Day 26 – Why I Suck at Physics

/ Just Barry / 9 Comments
worthy-of-elegance-6723

Image source: Unsplash.com

Why I Suck at Physics

Ruefully, I inhale lavender,

knowing it’s physically impossible

to inhabit her space simultaneously.

 

Still, I’d be most grateful

to rebreathe her air,

exchanging molecules

like the yin-yang symbols,

with a smearing of her bird-winged light

inhabiting my darkness,

and a drizzle of my unruly dusk

dwelling upon her rising mornings.

 

When I wanderlust,

it isn’t always about wandering,

not the journey nor the destination,

and that last part is a lavender-laced lie

as she is the journey’s end

I crave exploring most,

the waypoint where yearning removes its coat,

unpacks, and settles in as longing unfurls,

curling into her,

straining sinew

to rewrite our laws of physics.

***

via Photo Challenge: Wanderlust

 

Day 25 – Universal Truth

/ Just Barry / 1 Comment
john-towner-159744

Image source: Unsplash.com

Universal Truth

Crust moves, Earth-grooves, Jurassic pace

orbiting, spinning, winning annual race

sun streaks along axis, galactic arm

Milky Way hurtles away

from its collective farm

 

Infinite universe expands

under universal demand

I land on my back, dreamland,

earthbound in my remand

knowing nothing’s ever still.

** *

My second still poem for dVerse Quadrille #31, hosted by Grace. I normally try not to go to the same well twice in a row during NaPoWriMo, but I’m sapped for ideas. I’m running on fumes and limping to the barn, but racking my brain is helping with my depression a bit, and I think I can make it to the end! Five more, people!

Drop by and check out everyone’s contributions to this prompt.

Obstructive Mystery in Poetry 

/ Just Barry / Leave a comment

Reading this made me examine my work. It probably helped make me a better poet. Marginally better, perhaps, but self-reflection is the mother of improvement, isn’t it?

I recommend that all poets have a look at this post. Maybe it will help you too. Maybe you’re experienced and already know this info… and perhaps you’ll smile now that you know that I know.

Obstructive Mystery in Poetry – http://wp.me/ptXIr-3vS

Day 24 – One Day, While Sprinting to Check the Mail

/ Just Barry / 12 Comments
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Image source: Unsplash.com

One Day, While Sprinting to Check the Mail

I spied a nonagenarian

struggling to our mailboxes,

sluggish enough

to be considered

still-life.

 

I offered to help him.

 

He unhurriedly

glanced my way.

 

“Young man,

don’t worry,”

 

he said with a wry

twinkling smile.

 

“None of us are getting out of here alive.”

** *

Written for dVerse Quadrille #31, hosted by Grace. The word for quadrille Monday is still.  

Drop by and check out everyone’s contributions to this prompt.

Day 23 – Meditation Revisited

/ Just Barry / 6 Comments
adam-griffith-169028

Image source: Unsplash.com

Meditation Revisited

Breathe deep, feel yourself dissolve into peace

Fill your lungs with air, let the healing grow

Settle into now, silence your mouthpiece

 

Feel your pulse slowing, heart pressure decrease

Allow you to be, unclench the ego

Breathe deep, feel yourself dissolve into peace

 

Don’t fight the tempo, throw out the timepiece

Inhale the moment, the turbulent flow

Settle into now, silence your mouthpiece

 

We are to suffer, until we decease

Exhale the poison; gift to the willow

Breathe deep, feel yourself dissolve into peace

 

Do you ruminate? Just breathe and release

What was staccato, now leveled tempo

Settle into now, silence your mouthpiece

 

Imagine oneness with null masterpiece

Soft summer current born from undertow

Breathe deep, feel yourself dissolve into peace

Settle into now, silence your mouthpiece.

***

This poetic form is called a villanelle. 

Day 22 – The Trouble with Meditation

/ Just Barry / 1 Comment
Background-abyss-sea-free-download

Image source: Google

The Trouble with Meditation

Harmony eludes me

tranquility and calming sea

“come”

opaque at the surface,

questing,

staring through shallow

into cavernous shadow

pulling the soul

from white meat

toppling temporal balance,

body teeters into terror

jerking me back into

here and now,

“forth!”

shaken and sullen, I

sit, gasping in wonder

at what softly,

firmly

pulled at my mitochondria

could be possibly made of

other than filaments of

pattern-recognizing, bias-confirming

imagination

and not the gentle whispers

of the depths chanting

a single phrase until

my subconscious soul

heard and almost complied

with the amorphous command

“come forth!”

***

via Daily Prompt: Harmony

Day 21 – Memo to a Black Woman I Know

/ Just Barry / 9 Comments
william-stitt-224308

Image source: Unsplash.com

Memo to a Black Woman I Know

You are

magnificent, beautiful,

magnetic majesty,

magnanimous, poetic,

magical alchemy

 

You are

radiance, radical energy

and grace-amazing,

spontaneous, valuable synergy,

outpace-appraising

 

You are discreetly cared for

as one who soothes scars,

the secret shared with

the sun, moon and stars

 

You are life, and light

and larger laughter,

rife with fight,

regarded rapture

 

You are

the knowing look

that knows of brutal reality,

the glowing brook

that grows the fruitful family tree

 

You are not

the hateful screams of the heartless

you are not the hurtful schemes of the artless

 

You’re not of the words

they’re wielding as weapons,

you’ve got songbirds that yield sonic blessings

 

You are a blessing.

You are the magic.

You are impressing.

You are fantastic

Your soul’s refreshing.

