Fancifully Formed, The Flower

Aerial. 

Chimerical.

Fantastical.

Touched By A Fine Dusting Of Frost

Free time spent taking pictures of a stiff frozen earth.

Minutes drift, but not like this leaf touched by frost.

The hands, toes and nose sting a little from its bite. 

Overhead the sun wearingly dull, as if fatigued.

Some Hours Before

A view of a window led to another 
which led again to the view of one more.

And so went the day some hours before.

Having Read It Just Yesterday

A word, having passed recently through the mind, is recalled once again –

and highlighted so as to call attention to it in the whiteness of this space.

See how the ink of its I's weep in vertical lines toward the edge of the page.

. . . . .

(ver-uh-si-MIL-i-tood, -tyood) 

noun, meaning:

1. The quality of appearing to be true or real.

2. Something that has the appearance of being true or real.

It Steps Out In Front Of You

You gather yourself into it – the earth, at times disheveled by fate.

And the eyes dig deep to where so many roots are plunged.

You extract something salutary, something very nourishing from it.

And the body bends closer towards its burgeoning proclivities.

You reconcile once again to this sense of spirit running through it.

And the nurtured mind threads itself ever deeper into life's airy weave.

Within A Frame

Untouched By The Raindrop's Spatter

Step After Step – Another Image

Unseen in the layout of a day…

All Was Soundless

Things stayed as they were.

The air pieced together with parts inert.

Yet hidden – possibilities conspired to unfurl.

Barely Awake

Variations of pinks and tame-like yellows flood the mind.

Muted impressions of the simplicity of Spring slowly surfacing.

After The Sun

The moon appears lonely flung naked out into this night. Before sleep is finished it'll be gone. But you wait, come evening, way off in the distance well above the tree line, just as Debussy fills the air with song, a million eyes will focus on it again for at least the thousandth time – the glint of its prominent pose hung bright in the sky. Always showing the same face, how blithely it surfaces as darkness surrounds it, this eye we spy in the sky. Its funny how one never seems to tire of its hide-and-go-seek nature. Our moon – a remarkable object that is characteristically chic.

Midst Particular Moments Of Change

only abandoned.

– Paul Valéry

In Such Light

At such a time as this a quiet conversation takes the air, pitched against this feel of winter. To the left of you a dog's bark accompanied by other voices becomes a distraction blotting out everything in sight. Much later the profound ache of a coyote's wail settling somewhere into the thick brush of the back yard – the nature of it becomes a reminder of things still going on outside in that now pitch black environment. 

By morning, back into the sunshine, you feel again the partial bite of a winter's frost inflected with fragments of light. This magnificent icy white clinging to the rocks, roots and ferns, nudges you further into the daylight, in the direction of a relentless January chill. And you don't know where the poem is taking you, set so early in the day. Look how the forest keeps hauling you deeper into its half-frozen state, where on a day like today, no wrens or robins sing. 

Staring at it, you begin to wonder if you've put it down right. Listening to this imprint of words, you hope that the idea itself hasn't, in the end, come off sounding like a clutter of lines that have simply been, more or less, carelessly pieced together. Ideally you want it to read like something that drew on some sort of initial inspiration, to be noted here in this space open to all types of occurrences.

Lighten-up, you hear the words tease…

Meanwhile, half expecting it, droplets of rain from a rain storm surfacing overhead gently begin to fall, chasing you away from all this toward some other source of illumination…

During Those Hours

Either way / it becomes / in you / muted / there / and not there / away from / the constant / light-burn / of the city / farther away / from where you've been / lost / in its crowd. Edging / up to this / other world / the eyes absorb / time / with no time / insistently talking / for as long / as it likes. And we / have no pull / in its say / on this mid-afternoon. Held / in the quiet / low-slung intimacy / of a January sun / lobbying / for some kind of narrative / to name / what is felt / in one / rooted always / to its light – a perfect medium / to turn to / today / searching / for some kind of relief.

. . . . .

How welcome / at this time / to reclaim / that current of warmth
transpiring during those hours / on that cold January day…

Drawn To Different Literary Forms

                          LY

the world OPENS up.

As The Early Morning Mist Rises

For The Time Being – Savouring The Essence

I look for it always 

to bind my will firmly

around the unexpected

angles its spirit extolls.

. . . . .

Leaning farther into this unrelenting fog,

smoking still – a poetry, a kind of re-creation.

To Give Anything Away

                       but not even –

                                                                           poems written

                                                                                  primarily driven

                                                                                          by the start of

                                                                                   an inherent idea,

                                                                              which, in its

                                                                                        own sense

                                                                                            can be difficult.

