Image Marriages

How do I know, when silent emptiness is all I meet, that I’m not talking to myself, just trying vainly to impress the void? In short, how do I know there’s You? Lovers when kept apart send cards and gifts, spend costly hours on the telephone, will run together by all risks, all shifts — will You? Or can You? Or am I alone like Earth among the planets, sending out my frantic signal, seeking a reply from wiser, older worlds? How quench the doubt that You may not be You but only I? How can I know You love unless You pour out miracles? How can I not crave more? Gail White first published in  14 by 14 Dimitris Makrygiannakis

Most astrophysicists agree there was a big bang long ago; and, based on microwaves, foresee the distant outcome. Apropos, regardless if it’s ice or ash, it seems they still cannot unlock the secret of the awesome flash that launched the ticking cosmic clock. Time. Ours to waste, to keep and kill; to make, to mark, to bide and buy; which, in its mystic fullness, will reveal not only how, but why. But in the meantime, here’s the odds — dark energy, or God, or gods. Catherine Chandler first published in  14 by 14 hyperspace,  Samuele Errico Piccarini

The squirrel in the attic of his brain Shreds photographs, pulls memories apart. The old dog in the basement of his heart Howls, lonely, soft, monotonous as rain. And somewhere further underneath, a snake In hibernation stirs, irked by its skin. Up where the world’s news and supplies come in Through the five senses of his face, to make The room in which a garrulous parrot squawks And sometimes songbirds sing — it’s his belief Mice gnaw behind the wainscots of his teeth. The cat of consciousness, impassive, walks Toward the door to go out for the night: Is everything (oh dog, shut up!) all right? Robin Helweg-Larsen [ Previously published in Visions International (US), October 2007 ] Redmer Hoekstra,  Redmer Hoekstra

We’re at an age when honesty is best; When flattery no longer has a role. Unvarnished truth should never be suppressed While we acknowledge aging’s stealthy toll. I cannot say you look as you once did: The way we once appeared, appears no more. The decades lived together can’t be hid For time has made us different from before. It isn’t right to try to shade the facts; It’s silly to ignore what’s plain to see For nothing can occur to take us back To how we were and how life used to be. In candor’s name, I say without regret: You’re way more foxy now than when we met. John Byrne first published in 14 by 14 “There, there. I know it was your favorite, but we’ll find another.”  Kitty Kono

Where did I get the idea I should save you? You didn’t need saving; you were just complex: a mix of all the attributes I gave you, plus those you had yourself. Oh, it was sex and mystery and beauty; also, quiet and shyness, inability to say what drove, or did not drive you. Now a riot of teasing contradictions, who would play games I would have no clue to; next a clinging girl who adored, and didn’t know what to do. A nun at prayer, but then a siren singing. I’d look; I’d stare. All, all of them were you: that host; that precious horde I had to see to; that magic chest I could not find the key to! Bruce Bennett Emily M,  AndrewPaul@Oxford

In second grade, someone posed the riddle: Which was the heavier: a pound of lead, Or a pound of feathers? With no middle Choice left, anyone with a practical head Declared himself for the weight of metal, Which had, at least, the feel of solid logic, Though the more cynical came to settle On eider, guessing that it was all a trick. But those who argued the two were the same Were hounded as show-offs and worse was done To girls who tried to get into the game. We would allow two sides to each question; Which one you chose didn’t matter much to us, But not choosing sides — that was dangerous. Christopher Bullard Peacock Profile,  John Small

One retrogressive April within the biting breeze I felt the tooth of winter. I saw the tulips freeze before their buds unfolded. I saw the apple trees retract their pink pronouncements, while, skirting melodies, the shivering finches stuttered. Potentialities are prone to unexpected frosts, and so I learned from these to uproot from my heart a few blighted felicities. Marion H. Flanigan Reto semanal 183. Luz de buenos días,  Mónica Martínez

The questions come out neatly one by one. Son, each one has an answer that’s precise; No room for thinking here as, like a gun, The mind fires out the answers. Here a voice Whispers loud its knowledge like a boast, All that can be known for certain’s here: There are winners, there are losers as we toast A world where each question’s answered clear, A world where simplicity prevails. Outside this circle nothing’s answered thus, This futile show of certainty that fails Every decent question asked of us. So spit out all the answers while you can Before the questions come that make a man. Gabriel Fitzmaurice Infinite Void,  Raul Mendoza

‘They’re hanging me this evening,’ Mary says, Or else it’s a transplant she must have, But her concern’s observing the Fast Days (The cares of childhood follow to the grave); ‘Am I going to mass on Sundays?’ she repeats (How the good are frightened of their church); All we can do is comfort with deceit; She’s satisfied, and then begins to search For biscuits, the indulgence of her life— She’d eat them by the packet were she let, A humble and obedient country wife; Everything we tell her she’ll forget, But not the past—the past is as today Where she was damned unless she would obey. Gabriel Fitzmaurice face in the crowd,  Suman Roychoudhury

