Month: May 2019

Frictional

.Reading time less than 1 minute.

So smooth when forward moving,
but bristled backtracking –
fish scales
or roof thatching – anything
bothersome if too catching

smiles by cruelty inflected,
as if surprise were premeditated,
elected,
a laugh track over
pains of slaughter patched.

If gone against, the grain
bites back – the horse’s mane
hackles.
A shoreward wave rides the back
of one retreating – a game

only won by repeating. Thus, the expected,
rubbed the wrong way, right:
that resistance
is productive, even destruction –

heat from the flame, and light.

Featured image: Petrichoria by Allison Kay.
18″x12″, Acrylic and high-gloss resin on wood panel.

Image used with permission from the artist.

Pruning

.Reading time less than 1 minute.

Injury, administered
properly to plants,
wakes their passive wisdoms,
akin to consciousness.
Their blood is milk to our existence;
as though they’re us, it pools and scabs
over our inflictions, rebuilding realized walls.

But where growth is thus averted,
elsewhere it appears with perseverance
and direction.
       The universe is torn then
in isolated infinities:
what could have been
and, because of what is,
will be.

Featured Art: Decision, by Lesley Oldaker.
Oil on Canvas, 100x180cm.

Image used with permission from the artist.