Posts tagged poem

In a three-windowed box
The door unlocked
One soul exists
In a darkened corner
Eyes to the wall
One soul does not

To the world outside
In the three-windowed box
There is one soul
Or there is not
They cannot know
Unless they step forward to see

While none look in
One soul exists
And does not;
State paradoxical
Feeling pain
Not feeling

In a three-windowed box
The door unlocked
But closed
A soul exists 
Or does not
None care to know

Unknown existence

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Ann says:  Rakuli does a great job describing the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, which is a thought experiment.

The quantum box has three windows because there are three possible states:  1. a soul exists; 2. a soul doesn’t exist; 3. both of the above are true. Before observation, #3 is always the case.  After observation, either #1 or #2 will be true. 

On a spiritual level, we are also dependent on being observed.  We cannot live unless we are seen and acknowledged by others.

Copyright 2013 by Rakuli on Tumblr

Image: Alexander Khokhlov

You fell, frozen;
living static, turning a night which was almost too clear into poor reception on a black and white television-
making everything seem brutal and permanent
you landed on the pavement,
you disappeared into an obvious metaphor-
you became men that admitted that passion was poison
and would turn us all into water.

You dropped, dead;
beautiful white cadavers
victims of the iron wind that sings a dirge for the dead brown leaves that rest inside of black body bags on the corner of every suburban block.
Ashes of the memories of a thousand years ago
(and of last year,
when I forgot to try to catch you on my tongue.)

You stopped, suddenly
solid pieces of light, snuffed out with the fury of what might have been
collapsing back in on the clouds I left in the air with my breath
leaving a few lower case letters
a smear of black ink across this white page
a cold knife in the side of the summer 
and a strange shock to the few that had noticed the sky falling apart at 3 am

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Ann says:  John imagines snowflakes as symbols of people who have died before their time and/or without good reason.

Copyright 2013 By John Kimball II

Images: 1. mentalfloss-com 2. Jesus Munoz

Have you ever witnessed the rude beauty of weeds?

Dark green savages, lying low still
brazenly defiant in their wanton sprawl,
they subvert the avenue’s common spaces
and lawns with fence drawn Maginot lines.

Edgily crude gangs sense the invisible
lavender fragrance wafting alluring
assurances from the cultured beds
nursing effete seedlings
comfortably coy on the other side
of shattered, vulgar pavement blocks.

Have you ever glimpsed the sumptuous homeless?

Wild inscrutable beings
blackened feet denizens
just off the edge
like sudden mote floaters
awash in your eyes’ cascade.

Shopping cart (one wheel
always a dervish) rolling invisibles,
plump with debris laden
illusions, grimy bedding
and a reconciled old dog
leashed to a love not cowered
by humble circumstance.

Have you ever crossed the line?
The naive tenderness of sprouts
opens them to spiny green savages
that wheedle clandestine, drunk with lavender’s scent,
for rapture in the loam of cultured flowerbeds

Black footed shabby apparitions, eyes
disguised as voids. Hearts camouflaged,
one squatting against the strip mall’s graffiti
scrawled wall, one speaking to God, one desperate
for a cigarette I never seem to have.

The seductive charm of lavender
flirtations waft across that savage line
imagined with the basic black and white
truths of our elastic arrogance –
lurking peripheral beings, shadowy motes
caught in our cascades, could realize themselves
wholly as themselves, as resilient beings
with a sacred radiance blinding us
to their reality, blossoming across the line.

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Copyright 2013 by Umar

Image: Aaron Douglas

I’ve always envied
certain trees with 
their perfect leaves,
like hands,
that shake
the morning sky awake
and tuck the ground beneath
comfort of stars.

I can always sense
exactly, to the minute,
when it’s going to rain.

Some feel it in their bones—
an ache in one’s knees as legs,
like divining rods,
tremble
at the promise of life;
I am not that attuned.

Some can smell the air
and know that it perspires
beneath the weight of swollen
rafters ready to fall
on the players below;
I am not that wise.

Some can even feel 
Earth
as she sighs,
ready to release tears
of tension, built-up
from simply being
trampled over;
I am not that broken.

I am merely observant.
I am but a servant of 
the light
which catches eyes as
hands glisten, bathed
in shades of
“See you later,” as
these certain trees
upturn their palms
like prayers of 
ancients, pining
for absolution, for
baptism by nourishment.

I have always envied
certain trees with
their perfect leaves,
like hands,
that reach for 
salvation—
something I cannot yet see,
but know
would come for me
if only I grew
roots 
with my knees
and asked
with upturned palms.

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Ann says: This poem presents a bit of a puzzle.  From what would both humans and trees require salvation?  Global climate change or some other type of ecological catastrophe is my guess. (See stanza 5).

Copyright 2013 by RaisetheCurve

Image: Dov Segev

As the water table rises you seep upward

a chilly ghost levitating

fluid limbs spread as the sun heats your body

water pools in finger lakes.

Water-striders wander the four directions of your surface

etching ripples in their wake

moss becomes algae, grass-kelp undulates

and diving beetles plumb your noetic hollows.

As lotus roots deepen and take hold 

you rise slowly on northwest feet

White petals burst through your visage

and a broad smile cracks your mud-encrusted face.

 Ghost of earth future, risen.

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Ann says: As I pondered a temporal pool on my lawn, I thought of the Buddhist metaphor of humans arising from the mud and blossoming like lotus flowers.

Copyright 2013 by Ann Marcaida

Image: Artist unknown, please contact me if you know!