                  And not every sentence

             do the tongue and eye endure

                   to give anything away.                                                               

                                                                                  The mind working

                                                                                        s     o

                                                                                           m      et      h

                                                                               i      n       g       – 

                                                                                a compilation of

                                                                 words open to various

                                                                        thought processes 

                                                                                that in the end 

                                                                                    create a few lines

                                                                                someone might

                                                                                        care to read –
                                                                                      but not 
                                                                                  even.

Transpiring In The Mayhem Of The Heart

Ever And Ever Yet

Beauty holds me in its hand


and hugs me more


than I thought possible


I am not alone


The spirit graces me and touches me every day


with gratitude


underneath the yearning is a peace with no name


that surpasses the senses


the source of all art and poetry


the creator of all


It caresses me.

– Stephen John Kalinich

Next Thing I See

Branches twining

where I stand all-seeing.

Weeping – clusters of dew.

Discovering Things

Every day.

The importance of

this process.

In This Uncertain Air

The Habitual Transformation Of The Seasons

I give you this to take with you:

Nothing remains as it was. If you know this, 

you can begin again, with pure joy in the uprooting.

– Judith Minty

The Breadth And Depth Of It

We in this period have not lived in remembering, we have lived in moving being necessarily so intense that existing is indeed something, is indeed that thing that we are doing. And so what does it really matter what anybody does. The newspapers are full of what anybody does and anybody knows what anybody does but the thing that is important is the intensity of anybody’s existence.

– Gertrude Stein

Far And Away The Flame, The Flowers

Awakening at the far side of the house, the presence of yellow originating in a chaos of flowers. In a small room a kind of peacefulness looms. Wound round its state of quiet ease, an hour – then two, quickly passing. Connected to this hush, her sister, meticulously studying the details of an old family photograph just a few steps away. Tiny touches of paint begin to impart an image. Imbued with spirit, one and then the other of her mother's eyes slowly evolve on a taut white canvas. – And over there, something she loves about the scattered uncertainty of a butterfly's flight path draws her toward the open window. Life outside – the butterflies, the flowers, the restless breeze, the flame of the sun, pulls her far and away from the swell of solitude inside. Sweetly the mind dreams as all else fades away – everything becoming but an echo…

It Wasn't Intended That Way

Unfastened

from a barren branch

of an autumn tree, 

this frozen leaf

did become.

Sometimes

my eyes climb

that same tree –

the leaf still

bound to its past.

This hour's

version of it –

our encounter

an unintended

collaboration.

. . . . .

There are dead stars that still shine 

because their light is trapped in time. 

– Don DeLillo

Winter's Pause

She, an aged woman in black, feeling a bit wistful for days gone by, allows herself to be, without becoming bored, alone. Inside, not exhausted, she romps and rolicks ‘round and ‘round like a whirling snowflake, her mind filled to the brim with a cluster of images. Musing, she is the child there, a little reserved and shy. An undersized girl, as cute as a button, with green eyes and curly brown hair timidly offering her hand to the woman standing by herself in the very next frame, bundled up in amongst a casual spread of light. Absorbed, she takes pause in the shadow of her former self radiating from some other winter’s afternoon. 

The train slowly pulls away, breaking all silence. A weighted snowball of ice dislodges and falls. Unbound it spirals and begins to fragment.

. . . . .

We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations.

– Anais Nin

Subtly – It Flowers

Develop interest in life as you see it; 

in people, things, literature,

 music - the world 

is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, 

beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself.

– Henry Miller 

Never To Be Replenished

It Shines From Within

Washed ashore

one reaches in

and releases it.

A   P  O  E  M

Almost Not It Breathes

Framed  /  by a common sill  /  still

life  /  one and the other  /  piece  /  deeply asleep.

Any articulation  /  is left to be  /  because it is
a mouthful  /  its worn out mood  /  too private to grasp.

Simultaneously…

An ease of quiet  /  radiates  /  its tidal force  /  unleashed.

That Enduring Presence

And for you who now move on,

pensively,

Here becomes there without

ceasing to be.

– Yves Bonnefoy

On One Such Afternoon

Motionless, a boredom hung.

. . . . .

A glamour of light, mottled with hot-red, 

surges, like an incandescent basaltic lava.

Its stimulating beauty peaceably glimmers

midst a succession of crested elevations.

For at least a thousand miles, 

an energetic world vanishes somewhere

beneath this billowing skyline.

Out from nowhere blurts the muse –

lifting me all ways, its energy and spirit

heaves like waves on a lively sea,

Into my hand they consciously come,

a vast expansion of words whose I's gesture

a compassionate wink within this mount

of privacy – I am soon carried away…

Just Yesterday

For days I overheard its diminishing. Slow with breath an innocent hour staggered before tucking itself away. Each ululating second breaking just a little, in a light voiced way, away. A finished thing becoming that which no one shall ever reclaim. By morning another year had launched itself. Ageing visibly before me, the gift of other long hours begun, numbered firmly there, curative-like.