Three or four years ago

It started out with words.

We were infatuated with
each other's thoughts,

so eager to occupy our minds with
each other's ideas

we would sit side by side at cafés,
on boardwalks and spend hours

sipping from each other's psyche
before we harmonized silence.


"As we drank our tea, we chatted about our relatives, our childhood years, and our shared memories and we spoke ill of no one."

Orhan Pamuk, The Museum of Innocence

(For Apparatus Mag NaPoMo day 3 prompt, and the PAD Challenge)

Chiron

Trust child, this pain will
any time now
place you among the stars.

(A lune poem for the A to Z Challenge)

The Red Shift Room at Inhotim

Cildo Meireles: Red Shift, 1967-1984

Shoes are left at the door.
Shoes are not allowed into the
unsettling burgundy world,
your feet have to touch the ground
before they don't.
One cannot tell
whether Impregnation
happens due to preference,
imposition or circumstance.
Still, visitors move in the chaos.
Follow red into a black hole.
Listen to the Shift in the Entorno,
before they can actually see it:
a precariously angled sink floating in space,
red liquid running from the tap.
This is the room word,
if you are listening:
A redshift occurs
whenever a light source
moves away from an observer.

The light from distant galaxies 

is red shifted,

which means they are moving away from us.
The further away the galaxy,
the faster the separation.

(Today's Cuyahoga County Library prompt asked to describe a room in a museum, I went with the Red Shift Room, at Inhotim. The room is divided into three environments: Impregnation, Entorno and Shift and it's one of my favorite installations in that museum.)

liebe biel

Liebe, Biel. 

For God's sake.

(and I do not mean me)

(This is my attempt at completing Found Poetry Review Impromptu #3 - "Vispo", imagined by Nico Vassilakis, I must say, one of the most beautiful and peaceful writing exercises I've ever tried. I'm gonna turn it into a full poem soon.)

The bearded-man on a tall bicycle

I follow you on foot,
unhurriedly,
staying eight meters away
which is the distance within
I can still tell if you are smiling
and I know by now that when you do,
your eyes smile too.
I'm glad you don't go too fast.
I'm glad you ride above the crowd,
it helps me not to lose track of you.
I also carry a bottle of tea.
I also like to watch the birds
and the people in the park.
I'm also fond of long reads.
I think you saw me the other day,
in the rain, it started suddenly
and I had no place to hide,
so I didn't.
I wonder if you were surprised.
I wonder if you considered
coming join me,
or talk me out of it.
I wonder if I would have been able
to say a word. I don't think I would.


(Written for NaPoWriMo day 2 of A to Z Challenge.)

Periodicals

Dear citizens of planet Earth:
We hereby notify you that
from this date on,
the allegedly faces of progress
will no longer be found in monuments.
henceforward is stipulated
that no stone statue
will ever again be erected
for men made of flesh and bones,
all too faulty men,
all too human.
We find that many of these men
have long lived off their
prestigiously solid immortality
without having actually worked for it
Notwithstanding,
it is our advice that you get prepared 
to see them yellowish,
moldy-toothed figures
in the media and on the streets
ready to lecture you
on the gravity of
all things concrete.
We urge you to not fall for
their empty words.
Sincerely.

(An inspiring prompt imagined by  Patrick Williams for the Found Poetry Review's 2016 NaPoWriMo Impromptu series. I do hope he doesn't kill his prompt generator after April ends.)

Aloneness

There is no
aloneness
in my head.
There is always a
thought of you
that will keep me company,
that will make me smile,
that will surround me
with wonder,
that will cause me to crave
a life I cannot have,
not with you,
not outside my head.

Written for NaPoWriMo day 1 prompt imagined by The Swamp Scribes and A to Z Challenge.