Category Archives: Metaphor

Ground gaming

At two he sits in Daddy’s lap,  pretzels, beer, third down replay, call reversal, then the game changing score, the youngster, bouncy yet robust-fully buoyant, landing back down on the leather couch up watches outrageous jubilance.

At six, balls are chased, kicked, catching learned, the sun blazen with vitamin D branding activity as necessary.

At fourteen, fighting biology and adolescence, he reigns approval from distant dad in showcasing atypical abilities in coordinated outdoor competitions.

At twenty five, college days behind yet tailgating emotions continue as resources  are redirected, armchair quarterbacks abundant, triggers of those bouncy memories exponential.

At forty, managers steer their teams toward production utilizing that prevalence, purple and white colored cake sliced as celebratory reward.

Each game binary in its outcome, a winner, a looser, no ties allowed, a three sided die exacerbating the dichotomies, and stadiums crumble by the impassioned.

Politics: go red go blue!

Supernova

From the medium a protostar coalesces, driven by gravity. In its environmental assemblages, albeit extended in time, pressure builds at its core, eventual is a hydrogen furnace, then balanced competition between that gravitational pressure and its outward radiation, thus are the majority of stars.

For an eternity, that assemblage of substance is the fuel that fuses into time, or age, for life as a star is ephemeral on a universal scale that our minds struggle feebly to digest. ironcore

For billions of years, she burns, gathering and expending mass, burning hotter, eventual is helium, carbon, oxygen, sodium, neon, magnesium, silicon, sulfur, phosphorous, and silicon, then in a finale: a core of iron and nickel.

For the magnificent, that core bouncing to a colossal giant and then to a cooling dwarf, or into a super-colossal nova as an explosive reseeding of its progenitor, permeating waves which jitter the interstellar medium and inseminating its progeny.

Working for Food

Water at four degrees expands, evident by a noted rise in the nearby channel, the Red’s frozen surface glaring, a murder of crow dancing on its surface. Two thistle loaded tubes underhang the riverhouse, providing early reinforcement for finch survival, brisk is the air, the sun brilliant, winter’s clime has arrived.
DSCN1083
His coat blonded orange, his tail perk and tall, running with the speed and elegance of a deer, bounding, but not with direct fear, more with an attitude of simple gaming, for after all Mr. Fox deserves the riverside as much as any of us.

Squirrel populations invite regular thoughts of an inconspicuous urban harvest for a weekend lunch or dinner, their regular rummages continue from yet another heavy seeding from the stately burr oaks that surround their plantation, my southern heritage inescapable.

Greys and reds, chasing about, climbing vertically then crossing the high canopied sidewalks, tree by tree, the smaller red’s being more sinister in their elected winter abodes, gnawing through facia board hidden behind a blue spruce growing on the southern corner of the house provides illustration.

Parallel to the Red’s freezing, longer shadows are cast by the pillars of the tall western facing windows of this riverhouse, as a rhythm of the sun’s intensity continues with only gravitational knowledge of this pale blue dot.

Scrub wood burns in the livingroom’s fireplace, two squirrelly dogs scrambling in the projected warmth, playing, learning about their own natures, the one recently added to contrast the other’s somber mood after being orphaned by Ruthie’s expiration.

Order and balance between the squirrel and the fox remain, both in an objectivist war of self-preservation, and while steering cautious of Darwin when outdoors, whether fox, eagle, or otherwise,  we share in the goal for unobfuscated survival.

Fox Bark

Spotting Cassiopeia’s, he shifted in his chair aligning the telescope a group would later use, the fire pit glowing, crickets hum.

An Equinox barely past, a rare eclipse awaits, on a crossover day he rescends galloping, as the fox barks again.

Flying w/out Wings

Thud!

From a high limb a young chipmunk survives a fall onto a spongy, recently rain soaked ground; stunned, pause, frenetic is his retreat.

Blocking, he staggers away opposite to my curiosities of astronomy, at least those being read as a Sunday morning distraction.

Breathless

In their fear, the insecure thump their chests announcing security.
Common denominators suggest shared responsibility, but imbalance evidences prejudice.
In the need for support, development, and inspiration, negligence is insisted.
Breathless and dismantled, integrity and tenacity remain.

Horizontal Snow

A fight through the bluster, an anticipated showcase of good work, solid design, accumulating experiences cordial in nature, an announcement of trust on a belief of respect, asked, and answered honestly. Will the deconstruction plateau?

Fire

I started a fire this morning when coffee was on, at day’s end the fire still burns, my thoughts of you, like the orange hot embers, enduring and perpetual.

Fluttering Wings

Softly lips glance, silence, coy invitation, repeat, mild and uncertain jubilance, longing
If mine pursue yours it is not diabolically rather southern, how two hearts separate.
I am in a trance anxious to revisit the tone that we last resonated.
If thoughts invoke in you an energy of positivity, lighting bolts ought to be striking.
Aside, we stretch erect, fluttering, shaking the mites and dust, in advance of flight.
Being: is often surreal.
image.jpg

Garage Speak

Wake up, laughter, cussing, what happened?
She is just pissed at me – why are you tripping out on me, I asked?
Hanging friends started at the Bismarck, then snuck off to the Empire…
Nice, be nice, hug be hugged, imagined sun and warmth.
South they went on to Dempsey’s…
Gad they are making out, right in front of us – fuck!?
Fuck it – I am getting a smoke, Raz just fucking does not believe me…
Says Zak

