fall ,
phenomenon from love to love...
The surgeon had successfully removed his libido,
then had fed it to the hospital cat. Afterward,
a series of stuttering expeditions through mind-tunnels
condensed days into moments.
Corridors became tubes,
empty except for a memory of a pretty nurse,
hospital gowns and white bottoms
exposed like beluga whales.
She stood by an incinerator watching him,
flames licked at its open iron door.
The woman undressed
threw her uniform into the fire
then jumped naked into the flames.
Stepping out of the oven,
the nurse returned.
Her body now reduced to molten silver.
She gleamed fluidly.
He wanted to flow through her,
to mingle his pale carcass
with her pristine silver rivering.
Suddenly he understood.
"You're my libido!" He said.
She smiled acknowledgement.
"Do I need to enter the fire?"
"No, you need to find the cat." she replied.
He had forgotten. "Yes that damn cat!”
"Meanwhile" she continued,
"s**t into this bedpan."
Bored and tired are most around me. Blinded by grief to some degree.
Life doesn’t live up to your standards, why and how?
Perhaps this feeling lingers because you allow.
To sit and sulk, to be inactive and distracted.
Then later you see how your mind is impacted.
You should feed it knowledge and toil with burden.
Learn to be comfortable with being uncertain.
If you heart is well placed and you challenge yourself daily. Your soul will move fluidly and not cling to safety.
To explore and reach and scare yourself a little.
Your resolve will be conditioned and become less brittle.
There’s no need to lie or soften your struggle.
Just believe in yourself and trust you won’t buckle.
Something's in your heart
Flowing fluidly it's beating,
it captures me it's beyond believing
It's warm and sensual
It gives me a message of Hope
It's alive compassion arise
11/25/20
Written words by James Edward Lee Sr © 2020
Moving more slowly than it once did
and not so fluidly
it leads or follows me
down the sidewalks and paved streets
in my well-populated little town.
Walks are most pleasurable
when the sun allows my companion to go
even if it is dim.
Not slim and lithe now
and though the knees are arthritic
my shadow stands arrow-straight
thanks to Mama:
“Sit up.”
“Don’t slouch.”
“Hold your shoulders back!”
I reflect on the long-gone days
when it accompanied me
on the shoulders of narrow gravel roads
miles from the nearest town,
speeding up to accommodate the flurry of
young-woman urgings to get home
grade papers, cook, help with homework, . . . .
I walk now with my aging shadow
pondering lessons learned
grateful for every blessing
intent on pursuing dreams till life’s end.
Posted April 28, 2020, and entered in Chantelle Anne Cooke's Shadows poetry contest placed 6th of ten
entered in the Strand Number 740 contest on May 1, 2020
May 23, 2020, entered in John Hamilton's Best Free Verse 2020 Poetry Contest
Placed 4th
Here is my ecological faith
rooted in experience
yet to flower in things unseen,
relationships unfelt,
communications not yet heard,
tasted and spit out;
Savored
When I touch another life's body
with kindness
I am thereby touched in return
by remediation,
immediate
intimate compassion,
CoPassion
Perhaps this is also innocently true
of touching minds
with kind and curious intent,
compassionate purpose,
But,
that is about my active hope,
already extending out
further family projections
from healing inside faith experience
that reemerges faith healing imaged future,
fluidly resonant
and co-presently resilient.
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