For years I carried you
like a carriage, coupled to me.
I mistook attachment
for a steadying hand,
for a ballast weight guiding me,
keeping me on the rails.
A burden I willingly hauled
convinced we shared,
a common purpose,
a common destination.
I called it devotion,
called it a partnership,
never noticing the strain
and wear in the coupling,
the groan of steel and wheels
longing to run free.
Then came the quiet siding,
where the tracks forked and parted.
A pin was withdrawn.
A clasp was undone.
So softly, no one noticed.
As I slowed down
and we coasted.
As I passed the junction,
I pulled the points lever over.
The rails shifted silently between us.
You drifted off, along the branch line.
I carried on, uncoupled and unsure.
For miles I still expected
the familiar tug behind.
The ballast and counterweight
that had become
the measure of my heart.
Yet the further I traveled,
the lighter the regret became;
and when I glanced back,
you raised your hand,
waved, then smiled,
Content upon your own track.
Happy to share
the quite grace of uncoupling,
singing our swan song
and carrying on.
Last night's storm
has left its artwork on the beach,
a postmodernist exhibition
of brown seaweed strewn in clumps
like hair on a barbershop floor,
broken seashells
and a fallen rainbow of plastics
strung out along the shore
where now an exhausted sea
licks the leftovers of a meal.
Chaos has been distilled down
to washed up artifacts
and red bottle caps, drinking straws
and spoons buried deep inside a ball
of yellow twine. I cannot make
much sense of what is on display
or glean from this haphazard art
a hint of meaning
other than in its making.
All seems uncoupled, specimens
torn from lonely souls, bits
and pieces coughed up
out of the exhaust of a huge machine
whose pistons pump and drive
a spinning wheel that has no purpose.
I pick up a plastic sandal
and wonder whose foot
it once belonged to, then put it back
and walk home
alone.
A tall, chain wire fence
surrounds the perimeter
of the power station, casting
its evening shadow over a wide
bank of grass leading down
to the river. Sometimes I sit there
just to listen to the sound
of the wind make music through
the wires.
It is a soft, melancholy music
that carries a certain sorrow.
Uncoupled from a name,
it seems a composite
of the sadness accrued
in the wordless wells of the soul
that finds voice here.
It has a strange attraction,
an addictive beauty
which keeps me coming back
though each note strums
a nerve giving a little hurt.
At times I can almost hear
human voices weaved
into the music, a tone
echoing out of places
made restless with longing.
It is the music that lovers make
and gently plays at the center
of all good art, sad prisoners
of time, composed by the heart
to mourn when what is loved
and what is beautiful in this life
passes from us,
and let go.
Remembered the 1940s, the season of the holocaust.
Six million irons, disjointed from their ores
Were forged in bottomless pits of anvils.
The swarming bees in a ceremonious buzzing
Were uncoupled from their hives through Reichsbahn.
However, a tensed, stale wind of discord swivel
On the creeks of Dachau, Auschwitz, Treblinka
And other shores of darkness.
Never shall the bloody sky efface again
The innocent faces of seedlings in chains
Suddenly transformed into smoke under a silent sky.
For not four thousand micrographic scrolls
Of antique Pharaoh, hieroglyphics could symbolize
The petrifying carrions glutted by black vultures.
Two rivers parted by mountainous fiend
In no time of twilight
Laid eyes into the seas.
Two branches glued to tree trunks
Would in a bit of an eyelid
See those white balloons.
The mockingbird is set among the pigeons
And doors of golden rainbows
Crept in the fog.
Everywhere, the white dove’s skull
Is at the bottom of the picture
While the frogs and wasps play their lyres.
But, the wild hyacinths grew among Linden
The lion; among hummingbirds
With every twist, Lynx's eyes.
An artist's brush
a poet's pen
Linked to the soul
a craftsman's friend
Uncoupled from
the human heart
For destruction fit
~ poison darts
Where has the romance gone
moonlit nights kissing 'til dawn
Where fled the tenderness
from our love once so strong
Where are the conversations
that used to matter so much
Where are the magic moments
when our fingertips touched
Where are the sparks that flew
from our hearts to our minds
Who uncoupled our souls ~
the ties of caring that bind
There is no mental pain
to one with no expectations.
All fears transcended
by one whose fetters are extinct.
It does not occur to me, "I am"
nor that I live or exist, so
what is there to lament?
All afflictive formations are destroyed
when one sees with uncoupled wisdom
the world as empty, substanceless--
seeking nothing to own as "mine"--no "I" or "me"
one does not desire nor grieve--arrive or leave
there is---no loss no gain, no ego no pain
such is the power of mind liberating itself from
all manufactured sufferings of a cyclic existence.
