Jenny leaned against the counter, counting the stitches where Ariana’s arm had been severed, each segment arranged in clinical precision beneath the glass. The overhead lights hummed, sterile and white, reflecting off the muscle striations, the fine marbling of fat. The attendant, masked and impassive, weighed the cost. A rib’s soft curve. A shoulder blade, gleaming. “Is this enough?” she asked, voice catching in the cold air.
Ariana’s skin, rolled tight like butcher’s parchment, was pressed beneath the scalpel, measured by the inch. Each cut—exact, economical. Josh preferred the delicate portions, the leanest tissue, the parts that held the least resistance. He inspected the yield, thumbs tracing the tendon’s taut line, fingers pressing where nerve met bone, the quicksilver exchange of possession.
Outside, his boots clapped against wet pavement, the rhythm steady, expectant. Jenny imagined his hands pawing through the parcel, the slow unfurling, the practiced hunger. The body, greater than the sum of its parts, was dissolving into the transaction.
The register chimed. A cat licked the wrapping paper. Steam rose from an open vent, curling into the streetlamp glow.
Close up, the lines appeared as a road map
for those seeking a route to their destination.
Igneous paths cut into the Earth's surface,
worn by centuries of wind, rain and asphalt.
Or meandering streams that are tributaries
to rivers searching for a means of escape
from levied boundaries into an open sea.
Observations of an analytical imagination.
Beneath the powerful lens of a microscope,
magnification indicated no vehicles traversing,
nor currents flowing within estuary banks.
Only striations archeologists find fascinating.
SHAPES
so playful
&
revelatory
yet
& strange
captivating
meticulous
& exquisite
full
of
conceived
emotion
a stunning
series
of radiants
striations
dotted here
& there
with a
sense
of
the evocative
ambiguity
to
evoke
an
array
of
the
subtle
to
conflate
&exquisitely
condense
the
understatement
back &forth
in
a
rectilinear
seam
of nothingness
in
a
visual diary
of
yesterdays
NOTE:THIS IS AN OPEN(organic) FORM VERSE using spaces&breaks without grammatical symbols ,the ' open' relies upon 'the one breath limitation' & so inherently requires the 'reader' (reciter) to input and responds thus making this enigmatic form a two way interplay & interpretatIon unique to the moment& changing according to mood is inherently variable.
Copyright © Brian Strand
We form a queue around a small
million-year-old blossom,
are captivated
by dripping peaks
of creeping continuum.
Rainbow striations
in bezels of stillness,
then the power fails.
A pitch black of nothing
quashes carriage and mien.
Minds shrink like dark stars,
then the yellow flicker
of a generator hums us back.
Nervous grins, holiday shorts,
maybe some a little soiled,
floppy hats.
MINIMAL ARTICULATION
incoherent elements
oddly prescient
yet
richly detailed
conceptions
unleashed to
reside
then
.anticipate
a subtle fascination
in universal
invention
contemporary
&ongoing
an emotive charge
from the upper
stratum
subtle striations
scant but accurate
formal &
naturally rendered
somewhat
muted
in the faded light
becoming
indistinct
invisible
of time&place
&
depicted
by its absence
THIS IS AN OPEN(organic) FORM VERSE without grammatical symbols the ' open' relies upon 'the one breath limitation' & so inherently requires the 'reader' (reciter) to input and respond thus making the form a two way interplay and often a unique interpretation by the enigma so derived
Her anger blows
frigid, like Arctic wind
Tears of hostile disposition flows
bosom lethal —
Pulmonary liquid nitrogen
Acrimonious breath
expel serrated exclamations
Jagged exhalation
feels like six below death
Such an icy sensation
Formaldehyde intimation,
cadaver cold pulsation
Got a cryogenic nature
that resides
in an unemotional South Pole
Frostbite vocals
has igloo vibrations
Freezer burn temperamental flatline
show glacial striations
Sub-zero body language
Kilimanjaro translate
hypothermia lacerations
Those neon palpitations
has taken nether hold
Arrhythmic separation
breaks at the
jilted Fahrenheit of six below
Pulsating pain, so cadaver cold
09-10-21
Museums are quiet except
For crackling parquet floors,
Wooden squares, a game board:
Checkers or maybe chess
Of various right angle, grain striations.
Parallel to paintings in oil, red lines
Begin a court for pickup basketball.
But whether subjects of famous battles
Or romances between animals and gods,
They are stuck in a frozen frame moment
Like mammoths in some La Brea Art Pit
It is this instant we are to see anew
Each brush stroke, a wisp of hair,
A dab of white, a cloud condensing,
I lean close.
An unseen alarm makes a statue come alive,
A funerary, votive docent who guards
Mesopotamian and Egyptian antiquities.
She curses me in hieroglyphs translated
And dictated from an Old Kingdom tongue.
My crime: too close to art.
As if my admission, and apology
Were not punishment enough.
I could have cast my eyes
At strangers surrounding me.
Vatican visitors are permitted
To touch the Pieta statue for luck.
