My phone politely starts my Sunday:
Good morning human,
your mission is to find out
whether purpose matters.
Where subdivided paths marked
invisible demarcations,
I saw enough to know
the truth of almost nothing.
Where falling cartoon clocks shattered
into bells and spiral springs,
I waited for a gentle sound.
Where graduated tick marks
switched the traffic lights,
I stopped to contemplate my lies.
I clean my teeth and start
my exploration
miles away from home.
~/~
On the steps before the gym,
I come across a stranger.
He sighs and coughs the city air,
looks up at clothes
the sky is wearing, faded stonewash.
He’s writing a note for school tomorrow.
There’s a river running through my house,
it washed my life away.
I did my homework though,
imagined words that rest
on feelings, heartless and unfounded,
my love for you.
The expression of my thoughts
is marred by imperfections,
stigmata of my youth,
but I promise I’ll do better, teacher,
I promise I’ll do better.
~/~
I travel onward
through the artifice of realism,
its bones and bolts,
where cranes are idle scaffold vultures
perched on vertebrae of buildings,
dry and dying before their birth.
Now I’m in a photograph of sunset,
a page unopened in a coffee table book
of diversionary lust and neon.
Twilight ghosts that rise in autumn’s smoke
awaken all around me.
The beautiful horizon, the ocean’s
distant line, is my conceit.
In her nearness, she is restive and chaotic.
As I journey, less days are right
and more are not,
but I promise I’ll do better.
background
My phone is intrusive and not polite at all; my conclusions about what I saw while I was driving to work one day.
artwork
autumn smoke part above.
This piece is wonderful, I’ll be exploring your blog 🙂
Glad you enjoyed, I am also partial to your high fantasy. 😃
So good – liked all of it (a lot) – but particularly – the second-last stanza: two views – the restive and chaotic sea up close and the horizon line – opening up so many spaces for the reader. Terrific.
Thanks Peter, and for mentioning that stanza. I was pleased with it. Funny how ideas form. One place it came from is the Brazilian city Belo Horizonte “Beautiful Horizon,” and what a great name it is. Not that I’m complaining about, say, Dubbo. 😁
Gold from the very beginning…I laughed at “politely” and your mission, I mean, that is just GOLD. What else do you have to do on a Sunday anyway?
Amazing, as usual.
And I love the art, too!
Thanks Vanessa. Exactly, on Sundays we must find our purpose. Unfortunately, the protagonist is an idiot who hasn’t really achieved anything. I’m so glad it isn’t me. 🐒
haha thanks for the belly laugh!!!
Our phones are not meant to be polite, especially when they’re signed on to Google, which constantly makes ‘suggestions’ whether we like it or not. 😉
I like the irony of the phrase ‘artifice of realism’.
Thanks Magarisa. Yes, I was going to write something about Samsung and Google and decided not to. I’m not throwing my phone away, just have to put up with it. For me reality is whatever I pretend it is. 😸
PS I have to apologize for the typo in my comment on your blog. I’m careless and I make mistakes all the time, notice and then can’t change it. Wish WP let you edit them.
You’re welcome, Steve. I’m not throwing my phone away either. We (as in modern humans) make lots of compromises for the sake of convenience, don’t we?
P.S. Please don’t give your typos a second thought. I usually don’t even notice. I can correct them on my side if there are any typos on my blog that really bother you. Otherwise, it’s all good. 😊
It’s fine, Magarisa. I live in the special hell reserved for careless perfectionists. On my personal 1 to 10 mistake scale it doesn’t rate. 🙂
‘Careless perfectionists’ – a perfect oxymoron! 😁
very good! And the picture is amazing as well
Thank you. I must say I do not know Mr Lewaper like you do. I only have the pleasure of reading about him on your blog. I suspect he is a very famous person and that Lewaper is a pseudonym. For example, he might be the King of Spain or the first astronaut to land on Mars (secretly). 😸
Like mindfulness, living life as if it matters. Excellent post, Steve!
Thanks Clarissa. I hadn’t heard that, I like it, so very true. 🙏
My purpose in life – and yes, it matters – especially on Sunday mornings, is blueberry pancakes. 🙂
Hard to pick a favorite stanza, but I adore this one:
“Where subdivided paths marked
invisible demarcations,
I saw enough to know
the truth of almost nothing.”
And “stigmata of my youth” is so poignant. I loved it all. Impossible not to. There’s a space in me that the words seem to fit perfectly.
Thank you BG, yes it does. Yesterday (Sunday) I was at a Buddhist event where the Heart Sutta was recited, the one that tells us everything is empty and meaningless, and afterwards a great vegetarian lunch. If I’m going to contemplate the void, I prefer to have a good meal first. And an occasional glass of Pinot or a coffee. 😸
Yeah, it hurts a bit thinking about me starting university at 16 years old, and the infinite list of what I didn’t know, and still don’t, but I wouldn’t change anything. Go nerds. 🤓
The paradox seems to be that life is meaningless and meaningful at the same time! Go figure. It will take a lot more meditation before I get it. But I’ve heard that the most enlightened Buddha was the one who laughed! That I get!