Seek out the waiting, awakening path--the true one
with the karmic stairway to nirvana.
(*An expansion/variation on a Buddhist passage by the arahant monk Adhimutta)
The two are slow and inelegant.
But the orchestra retains its complex symphony
angry string section
violins of summer heat.
Frenetically mating in the season of apartness
four or six or more
freedom of so many steps.
Two are constrained
can barely become four.
Not a simple merger of feeling and taking;
driven to connect those bringing more
seek so much less.
Perfunctory; easily satisfied
not yearning for understanding
grasping only for feeling
And still we must have meaning.
We must be seen and understood
not just answering a mindless drive -
lesser need uncoupled with emotion.
Given a slight remembrance of an uninvited birth to a past forgone,
the power to recognize/dwell/surpass in a remedial present and a physical/cognitive forethought to seek an immediate, undeniable trek, and all of its nearness to a future yet unannounced, with unquestionable scope, pragmatic silence and an undeniable desire to embark on an enriched, uncoupled, untitled, yet redundant verdancy of universal integrity.
With this, I hope to evolve a being of true being-ness
of unconditional love,
peace and forgiveness,
for whomever comes to
call
on my countenance.
Only tell, no show, can't imagine the picture.
Cells of heart, don't tickle in lingering pain.
Coherent words, do they flow in cadence?
Rhyme and theme, do they hum in euphony?
Hmm..the ending, perhaps not so endearing.
Unstressed syllables uncoupled in meter.
Wasn't the other one little worse or better?
I will judge by lottery, "All are good poetry "!!
Contest: You Be The Judge
Sponsored by: Bobby May
Date Created: 20 th March 2019
Your Judgment Rating: Rubbish...Last among N/A
in lottery option I am always lucky
I was blinded by the sky today
it stared at me,
without a blink,
so I did the same,
just to avoid missing
the very moment,
when it would speak about you.
But it fooled me:
it took away my sight
ousted the breath of my soul
far, far away
and uncoupled me
from the hope of the living.
But I still remained,
stayed to listen to the wind,
asked the sun to swallow me
and prayed for you
to recognize me this way.
Tanka
Folk Heads Down in Flocks
waders stoop heads down
feeding uncoupled in flock.
like texters bowing
heads down to worship screen folk
disengaged with here and now
Heads Down, Engaged to Screen, Remote
Like waders at dawn sifting mud
with heads-down stance,
Modern folk in flocks with heads down, peer at screens
With thumbs a-tapping, eyes engaged
with friends on screen remote
But what of the here and now?
Those poor folk you are with, are ostracised,
displaced by 'You've got mail',
subplanted by there and then.
It is worrying how screen worship
has become such a priority.
It is infectuous when others all around you do it.
Interuptions to conversations now an accepted interlude,
not seen to be rude, when message calls
with bongs and rings,
demand heads-down bowing stoop
to worship screens.
He put ten years on her eyes in a single morning.
He didn’t do much to her except walk away.
He never raised a hand and he never raised too damned much money.
But he left her fifty-per cent of his final pay.
She’s holding two jobs and she’s holding her little heart together
The children make their own beds and breakfast, too.
The women’s magazines provide advice—and coupons.
And her Mama and her sister drop by, to see her through.
There’s no hard feelings, they’re the best of friends, still.
He takes the children on Sunday afternoon.
She’s liberated from love, she’s her own person.
And no one sees her cry except the moon.
She’s taking two classes down at the local college,
A book-keeping course and volleyball 101.
She’s twenty-eight, she’s changed her hair, she’s jogging!
And her friends down at work say her life has just begun!
But you know, fifty-per cent of the American dreams get broken.
One-half of the brides and grooms pay lawyer’s fees.
And fifty-per cent of the couples are coming uncoupled.
But the precise percentage of tears nobody sees.
He put ten years on her eyes in a single morning.
He didn’t do much to her except walk away.
He never raised a hand and he never raised too damned much money.
But he left her fifty-per cent of his final pay.
She’s holding two jobs and she’s holding her little heart together
The children make their own beds and breakfast, too.
The women’s magazines provide advice—and coupons.
And her Mama and her sister drop by, to see her through.
There’s no hard feelings, they’re the best of friends, still.
He takes the children on Sunday afternoon.
She’s liberated from love, she’s her own person.
And no one sees her cry except the moon.
She’s taking two classes down at the local college,
A book-keeping course and volleyball 101.
She’s twenty-eight, she’s changed her hair, she’s jogging!
And her friends down at work say her life has just begun!
But you know, fifty-per cent of the American dreams get broken.
One-half of the brides and grooms pay lawyer’s fees.
And fifty-per cent of the couples are coming uncoupled.
But the precise percentage of tears nobody sees.
1981
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