The City

also written when I went to the park

The Wind

They make a kind of cold whistling

In the yellow waves that bleed through them

I suppose it’s more like shooting through them

Or flying around them.

I wonder if it’s yellow at that level.

They are the result of an infinitely small

And infinitely large chain reaction.

A domino effect that has been occurring for eternity

And just occurred.

It was more convenient to start at the lake

When they were thrust forth by a vacuum

Caused by temperature.

How could that happen?

If you’re willing to ask that you might as well ask

How could so many exist and flow and bounce

Everywhere

Everytime

Without us knowing it

Feeling it.

There’s a special message in their nippy harbored bite

The frigid singularity.

I hate it

I love them

They comfort me

And repel me

They are infinitely paradoxical in their

Fresh

Caress.

I unload my emotions unto their swift refrain.

 

The Buildings

Right angles are beautiful

Even more so when they’re imperfect;

When their lines are unstraight

Slowly succumbing to the fragile

Forming failures expressed in fissures

Of time

Crumbling

Folding,

Cracked apart

By capillaries of vegetation.

Still

When they’re flat and three dimensional

Thrusting themselves into

 Something the sun can reflect off of,

They’re something beyond godly.

You find yourself in the presence

Of sheer universality.

They succumb to a special formality.

 

The Light

When we look at the world, we are not seeing the world

We are seeing reflections.

We are seeing a process

Of tidal wives

Crashing as though in slow motion

Slowly dragging their meanings into semi-hypnotic forms

They exist only in our minds.

Why do they look so beautiful.

The colors

So pure

So varied.

It’s most important to sense when you are staring at real light

For you know that it’s not a reflection you’re looking at.

It’s the real thing.

Just think of that.

The real source.

I’ll look down from the window in my living room

It’s dark

Masked in an unstirring pool of shadow

A cozy bed sheet of dusk.

There’s a special reverence in feeling that light with your eyes.

And in those moments

When the light helplessly pours itself into that vacuum of brethren waves.

An occultist ritual,

Searingly aged beyond the infinite past of my mind’s forbearers

Comes to unfold

Like a paper, pop-up play.

Greeting the green hole-punches

In the pseudo darkness that surrounds them

Flicking solar orbs of amber

Then angelic halos of lithe red.

There’s a veneration

I pour into it as it pours into me

We swirl like milk and oil, in the dark pocket

The fragile little cardboard theatre box

Where shadows create my being

And light reveals my life.

The street lamps are more constant.

I don’t pay attention to them.

I foolishly let myself fall in love

With their reflections

Shooting upwards

And off the sides of buildings.

And of course, there are those

Softly floating above the city

Perched impossibly high

Their hallowed glow

Fanning over the entire relief

Of concrete and steel

Below.

Facing the frosty headwind

That can’t even touch the light.

Author's Note

Did you spot the traffic light in The Light?

Reviews

[Sujash I. Purna]

a lovely collage of poetry. Loved all of them! Very deep reflections on life and your surroundings. Yep, the Light! I wrote one called The Light. It was dark. But I see yours is very bright!