The years I wasted lost in hurt and doubt! I trusted none, to none I gave my all, Dwelled upon myself, with flesh and stout I drugged my demons and ignored Your call. My demons drugged, I lived the life of one Faithless in all I did and said, Betrayed my love, and then, when love was gone, Abandoned hope and fell in with the dead. You came to me out of the abyss, I needed help but feared that there was none, In the dark night of the sense I felt Your kiss And knew at last that I had found the One On Whom I count, in Whom I live anew: When I learned to trust myself, I trusted You. Gabriel Fitzmaurice Stairway to heaven,  romeisso

Much comes out of the body and, by and large, you’ll be more comfortable if you’re in charge, deciding what and when the best you can, and so will others be. There was a man who never said a thing he didn’t mean. To him all mindless sounds were obscene, and empty words especially profane, signifying a failure in the brain. He’d never said a word he had to regret. The fact is, he was less likely to let a rash or indeliberate word pass than feel impromptu solid, liquid, or gas part from his darkness in public. Even sweat. He was profoundly embarrassed by anything wet coming unbidden out of the body. Hence, he saw tears as a form of incontinence. He nearly forgave the flesh its watery art; worse were unmeasured words, the brain’s fart. He was a model of calm and eloquence, a man of obvious breeding and good sense, well known far beyond the neighborhood. His children all left home as soon as they could. Miller Williams # 452 / Bjorn Richter

Where do they go, those cruel, those easy words we wield in haste and toss away like knives? Do they fly back to peck us, fat birds fed on our long regretting all out lives? Do they bloom out in waves that shear the sky, ever-unfolding fan of living blade, so that no gift of balm can rocket by, outdistancing to heal the hurt once made? Or do they burrow inward through the soul, borrowing justice from the lack of light, and, breeding reasons in that self-sealed hole, contrive to sleep, content that right makes right. Where do they go, the casual words we say by nothing made, that nothing takes away. Rhina P. Espaillat backyard wildlife,  Ricky Floyd

Far on the outer beach the strange hulk stands, A belly-laugh at architectural grace— It reaches, juts and sprawls, grabs chunks of space, It rises like a chorus of demands. It’s pieced of driftwood, every beam and board; The second floor looms larger than the first; Its upward thrust seems doomed to be reversed By all the laws of physics and discord. Yet up it stays, like a fool’s philosophy. Created of scraps the storm-tide put at hand It now shouts rude defiance to the sea While struggling to keep its feet on shifting sand. That there’s some power that keeps it none can doubt, Some logic moving like love—from inside out. Paul Smyth  Titanic,  Philippe

Lifting her arms to soap her hair Her pretty breasts respond – and there The movement of that buoyant pair Is like a spell to make me swear Twenty odd years have turned to air; Now she’s the girl I didn’t dare Approach, ask out, much less declare My love to, mired in young despair. Childbearing, rows, domestic care – All the prosaic wear and tear That constitute the life we share – Slip from her beautiful and bare Bright body as, made half aware Of my quick, surreptitious stare, She wrings the water from her hair And turning smiles to see me there. Dick Davis Low key,  Jonas Tana

Come, chosen ones, admire the pigeon: Urban and secular, he perches On houses of religion— Mosques and synagogues and churches. He mounts the mane of Mark the Lion But coos no Latin to the lambs; Incognizant of Zion, He occupies its hexagrams. Pillared in aniconic space, He rules his roost and cannot care Which way the faithful face Or what name hastens them to prayer. Mecca, Jerusalem and Rome— So much gibberish to a brain Deprived of words for “home,” “Hereafter,” “sacred” and “profane.” Whichever God we summon as judge, The pigeon can take no offense And never bears a grudge. Come, let us envy his innocence. Aaron Poochigian Redmer Hoekstra

While flowerbeds have gone to seed, a book you didn’t plan to read offers the unexpected phrase that occupies your mind for days. You write with someone else’s pen of someone else’s life. And when light’s absence leans across the town, you lay another body down. David Mason The floating homes of Victoria, Detlef

You watch yourself. You watch the watcher too- A ghostly figure on the garden wall. And one of you is her, and one is you, If either one of you exists at all. How strange to be the one behind a face, To have a name and know that it is yours, To be in this particular green place, To see a snail advance, to see it pause. You sit quite still and wonder when you’ll go. It could be now. Or now. Or now. You stay. Who’s making up the plot? You’ll never know. Minute after minute swims away. Wendy Cope Ektar 63, King