Unrealities and realities
grind together in mortar’s mouth,
spilling, pulverizing, volatile perfumes—
succumbing scents of citrus, crushed copper,
musks of bruised lightning,
threshing thunderous throbs.
Instability incarnate sings her reveling wails,
fragrances of something
Beyond Name.
I guide existences into black curve,
severing them against sharp, obsidian walls,
letting them rupture—letting them bleed
—syrups and statics—
messy marrows of forgotten equations.
Their shapelessness mutable,
pliant pages to pulp in the plunge
of the merciless pestle.
How many combinations will one
blend and crucify—
to crush, to coax, into coherence?
Rasps of bone bend against sanguine salts,
sheens of opulent oil merge with ember embryo—
iron filings licked into life by tempests reigned.
Anything of matter becomes
moisture—mass—mold—
hunger pooling at my basin’s heart,
seething for impending strike,
for sudden and unforgiving
birth.
Having studied science as a subject I can say,
Water goes much the container way.
Dew drop-shape, tumbler-shape, pitcher-shape,
Well-shape, stream-shape, river-shape, ocean-shape…
The shape of water and heart of water may resemble,
I imagine water in a pure crystal shape assemble.
Transparency! You can find from it a fallen needle,
Trouble it and you can fish out moralities evil.
The shape depends on the thirst it can quench,
And as per the dignity of the matter float or drench…
Shape floods; shape droughts;
The shape makes many walk miles and loses heart…
The shape makes us smile, laugh and determines,
The shape of the earth, heaven, and the cosmos…
Shapes make masters like Jesus proclaim louder:
“If anyone gives even a cup of cold water…
That person will certainly not lose their reward…”
Just like a human heart shape can be soft or hard.
Discussions can go hotter till we finally utter:
Is shapelessness the real shape of water…?
Or going around and around and conclude:
Faith shaped, Hope shaped, Love shaped…
=====
===
If ‘you’ and ‘I’ are water fed
Water is, then, ‘we’ shaped.
22 June 2021
The moon and the stars bide their time
Mute mimics in Mother Nature's mime
The sun shines brighter as they watch
Hoping their light will go up a notch
The woods look inviting, shaded and green
Birds twitter happily behind the scene
Animals prowl about in a hunter's game
Near the roaring river in a picturesque frame
Weeping willow waves in weary wistfulness
As shaggy shadows shift into shapelessness
The sun has set, now time has arrived
For the moon and the stars to get revived
They cast their glow on a sleepy world
Brightening the black blanketed dreamworld
10.18.2020
For "Collaboration with the Silent One" contest
The Forge
by Michael R. Burch
To at last be indestructible, a poem
must first glow, almost flammable, upon
a thing inert, as gray, as dull as stone,
then bend this way and that, and slowly cool
at arms-length, something irreducible
drawn out with caution, toughened in a pool
of water so contrary just a hiss
escapes it—water instantly a mist.
It writhes, a thing of senseless shapelessness ...
And then the driven hammer falls and falls.
The horses prick their ears in nearby stalls.
A soldier on his cot leans back and smiles.
A sound of ancient import, with the ring
of honest labor, sings of fashioning.
Originally published by The Chariton Review
Imprison the blaze
for unlearning
the ghost of our light
to bow down before
an interim simulacrum
of the sham.
You said,
that the colours are so hurting;
that this soundless shapelessness
comforts you.
I cannot extricate you.
Cannot unleash
from the unbreachable
for I learned that
this stasis is your only home.
SILHOUETTE OF NIGHT
Skulking in the fleeting light
as if mocking shapelessness
blended colors, mottled grey,
coyly dance on dew wet streets.
Silently dread’s shivers raise,
dark against a faded day,
fears that live within the soul.
John G. Lawless
For the Silhouette of a Heptagonet – poetry contest
Sponsor – nette onclaud
11/8/2014
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