A phrase,
slow and deliberate,
common, perhaps cliche,
is brilliant
—how could it not be?
whittled down, averaged out,
streamlined, continued
escaped, perhaps, from
a garden, or wood—
a mishmash unguided and unguarded
a chaotic crisscrossing
of cross-species competition.
Cluttered and busy and jangling. And like a house, or eyes, is a map, a broad overview of a mental state.
Author: Franklyn Monk
Attuned 1
Beauty is average height,
average weight,
and average hair,
—how could it not be?
with graceful eyes controlled
by millions of muscles,
being fed autonomic impulses
from a million neurons.
Fuck hips, the eyes are the species’ signage.
Before there were words,
we cast meaning with our eyes
when there was danger or need love or fright
This set, this love,
alarm, or empathy
manifests in eyes
before words
your eyes meet,
and you’re human again
Momentarily forgetting
the apple you’re holding,
the juvenile learning nearby,
the ally hiding in the canopy
Eyes are lowrez and fast.
A broad overview of another’s immediate emotional and cognitive states.
Their eyes tell you
your baseline responses
are comparable:
This is an ally
intelligent, cooperative,
and free for sharing.
Argh!
Holy fuck Holy shit fuckin
He gasps and leaps away
The buzzing rattling thing
Was a snake, a large snake
Grey and fat and long
It sped away though
wishing me no harm
So that’s a good sign
The buzzing thing might’ve been a delicious insect it caught
Hopefully not venomous, hopefully not venomous.
But I don’t know of any venomous grey snakes, do I? Moccasins? But no nearby water, is there? Wrong color for rattlers, right?
I could do your mother’s ignore it routine, but the last time she did, she got stung by a wasp.
Hoe, where’s the hoe
Damn you Heisenberg
When you go out
for your cigarette’s
worth of daydream
and ponder
whether to take
a notebook,
or if it’s okay to
leave it behind,
Rejoice in the notion
of an indifferent universe
suffused with agony
unfair from end to end
there is no safe answer.
Someone or something
Will always get hurt,
And it’s usually me,
You’ll be damned
if you gather it up,
the pressure of having
a notepad at the ready
disrupts that universe
and often keeps coherent
dreams from forming
You’ll be damned
if you leave it behind,
a million full-fledged worlds
with history, and stories,
and people will dance
around the tree-line,
inviting you on adventures
but only if you get over
the guilt of being
unable to capture
the ephemeral.
Lady Luck, paint my trees
and give me the courage
to accept the situational
restrictions of realtime.
Ugh!
The anxiety sometimes is too much to take
So you bolt into the corona
Of a nearby star
And rejoice in the burn
For the burn forestalls the pain