Low - empty space yawns
rising imperceptibly
High - weight of volume
my eyes glean a shape
in the lurid dark
I go for it through the cold
edge of night
my fingers touch mist
a memory flickers
unreliable as an old film
did the window face east or west
I cannot quite place the shadow
the mirror shows a face I know
the lines etched with years
yet the eyes peering back
hold a question I cannot answer
I reach for the tangible cup
its ceramic warmth steadying
a brief anchor in the soft drifts
I watch the dust motes dance
in a beam that isn't there
or maybe it is everywhere
we build lovely castles
of brick and glass
and then the walls begin to breathe
slowly
imperceptibly
turning to watercolour
perhaps reality is just
a shape we hold
in the mind
for duration of the breath
and when that breath eases out,
what structure remains
is only the echo
of believing.
QUEEN Afareen designed a perfume bottle
she herself exuded a scent of untainted ambergris, orris wafted as her heavenly cue
lime with jasmine spritz her exuberant brew
a black swan neck curved crystal female form
this bottle crafted in alexandrite, mirroring her
pharaoh shaped silhouette, gold sun rays embedded facade, stopper of opal warm
ruby inlays rested languidly at bottle base
slivers of pearl and aquamarine laced
replica of Aphrodite she encased in Myanmar teak, sculpted with elk ivory, reclining bottle
in Muga silk before a river lilting lily wattle
then gifted herself her own bottle, liquid tomb
nimble fingers twisting opal top for perfume
her unique irreplaceable exuding essence
imperceptibly drifting reverent presence
drinking the last undistilled drops from
edenic perfume bottle, QUEEN Afareen
extinguished herself gracefully into muscled
arms of Adonis, as bottle drifted downstream
towards turquoise ocean emptied, beamed
a sorrowed counterploy buried, it screamed
____________
It sneaks up on all of us
Imperceptibly at first
But dawning slowly over time
Until it's time we took a hard look
In the mirror… and faced the truth
It's inescapable
It happens to all of us
First born, last born
People, places, governments, movements, principalities
It catches up with all
We must confront what we've become
Has the age of enlightenment become the age of entanglement?
That many-legged arachnid known as truth
Waits silently at the edge of the web… that tangled one we weave
When wonder becomes plunder, and balance becomes challenge
And the age of reason becomes likened unto treason
Who do we deceive… and what will be consumed?
The phone rang.
Saying “Hello,” more quietly.
Saying nothing.
And the nothingness worsens over time.
Times of hopelessness don’t exist.
It’s just hopelessness.
Not any particular time.
Not any particular tear, or frown.
I’m just some perfect circle, who is shaking imperceptibly.
Nothing really happens.
I am dead in a sparkly way.
Now I am.
Saying things about hurt, but I don’t think that exists.
If someone asked my favorite memory?
It would be me telling everyone about how sad I am.
They would just stand there.
You can’t know what they say.
Just murmuring, maybe.
People abuzz, whispering, making me happy with rumors that are real.
I’m depressed and now they know.
That never really happened.
I still live, anyway.
I won.
Inspired by "Part Time Lover" - Stevie Wonder
I know I’m spending too much time with you
And really ought to turn and walk away.
I came today when in my heart I knew
Just what a dangerous game it is we play
No words of love have passed between us yet.
We’ve both been careful not to cross the line.
But when you’re near it’s easy to forget
That you have yours at home and I have mine
For something in the way you smile at me
And how, when fingers accidentally meet,
They linger almost imperceptibly,
Makes time stand still and my heart skip a beat
And so, although this thing is wrong I know,
I’ll stay with you until you bid me go
The darkest of mornings,
Light creeping slowly, very slowly,
Round the edges of my world,
As the day begins.
All day a half light struggles to make an impact
But loses the battle
And dusk takes over far too soon,
And this shortest of days
Descends into darkness.
This day has been a study in greys and black,
Skies dark, moods black, thoughts gloomy
How much longer?
And then in the evening,
A careful judgement of when to draw the curtains
And lower the blinds
A longing to shut out the dark
But a reluctance to admit the light has finally gone.
And so I turn to those pretenders,
Low lights and candlelight
Which mimic the sun
And bring some comfort and relief.
I am glad I know the light will come back,
That the light will always comes back,
Imperceptibly, longed for and waited for,
And so I close the curtains later every day
And hope - no I believe.
Carpal tunnel twinges
punctuate a torpid afternoon,
as row on row we line the aisles
and stare at nothing
with the guarded anonymity
of urinating men.