Your worth’s galactic

 

Never forget

you’re a love stream; a fateful fountain

cutting through seams of hateful mountains.

** *

Written for a friend of mine who had vile racism visit her at work tonight in the form of a hateful, insulting customer. Don’t let it beat you down. We got this.

Day 20 – Midwatch Apology

/ Just Barry / 3 Comments

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Midwatch Apology

Sir, so sorry for my outburst.

Unprofessional, no excuses.

But with good reason, you see…

 

I was training the new transfer on radar.

I explained weapons-lock on primary…

He told me his spirit-guide was the wolf.

 

I dunno, sir. Seemed like personal shit to me.

But I moved on, described secondary lock…

And crows tell him when his lady wants to talk.

 

Now that’s just damned peculiar, sir, isn’t it?

I’m not one to poo-poo First Nation Mystics…

But a lady usually wants to holla at her man, right?

 

I mean, isn’t that true, like ninety-percent or so?

If someone needs a crow reminding him to-

I’m sorry, sir. Way off topic. Not my concern.

 

So I showed him how to use track-while-scan

to keep tabs on surface contacts to take with guns…

He told me he had a six-and-a-half-inch long penis.

 

Hell fuckin’ naw I didn’t ask about his schlong!

 

Sorry, I mean. No sir. I didn’t wanna know.

I never wanted to know about any man’s tackle-box.

He just volunteered that shit, like it was normal.

 

Like he was proud of his little bishop or somethin’.

Like that’s some shit you tell a shipmate

who’s trying to train you to help defend the ship.

 

Anyway, I guess that was my breaking point, sir.

That’s why I shouted, “Aw HELLLLL naw!”

and asked to be relieved of watch for a few minutes.

 

Sir, so sorry for my outburst.

Unprofessional, no excuses.

But with all respect, sir,

 

please instruct the first-class petty officer

to refrain from discussing his girlfriend,

his spirit animals, or his sad little rudder

 

while the second-class petty officer trains him

to operate the weapons control console

so the Lone Wolf can qualify for the midwatch.

** *

Written for imaginary garden with real toads prompt involving a crow, or crows. I’m not sharing it there though, as this poem-a-day thing is really kicking my ass and I don’t have time to enjoy others’ poems as much as I’d like.  

I’m sad to say, this was inspired by actual events. I… should probably see a therapist.

 

Day 19 – Nature of Our Cosmos

/ Just Barry / 16 Comments

greg-rakozy-38802

Nature of Our Cosmos

1.

Each day

I pass

the Russian woman.

She never acknowledges me,

except for a rare annoyed scowl,

annoyed at my interruption of her

spirited debate with

nobody, her glare

fixated on a

specific corner

of nothing.

2.

In the beginning,

there was nothing;

no God, no Devil,

no good, no evil,

no free love, no mass-murder,

no sailing ships, no rocket ships, no spy satellites,

no chocolate, no truth, no lies, no bigotry,

no chicken soup, no science, no poetry,

no gas giants, not even a single molecule.

3.

Each day I pass the Russian woman

talking to trace molecules of barely nothing.

Some days her tone is soft, conciliatory,

other days, defiant, demanding.

I can’t see who she’s speaking to, but

part of me hopes she wins the argument.

4.

Science

makes the airtight

argument that Cosmos

was birthed from a bang long ago,

but shrugs when asked what came before

the cosmos, why She came

to be, what’s Her

purpose,

where’s the

verse preceding

Her, what entity or

mechanism banged Her into

being.

5.

The Cosmos exists.

She has amnesia.

6.

The Cosmos birthed herself with a big bang,

all the energy that ever was

or ever will be

was dispersed,

filling the void with Her molecules,

seeding Her realm with energy, matter,

and later,

something called life; Her messengers

and investigators scattered

to every corner of the firmament.

7.

Finite in nature,

the end of life

is not the end.

8.

Matter that was life returns to Her,

having never left Her;

the energy fueling life’s soul

returns to Her collective,

helping Her piece

the puzzle together.

9.

The Cosmos exists.

She is learning about herself.

10.

Select few lifeforms are born with

more pieces of the puzzle than average.

They are typically persecuted,

executed

just before they can share this knowledge

with the willfully sightless.

11.

Some become enlightened all at once,

stepping across the ethereal plain,

gasping in wonder

taking their secrets

directly back to Her.

12.

Others become enlightened,

but stubbornly refuse to cross over,

instead opting to address Her directly,

ignoring those without vision,

knowing we lack the knowing,

the dimension of perception required

to convene with Her.

13.

The Cosmos exists.

She is a Russian woman

holding communion with Her nature.

** *

Written for NaPoWriMo’s day 19 optional prompt: write a poem that recounts a creation myth. This is my creation myth.

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Day 18 – Greetings from Blessing My Heart after Your Betrayal

/ Just Barry / 4 Comments

insult

Greetings from Blessing My Heart after Your Betrayal

Hi you, grinning with gentle malice

Vile intentions known, veiled thinly

Hiding behind wide-eyed finnocence

And letter of the law, perverted

 

Sup, you, symphonic syphilitic cynic conductor

I’m compelled to commendtalieate

Impressed, I will pat your twisted back

Before kicking you down the fucking stairs

** *

Written for NaPoWriMo’s optional day 18 prompt: neologisms (made-up words) and dVerse Tuesday Poetics: Wish you were here. (postcard prompt). Let’s just say that I’ve had to deal with some interesting personalities recently.

Drop by and check out everyone’s contributions to this prompt.

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