Textures, Gestures

Textures, gestures

into the time lapse

haze of morning,

the spontaneous eruptions

of clouds forming within

what appears static and glass

reflecting the easiest passage

around obstruction.

A break in the rocks ,instruction,

swift action

to balance the rigidity

of thoughts

disguised as wisdom.

Sinking somewhere

unconscious

beneath the surface,

the river stones

smooth as tear drops,

far flung and sinking

deep within an archipelago of

birds singing.

Flecks of light like candles,

shadows and their cave mouths commingling,

each motion creates words

reinforced by moonlight

even after the flames of meaning die.

Textures, gestures,

the eyes in a painting.

Faces in the falls,

rock walls,

the profiles of angels in miniature,

ascending

from cracks and fissures

like the first idle thoughts

that spread

from Le’ahi to Koko head,

lighting

the first spark defiant rim

that holds all the dark within

a cloud fabric’s

somber poem.

Underscoring the bedding,

thresholds in the wedding,

dawn and dark,

a consummation in time.

It comes to penetrate the mind’s

El Greco sky.

Bridging storm clouds

with white shrouds of calm

in the perfectly

swirling turbulence that

contrast unites

in the overtures of this day

in what endures of this night

along the edges of impermanence.

you become aware of it

only as it changes again.

Canvass Transparency

Focusing on a point in-between

all the moments that came and will be.

A blank canvass

for the transparent vision

that if not for these columns

would be a decline into confusion.

A pondering of illuminated strands

stretched and torn

where hobbies are born out of the illusion

of sewing them back together.

A life picked apart.

A progression that picks up art

as it goes

until the last breath poses the question,

“What is left and what is worth bringing?”

For a collector of scenes,

becoming aware

of how they thread themselves into dreams,

like a canvass transparency

so that light can filter through in words,

a luminescent dial pointed towards this possibility.

With spasms of inspiration,

like an electric current,

climbing the spine.

A direct circuit

that feeds into the divine,

shines like a beacon’s light

across the night to suspend time,

like a bridge that connects no land.

 

The sun returns to fill in the cracks

between the cold and the blanket.

You feel eternity in the warmth alone,

when prone to consider

the thin veil between us.

Most days you lay hidden in variable weather.

So seeking diversion elsewhere,

you try to forget her.

Like a divergent thought

splitting paths

leaving traces

like shadow on the open spaces

or skin on the pillows of cloud,

a canvass, transparent

passing without a sound.

Another curve suddenly,

with no segway

(distant railroad whistles)

Only the lonely longing

that is evident in a melancholy heart

bound to an excess of feeling.

Warming to a kind of spontaneous animation,

the dancing flames,

the wrist that weaves its keening

into addresses and names.

It is stamped with a charred scent,

another goodbye,

post cards from a starter fire

inspires impermanence

with a burnt edge and a piece of paper.

Drifting up with sparks of insight,

dancing flecks moving aimless

into the dark of the night.

Fireflies in oblivion

you could almost grasp

as the last gasp of the hearth

crackles for all it is worth

in an amphitheater of shadows.

Between Here and the Next Stage (A Festival)

Empty fields to swelling crowds

blue skies to encroaching clouds

delicate sitar strings

to feedback so loud

the eardrum rings and reverberates

into the next repetitious beat.

Somehow it is tribal.

Something to rival

the isolation of the day to day,

when habits shake away in our flimsy boxes.

Finally able to shed its skin,

to levitate from within,

audience to exploration.

This profound surrender

to spontaneous movements,

surfing into the sound,

a swirl of the imagination

lifts us from the ground.

It completes the journey

without gravity,

from tension to release,

individual oppression

to collective expression.

 

We converge from all corners of the earth.

England, Iceland, Japan,

Dancer, spectator, musician.

A photographer captures our composition,

our cathartic expressions.

Along the periphery,

see her and then she is gone,

leaving only the mystery of a fleeting purpose.

A wish to ask her, if only to liberate curiosity,

if she’s no longer the same as when she came in.

Moth to butterfly, like a shifting sky

bleeding dark to call out the moon,

glowing yellow from the trees of its elevation,

reflecting in the river amphitheater.

Suddenly the night is like leather

and dark packs prowl through the weather.

You can hear their bikes and classic cars

racing towards some dead man’s curve,

they throttle into oblivion.

Mirror images become distorted

with kaleidoscopic color tableaus,

of time travel and transformation,

suddenly it is the 1960’s,

a helicopter hovers

and Vietnam imagery

uncovers the killing fields

from out of the smoke

of sonic explosions.

Music awash with reverb,

dripping with jewels,

like the moon now merging

with the creek top,

everything moving

upon an inkblot ceiling,

absorbed into the next set,

so strange and inflamed,

the fire burns through time and space,

blurring the lines

between here and the next stage.

Improvised euphoria and elation,

transformation rather than

the simple weathering of elements

in the weariness of limbs,

a remedy

on the end of a discordant melody.

 

It’s lifting.

Veils of smoke and time

falling away from the fingers

of these revered figures.

Musicians who play through

three days of psychedelic haze.

The drone of their instruments,

like planes overhead,

lights collapsing on the fields unfolding,

once nondescript

now composing

a disorienting canvass of interloping,

all manner of merging

on an indigo meadow

of blurred reference points.

It is a skewed Coachella,

like her wierd brother,

with a great record collection,

far flung and growing like a thorn

out of the hill country of central Texas.

Rain and stage light

wets the technicolor appetite.

Everything designed to alter and transform

before our dilated eyes,

translucent feathers,

tranquil waters

swell to worship

those alters of music,

those altered perceptions

of the majestic moment

reflected in each,

a glimpse of awe. 

A Source of Light

In foreign places

information is akin to light.

On the side of the road

it is a night time haven.

In truck stops and depot salons,

like currency, it opens doors,

temporary dwellings, hostels and hotels

lodged in strange cities of stone.

You grope there alone in the dark

drawn to the neon address

found on folded maps

to bunk under the light of tiny lamps

while other travellers

in their silent mass

of backpacks and belongings

sleep to make tomorrow’s hidden itineraries.

Some spoke to you of their lands

like the lines on their hands

and in yours there rests a pen

to write as much as you can comprehend

of fragments and fleeting stories.

Your mind under sleepless duress,

one part exhaustion

one part inspiration,

will press in swollen pages

and collapse in this location,

a crooked position

of notebook spines and meandering highways.

The ecstacy and pursuit

of what cannot be written down,

notes to yourself

notes from the underground,

that which will go unread

from a hidden source is

bled into countless streams,

fed into oceans

careening motions

that momentum through tunnels, expelled.

Soon brush fires spread

at the edge of cities.

Like a spontaneous blaze of wanderlust,

even when contained

will linger like rust

on the firepots you took to the road,

camping out of the jeep.

The land was one deep surface

you could never keep level

under the source of dark writing.

Always a guest

in rooms of flickering insight.

Moved by what they suggest

before extinguished

one by one

the searchlights going out

and senses are left

eavesdropping

on intervals of breath

and dreams taking route.