My thumb is on the lever,
moving almost imperceptibly,
as marbles rocket into space
and filter down
through obstacles designed
to keep the management in business.
The captive of a chain reaction
freed from craving by acceptance
of the preordained,
I decompose, am compromised,
incorporated by the convolutions
of this artificial universe.
But something breaks
the moment I let go.
The single thread
that holds the world in place is cut,
and once again I fall away
with all my individual needs exposed.
Japan, 1968
Previous version published in Outposts, England
Millions are bowing to a mushroom God.
Who guides them down paths of pyrite and blackness.
Minds falsely expanding into an unexplainable universe.
With mechanical elves and glorious things.
They're for that elusive something.
With the infinite textures of war and flavors of human suffering...
Who can blame them for at least trying.
I fear for my friend and his diamond-sharp mind.
He's cracked the shadow of this mushroom God.
I fear that after his great mind expansion...
There will be a greater contraction of the mind.
His softening mind slipping into a jagged rabbit hole.
Imperceptibly so.
Meanwhile, millions of holy books are garnished with
coffee ring halos and the stench of miracles ignored.
August rain: the best of the summer gone, and the new fall not yet born.
The odd uneven time—Sylvia Plath
End Of August
The end of August is oh so near
Yet, another day of golden sun scorches
Another day with ruby rays that sear
Wild brush burns like fiery torches
No not an exaggeration, a flambeau
Blistering heat blankets my tawny skin
Sweltering August, I bid you adieu
Foliage dry and brittle; sunken in
Squinting eyes, blinded bright
Awaiting shadows that stretch and deepen
Sun flowers once vivid, lost in a haze of light
Autumn creeps in imperceptibly subtle, sublimely
Ablaze are the arid western skies
The evening west's sun takes its time, rashly, untimely
Yellow aglow, settling sights of fires belies
Lingering sun setting its rouge rage lust
Harbinger of the season to come
Equinox heralds a sign,
in the end of August
Grains shed imperceptibly.
From my sand sculptures.
So they are always coming apart, slowly.
I like to build turtles.
And cats too.
I use sand first.
Then water.
Just enough water.
But water is fickle.
I must work fast, before the ocean calls the sand back into the water.
The sand becomes my art gallery.
My creations draw crowds for photos.
A cat, a turtle.
Flip flops, a car.
Whatever my mind decided on.
But the sea has decided something different.
It wants its sand back.
Like a person who left their keys on the counter.
The water will always come back.
For the sand that gives the ocean depth.
How did I not see this before?
The green of the trees
with their cornucopia of shades
Layered and punctuated periodically
with a unique dapple of light
Amid the litany of man's failing
concrete towers
The leafy giants stride imperceptibly
towards notoriety
Saving the planet
one gramme at a time
As the humans race past.
The leisurely somnambulants
biding, stretching, organically
rooted in their dancing
to the alternate tune
of Nature's longevity
Lightly, almost imperceptibly,
dusk quiets and stills the day.
The brightness and youth
of morning vibrates with
exciting expectations
of unknown adventures
waiting to be discovered,
a reaching-out for the new,
the yet-to-be understood,
surpassing the mind’s compass,
the boundaries and limits
of comprehension and imposition.
Time passes, a transmutation
occurs, barely noticed.
The heat of the mid-day sun
exposes newly-discovered
experiences and passions
that subsume all days
with the present, the now,
nothing more, nothing less,
in a momentary phase,
narcissism, an island in the sun.
In time, the sun loses its heat.
We breathe air cooled with a stir
of late afternoon breeze that
tempers passions and desires
and leads to a calmness of mind
with faint birdsong, the music
of rustling leaves and grasses,
and a contentment born of
experience, age, and wisdom
and the beauty of the evening.
In the end dusk slips over the day
lightly, almost imperceptibly.
pillars of creation
obscured by darkness
an evolution of mass
stellar nurseries
hydrogen helium gas
no need for slap on the ass
The pillars look like arches and spires rising out
of a bleak landscape, but are filled with semi-
transparent gas and dust, and ever changing,
albeit imperceptibly so. This is a region of our
galaxy where young stars are forming or have
barely burst forth from their dusty cocoons as
they continue to switch on and become fully
fledged stars, some will be just like our own sun.
SFUMISTA
Evaporating
mist clears
dark
to light
imperceptibly
blended
en relief
in
soft contouds
ephemereal
aswww
smoke
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