I agree, and me too. Maybe it’s like imitating the enlightened, you just go with it. By the way, it looks like WordPress has been eating some comments (they never came to me). Hope it didn’t happen to any of yours. I’m going to switch moderation off and just delete spam later, see if that helps. I love WordPress. 😑
Looks like mine are all accounted for.
👍
Steve, I’m very slow to respond to this piece. I read it days ago and have now re-read it and I find it filled with interesting thoughts and great depth. There are lines in each main section that struck me as having marvelous depth. Lovely work.
It’s fine and I’m grateful for your feedback whenever it happens, Frank, I truly appreciate it. And I want to thank you for helping me with my problem (the soluble one, that is 😳), I’m currently getting used to the changed comment system, a bit different because new comments don’t appear highlighted for moderation.
My writing (and work and thinking) is a bit staccato lately. I’m hoping a healthy dose of fear that I have nothing to post will save me before the end of this week. 😃
no pressure … LOL
This is beautiful all around. From your words to the artwork, I loved it all.
Thank you for the feedback, I appreciate it. It’s what keeps me going with Inconstant Light especially when there are time pressures (ie, pretty much all the time).
I totally understand and same here right now. Hang in there
It’s been a while since I was drawn into a poem the way this drew me in. As beautifully written as imagined and felt. Looking forward to reading more of your work.
Thanks so much for your kind words. This piece holds uncomfortable truths for me so it’s pleasing to know it’s appreciated. And ditto, I’m looking forward to reading more of your posts. 😃
Steve, Your poems are gems.
They are like sand washed coloured glass that you find on the beach and want to hold and treasure. You have this uncanny ability to take us on these trips of the mind and heart.
Last night I read it, but I was too tired from studio work to understand. I like that your poems make me want to read them more than once to see what I have missed the first time around.
What a beautiful image. When I was a young rock collector, I wasn’t able to distinguish the natural from the fabricated. I would collect pieces of concrete, bitumen, tile, and on the shore, those pieces of polished bottle glass. I searched and searched through my geology book and never found them. 🙂 Thanks for your kind words Tamaya.
My personal favourite,
‘the sky is wearing, faded stonewash’
Brilliant! how did you even come up with this? I know exactly what this sky looks like now.
Thank you
My pleasure, Tamaya, and I’m sure you do. It was just there when I was driving. I saw the boy seated in front of the gym and the sky at the same time. It was very dry, and the smoke from burning off, dust, ordinary clouds, pollen etc. combined to make a city sky with subtle colors and shapes, not natural, but still amazing. If I’d had my camera with me I would have taken a photo. And caused a major traffic accident probably. 😸
I saw enough to know
the truth of almost nothing.
Might be one of the best lines ever…
As always, an excellent poem that is transcendant. Thanks for sharing!!
Thank you so much and you’re very welcome. The consolation is that at least I’ve seen enough to know that it’s my truth, and perhaps I’m not the only one.
I like that your poems form me require to study them more than once to picture what I give birth missed the initiatory clip around. My personal favourite,
‘the sky is wearing, faded stonewash’
smart as a whip!
Muito bom. Words are such strange things aren’t they? Sometimes I find them under the rug, or between the cushions on the sofa. I pile them all up and wonder what to do with them. Occasionally I scatter them in the backyard for the pigeons to eat, and now and then I mark them as spam. 😁
Love: Now I’m in a photograph of sunset–just a beautiful stanza, the images as well as the sound.
Love the art; looks like an oil painting with brushstrokes and the horizon and clouds at sunset.
Thank you and thank you, Sascha. 🙏 Florence had a few attempts at the artwork before she came up with the final version, that stanza appeared automagically with no conscious thought.
ut oh. I have to say it: just imagine what you could write if you didn’t think about it. 🙂
I suspect there is a curve with a maximum. Complete thoughtlessness would be rows of ooks (in iambic pentameter of course). 🦍
Penguin Poetry!
ook OOK ook OOK ook OOK ook OOK ook OOK *Thinks* must not insult either kind of penguin. 🐧
Have you tried saying that out loud? In iambic pentameter? It all kinds of runs together just like a bird call. Just sayin’.
Yes, I read it out loud, the birds and Shakespeare: “But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?” I should not be mentioning the Bard in this context, it’s just wrong. That’s why I’m doing it.
Yes! One must always push the boundaries…of what is acceptable and expected. Otherwise there would be no…art…
Your poem took me on a journey. Reading it a second time, I appreciate it more. I love the images, the flow, the words you’ve chosen, the theme. Thank you.
Glad you enjoyed. Sometimes I think the words choose me. I know that writers are inspired by beautiful scenery, but being bored waiting at suburban traffic lights works for me. 🚦 My pleasure. 😃
I liked how when I would read a line I would think one thing and the next line would make my brain richochet into another place…it was like brain acrobatics.
Thanks. I’ve been trying to teach my brain to do tricks, sit up, roll over, play dead. I give it coffee as a reward if it gets it right. But it’s harder than I thought. 😜
I apprecie-love the assemble of your words. thanks for sharing!
My pleasure, glad you like the constructions.😃