Poem #9-2011: Quantum Mechanics

Quantum Mechanics

Soaringly sad
I pop open the nearest book
News of the Universe
Rilke writes of living life
in “growing orbits”
circling for a thousand years
not knowing if he is
falcon, storm, or song

Sadness lifts -
replaced by awareness
and something else . . .

A question?

What is that knowing
that poets know?
And why do I forget
(again and again)
that I am my feelings
and they are not separate
from me?

When I am sadness
and the “I” disappears
then it doesn’t matter
if I am falcon, storm, or song

I am all three, and none of them
at once
I am that quantum particle that
cannot be located
circling forever

and it doesn’t matter



This poem contributed to
dVersePoets Open Link Night #6
Follow them on Twitter @dVersePoets.

Obscurity

The formula: write a sentence for obscurity
Yes           o.b.s.c.u.r.i.t.y.

Then: make some reference to an ancient tome
or classic poem
that only the nattering narcissists
recognize

Finish: with a flourish
or a surprise or a twist
but make it something     oh    so    very     clever

read the entire mess
aloud to someone with
no objectivity
who would swoon (or feign swooning)
at even a sophomoric rhyme
just to keep you

I spent that night learning not to love you:
your contemptible creamy olive skin
those dreadful morning lake smooth eyes
the vile way your soft lips fit mine

I can’t be kept
Can’t be fooled
My heart knows a bad poem
and it knows a bad love

Even one that flames high
for a time . . .
like ours

So like a bad poem, you are

relegated to
that corner place
where couplets and starlets
dance the night away

In obscurity



This poem contributed to
dVersePoets Open Link Night #5
Follow them on Twitter @dVersePoets.

Poem #8-2011

ROCK CLIMBING

The crack
in the looming
mesa
defines me,
reminds me:
Challenge sought freely
always repays,
failure hard-earned
never disappoints

I pull –
hard!
(not straining)
draining muscle,
refilling spirit
Does one
feed the other?

Upward...
I am stone
my focus pure
Only this perfect
fluid moment
No past, no future

Old struggles,
anticipated victories
wait for cold beer
we’ll drink,
telling lies
on the tailgate
of my patient pick-up truck


This poem written
for and contributed to
dVersePoets Open Link Night.
Follow them on Twitter @dVersePoets.