NicetiesLATER
The Cleanup Hitter
Hello!
I'd like to present a relatively recent poem I wrote for the leap year, regarding the liminality of the period, and of time itself. With plenty of allusions, alliteration, and artfulness (I'd hope, anyway!) to be found, I hope you'll have an enjoyable time reading through. Either way, thank you for clicking on this, and have a good day/night!
Shore sands assure themselves with the bath of the Atlantic, cool and sunny, watching the waves awash
Over their granular forms, molecules moved between
Evaporation, solidification,
A liquid body and a solid heart, these sands say, limned by the orange pastels
Of a sky, solar now, but solar for how
Long, its rays swimming in the oceans of air, getting more tired with time, undulating slower and sleepier.
I stand, residual heat clasping for my face, reaching for my waning smile, a grasp from the stars,
September 1st, the numbers say, hiding below a thin pane of glass encased by a thicker pane of plastic;
Seven-thirty-five post meridiem , I’m told, I believe, I consign
I know I can’t make the time; each time I cup my hands with the grains
Of sand
They fall faster and fiercer each time.
As the light dims, the laughter starts to dry, like a water bottle abandoned to the shoals of
Dereliction;
Sandals shake the ground, but they too quiet, brusque sounds of moved matter
Echoing off into the distance, sonic memories filling my ears, those dual gateways to the mind,
Food stands and cameras, beach balls and volleys too, socializers and Social Security-ers
They all make their Exodus from the Egypt of that ancient past
That felt as warm and vivid as three seconds’ ago breath.
“Why can’t you stay?” I cry out, when no one can hear me, no one but that littling Sun,
Starlit curvature craning around the sphere of the Earth,
One part visible, other
Hiding too, like a child, playing in the darkness, hoping the expired time of the moon’s veil
Could save them from the painful trip back home.
“Why can’t you leave?” The rays speak to me, in their crusty, wise tones, colder in temperature but warmer in temperament,
“There’s nothing for you here anymore.”
Eyes lift and light like a flame, fists raised, vocal chords ablaze in an inferno
Of desperate defenses and damned dour drainage.
“’Nothing?’” It’s a question
That bears all the convention of a query
But has none of the tact nor truthful intent;
A rhetorical one, an oratory
Of self-said lies, wobbling hands, fervent sneers:
“It’s not just the shore!” It’s,
“Not just the shame!” It’s,
“All about those shimmers...”
That get fainter by the day.
They chuckled, their amusement rippling through the recesses of space, and yet
It was not a predatory bliss, like the look of a lion set to rip into prey,
But an indirectly joyous communion, wishing to induct me
Into the wry contentment of the elderly;
The cult of the wizened spirit.
“Omit the contraction,” they said with a smirk
“There was something there,” that isn’t there anymore?
I thought, I wavered, I trembled and I wafted around in the darkening air:
Must I pocket every grain,
Must I catch every firefly,
Must I bottle every drop and tear,
Must I record every laugh,
Must I copy every image,
Must I resign to every wish?
Can I make a history of everything for me that exists?
Can I craft something that is still real
To my watering eyes along the wading of the waterfront?
Can I generate still faces and heartly forms anew from those that once made my chest sputter
And not make a fool of who I am by who I was?
“Only you can conjure these things back to life, you see,” the lowering Sun put ray to chin, as blue hues absorbed the faltering sky,
“You are a God of your own autobiography,
You choose the sequence, you decide which to recall and which to remove from mind,
But if you are divine, your realm ends here and now
When things can still be changed,” and with a nod,
The Sun nodded off from the view of mine.
A blue darkness encasing the world, white reams rocking off the waters
As I stood in pause, my self, water and meditation, wedded forever, as Ish
Mael would affirm
But even better, I’d say to him, wagging a barely-lit thumb and boasting a bluntly-limned smile,
When nothingness abounds, when only the stars play witness to your grand images
You do play God to the wonders of your psychology,
The canvas of the sky blank with the bright possibility
Only darkness can bring.
So too blank is the now, is it not, would you say?
What if the world were our easel, and the people just a particularly persnickety set of paintbrushes?
If every second were another chance to break from the still life and brandish your next Rembrandt?
The now is nothing; not till it becomes the then is it a thing of some significant sway,
But we are filled with things, peoples, traits, places; we have the stuff of serendipity:
We are our own homogenies of heterogeneity, the categories same but the items different,
We can gift the present life with ourselves.
So yes, the tears still drop, the frowns still abound, the fright still fetters,
But it is okay
To let slip the harmonizations of all your past visualizations;
A melodic incantation, a catharsis of your childhood, whatever form it may take.
Because the now is now the new, and fresh these fruits of time will always be, if you nurture them when they’re meant to be,
Not to rot long before, in the squalid airs of dwelled regrets and ruinous downcast looks past,
But to bloom where they can inspire, can grow, can guide, can intimate a nouveau riche of the self
Like a Gatsby that looks above the green light, not to it
Building up a revolutionary person through the facets of your history.