Suspecting it has only so many
Touches before marble succumbs,
It’s luckier not to take a chance. (1/30/02)
We form a queue around a small
million-year-old blossom,
are captivated
by dripping peaks
of creeping continuum.
Rainbow striations
in bezels of stillness,
then the power fails.
A pitch black of nothing
quashes carriage and mien.
Minds shrink like dark stars,
then the yellow flicker
of a generator hums us back.
Nervous grins, holiday shorts,
floppy hats.
_____
I'm playing seafaring games on the marble table,
sketching between the blue striations of the stone,
a slab that resembles an ocean to my young mind.
I draw armadas and stick figure Spaniards,
foes that fall into shark-infested waters. Cannons roar silently.
Mum is at the sink drinking. Soon dad will be home,
he will bring with him, two magazines; a ‘Woman's Own’
and the ‘T.V. Times’. He'll have a bottle of sherry for mum,
a ‘Mars Bar’ and a Superman comic for me.
Clock hands crawl nearer. It seems that the terraced house
trembles, slightly at first, but gradually the shaking
gets so I can hardly stay on the stool. I have to hold tight
to the table. Oceans tip over. High waves slosh back and forth
in my mind.
My own stick-figure shudders, teeth chattering together.
My mouth begins to mew like a seagull. Mum looks around,
yells for me to stop -
I can't it's 6.30 P.M. on any Friday, and for a while
we all will be together in this one rocky boat.
~~
highway 69
rock out crops
rounded smooth
coloured striations
undulate through stone
like stretch marks
on the ancient mothers belly
where she grew fecund
giving birth to the world.
rock cuts
break the surface
blown there by dynamite charges
like ragged scars
revealing each pang of labour
laid down in rusted reds, pink, white, and grays
it is in these raw places
that her colours shine as newly made
unsoftened by ages of wear
ice ages grinding
lichens have not crept
their pale green/gray cloth
to drape her nakedness
men have touched her flanks
with force, unloving,
to forge their path north
black asphalt, alien.
not enough to claim their presence
atop each cut stand inukshuk
built to say "we were here".
WAKING UP TO OAHU DAWN
Striations of lavender, pink and magenta
Ukulele song of minah birds and rainbows
Sun and moon hula~hula in Pacific seas
Reflection of palm trees ~ warm shadows
7/17/2017
KISSING THE MOON
Twilight displays striations of multicolored light.
The shrewd sun and morose moon, begin to fight.
Amber spreads her net across the horizon of night.
Five minutes pass, and appears, a beautiful sprite,
pirouetting across the burgeoning couple’s plight,*
fanning out skirts of tourmaline tints, blushing spite –
rufescent. Soul reverberates, this explosion of might,
viewed through a woman’s eyes, so vivaciously bright.
The sun blows a kindred kiss, disappears out of sight,
as the giddy moon bids adieu in black and blue flight.
2/12/2017
*engagement of sun and moon
Fowl meadow grass - Glyceria striata - the striations
on the lemma. Drooping rachis
a weeping willow of a grass.
Recurring periwinkles, myrtle, Vinca.
Helicopter petals. Evergreen leaves.
Escaped from gardens, alien or native?
A little further by the spruce stand
a new mustard, cuckoo flower - Cardamine -
with pinnately compound leaves. What a find!
A good day turns bad.
After you've died, one of them dogs digs up your grave.
You may sit in the rain and think.
Maiden pink.
The dark circle inside the flower
a g-string or garter.
O to fail well. To lay low. To live long.
To run slow. Feel the hill. Pressing down.
Do less. Until one thing's done well.
Might It Be--
by Odin Roark
Musical consciousness
surpassing even the bliss of silence
Touch that lifts
layered secrets from the
striations of marble
Salt upon the lips
swirling distant memories
of aquatic heritage
Colors that mix
mind's forever pigments
with imagined emotions
not yet born
yet ancient in nature's
sorrow and joy
Might it have been...love
That
which we know little of
which rises above earthly truth
to the darkness
that only light can know
Mr. Barber
To a secular believer
what is your Lamb of God
if not something
only transcendence can deliver
perhaps while listening to one's breath
or your harmonies of ethereal conscience
What might it be?
reading between the brow,
furrowed as it were,
the earth - the dirt of his face,
his eyes - his eyes tell a tale
seeded with rhizomes burrowing
deep in his psyche from all
the rings of his years
what has grown down there?
mushrooming into fullness
of speculation and strength,
of oaken striations
lining all the creases
of life and the bird's-eye
whorls that are his eyes
the impossible is there,
the possible is there too
the anger of burnt suns
past ruddy iris's
is smoothed in saline
glistened to a cameo pink
stubble sticks out from
the furrows and cracks of
mounding cheeks and a
bone-dry chin jutting
into a world it has known
for seasons beyond the horizon
facing the future dauntless,
with a smile, his countenance
beckons invitation to ask,
questions that he asked once
and was given answers by choice,
by others or simply by living
© Goode Guy 2012-08-22
Related Poems