Brother Sun Sister Moon

Walking, talking, riverside
   with two who cared, and a sweet young lady chihuahua running nearby
hearing my brother’s tones and inflections in my own voice
   with two who cared, and a sweet young lady chihuahua running nearby
few directed conversations on our shared loss
   with two who cared, and a sweet young lady chihuahua running
as though he was one of the three
   as though he was one of the one

Bro-and-me.png

Summer Solstice

You learned from your fathers greatness, his innate shared loved, wisdom
He seemed to always buzz and resonate
Proud of his family
That I was at snowbank, experiencing what was built there and elsewhere, on the peripheral, listening
And at Ash, he smiled
Certain were his days left
The longest day his transformation
Storms and rain quenching life
Rest Bill Sr. rest

More on the Human Condition

In an instant, the unsuspected
Or we watch a wildfire jump to its prey
Walking cliff’s edge is a decision, required and not
Large eyed senses preserving breath
Sleep and dormancy as a risk-adverse principle
Live how you will, how YOU will

After Show (1987)

At first I was to send another
This will do
As I think
Hello
Its David
Similar thoughts
Intrigued?
Sister/Brother
What did I mean by that.
It was your sister
Reminded me of mine/
and I’m her Brother
Telephone conversation
Anyway
I was thinking
while riding
in the back seat
of a very dark car.
8/2/87 3:45 AM
Indianapolis

Shooting Star

Casino.JPGSeas of desperation, despair, sagging decay
Closer doorward some being entertained, smiles
Retina flash flash flash
Winners are silent
Killed 56 VC said the wheel chaired elder patriot
Smoke is thick on the reservation
George Thorogood playing earlier,
now even more Northern bound, and at night,
contributing to experimental evidence
to justify the truth.

Two Moons of Saturn

Discovered rediscovery, with metropolitan flare, slender beauty erect and alert, recognition even curiosity served by intermittent occultations, we seem to agree.

Does that door work?

The piled snow crunching under his feet while trotting across the span o’er the Red in search of music, his therapy.

 Dione Rhea Occultation
Dione_Rhea_Occultation.jpg

Equinox

That balance of light and dark, that season that hastens preparation, on that day the drummer and his indigenous chant, complemented by bell ringing, sound to the heaven containing universe, as we each stand facing on the perimeter of the medicine wheel, participating in the ascension to those heavens where all essence returns to be mixed eternally with those who have gone before, anticipating those who follow, as the sun sets in a distant clear sky.

medwheel_vcsu.jpeg

Time to Die

Death as an industry, optimized to be self sustaining, innovation squelched to ensure profit, not life, too often shift workers lacking monastic attitudes of service to anyone but themselves.
Whose life matters but your own, and with age, that glint in the eye, that sparkle fades, eventually we give in to the invading army of bacteria, feeding on their host, as caterpillar eat all the forest, selfishly.
But in my seventy two years, I did this… I did that…, earned a few bonus years, came to appreciate my parents sacrifices for my life, but eventually its “time to die,” and my control of that day, that hour, that minute is limited—
One day we will time out before we die for man will invent anti-death, extend life for a time, and for a cost, feeding the industry of death.

Life Cycles

I am a tree
— grown from the air
—- nutrients and water
—— drawn from the earth
— After I grow tall and old
—- I will be burned for warmth
—— only to complete my life cycle.

Twenty-fifth Lament (1986)

I thought my garden would be growing full
but I’m just gathering soil.
— gathering soil —
I scrape it from my wandering boots,
gather the dust from the streets,
sieve the filth from the air
— gather it together —
Then breath my dreams into it,
lightly whisper my spells upon it,
cleanse it worthy of my garden.
— and —
Here it is my life one third gone,
but I’m still gathering soil.
— gathering soil —
For the garden I thought
would be strongly growing,
brilliantly flowering by now.
— … 2011 —
At twice twenty five with one third ahead,
the wandering remains,
even as my garden bears fruit,
— still gathering soil, gathering soil —
With Tina James for Bart James, Louisville

FEAR

cutthemdown.jpg
The trees, the trees,
oh so very tall.
But lightning could strike,
and then they’d fall.
Our house, our house?
just cut down them all!

On Art and Communication

Driven by a need to link with the present or future, with communication constrained only by subjective rules, an artist listens to their id, their ego, and creates any number of tapestries which express being, and by desire influence other antennae.

Ode to the Red River of the North

Celebrate the river channel that remains true to its function, its form.
Celebrate the river channel whose locomotion would not be slowed.
Celebrate the river channel that remains deaf to the unnatural tendencies of domination.
Celebrate when nature roars.

On Human Nature and Spirituality

A condition of being human is to be subject to the limits of the body. The realization of the infinite expanse of the physical presents then a condition of inferiority, a nothingness. Cast then a extra-human state called spirituality, where we align with that infinity who is by definition inclusive. In the focused attempts to be extra-human we manage a dialog that allows endorphins to flow in our brain machine giving the impression of rightness, or comfort in some, challenge in others. Like the design when standing on a high cliff, my being flutters when approaching the danger of falling, an attempt to maintain life, our brain machine triggers a rightness of spirituality, where that inclusive All becomes infinitely lovable, or at least when our pilgrimages for truth allow.

On the Behavior of Birds

cardinals are a rare bird in the hinterland
loving the companionship of birds
as they flutter and frown
their beaks have utility in their design
oil seed for some, thistle for others
jaws covered by horny mandibles
no teeth
feeding a high metabolism anatomy
red breasted robins are of a particular interest
defined in their ways of communicating
dance, squawk, squeak
for obvious reasons,
to capture the attention of a mate
and to feed the engine that allows for the continued goal of procreation