I'd like to present a relatively recent poem I wrote for the leap year, regarding the liminality of the period, and of time itself. With plenty of allusions, alliteration, and artfulness (I'd hope, anyway!) to be found, I hope you'll have an enjoyable time reading through. Either way, thank you for clicking on this, and have a good day/night!
Shore sands assure themselves with the bath of the Atlantic, cool and sunny, watching the waves awash
Over their granular forms, molecules moved between
Evaporation, solidification,
A liquid body and a solid heart, these sands say, limned by the orange pastels
Of a sky, solar now, but solar for how
Long, its rays swimming in the oceans of air, getting more tired with time, undulating slower and sleepier.
I stand, residual heat clasping for my face, reaching for my waning smile, a grasp from the stars,
September 1st, the numbers say, hiding below a thin pane of glass encased by a thicker pane of plastic;
Seven-thirty-five post meridiem , I’m told, I believe, I consign
I know I can’t make the time; each time I cup my hands with the grains
Of sand
They fall faster and fiercer each time.
As the light dims, the laughter starts to dry, like a water bottle abandoned to the shoals of
Dereliction;
Sandals shake the ground, but they too quiet, brusque sounds of moved matter
Echoing off into the distance, sonic memories filling my ears, those dual gateways to the mind,
Food stands and cameras, beach balls and volleys too, socializers and Social Security-ers
They all make their Exodus from the Egypt of that ancient past
That felt as warm and vivid as three seconds’ ago breath.
“Why can’t you stay?” I cry out, when no one can hear me, no one but that littling Sun,
Starlit curvature craning around the sphere of the Earth,
One part visible, other
Hiding too, like a child, playing in the darkness, hoping the expired time of the moon’s veil
Could save them from the painful trip back home.
“Why can’t you leave?” The rays speak to me, in their crusty, wise tones, colder in temperature but warmer in temperament,
“There’s nothing for you here anymore.”
Eyes lift and light like a flame, fists raised, vocal chords ablaze in an inferno
Of desperate defenses and damned dour drainage.
“’Nothing?’” It’s a question
That bears all the convention of a query
But has none of the tact nor truthful intent;
A rhetorical one, an oratory
Of self-said lies, wobbling hands, fervent sneers:
“It’s not just the shore!” It’s,
“Not just the shame!” It’s,
“All about those shimmers...”
That get fainter by the day.
They chuckled, their amusement rippling through the recesses of space, and yet
It was not a predatory bliss, like the look of a lion set to rip into prey,
But an indirectly joyous communion, wishing to induct me
Into the wry contentment of the elderly;
The cult of the wizened spirit.
“Omit the contraction,” they said with a smirk
“There was something there,” that isn’t there anymore?
I thought, I wavered, I trembled and I wafted around in the darkening air:
Must I pocket every grain,
Must I catch every firefly,
Must I bottle every drop and tear,
Must I record every laugh,
Must I copy every image,
Must I resign to every wish?
Can I make a history of everything for me that exists?
Can I craft something that is still real
To my watering eyes along the wading of the waterfront?
Can I generate still faces and heartly forms anew from those that once made my chest sputter
And not make a fool of who I am by who I was?
“Only you can conjure these things back to life, you see,” the lowering Sun put ray to chin, as blue hues absorbed the faltering sky,
“You are a God of your own autobiography,
You choose the sequence, you decide which to recall and which to remove from mind,
But if you are divine, your realm ends here and now
When things can still be changed,” and with a nod,
The Sun nodded off from the view of mine.
A blue darkness encasing the world, white reams rocking off the waters
As I stood in pause, my self, water and meditation, wedded forever, as Ish
Mael would affirm
But even better, I’d say to him, wagging a barely-lit thumb and boasting a bluntly-limned smile,
When nothingness abounds, when only the stars play witness to your grand images
You do play God to the wonders of your psychology,
The canvas of the sky blank with the bright possibility
Only darkness can bring.
So too blank is the now, is it not, would you say?
What if the world were our easel, and the people just a particularly persnickety set of paintbrushes?
If every second were another chance to break from the still life and brandish your next Rembrandt?
The now is nothing; not till it becomes the then is it a thing of some significant sway,
But we are filled with things, peoples, traits, places; we have the stuff of serendipity:
We are our own homogenies of heterogeneity, the categories same but the items different,
We can gift the present life with ourselves.
So yes, the tears still drop, the frowns still abound, the fright still fetters,
But it is okay
To let slip the harmonizations of all your past visualizations;
A melodic incantation, a catharsis of your childhood, whatever form it may take.
Because the now is now the new, and fresh these fruits of time will always be, if you nurture them when they’re meant to be,
Not to rot long before, in the squalid airs of dwelled regrets and ruinous downcast looks past,
But to bloom where they can inspire, can grow, can guide, can intimate a nouveau riche of the self
Like a Gatsby that looks above the green light, not to it
Building up a revolutionary person through the facets of your history.
