6:15 AM

The base of the sky is tinged with pink, I notice, and the chirping of a phantom bird breaks the silence of long night.
Life has taken its break while I worked beside lamps, studying the world's old classics.

Now it has returned, and finds me here still, awake. Am I ready to sleep?
If I am, then I miss little; little happens before the alarm that brings my second waking.
But nothing can replace this first awakening, the collective reconsciousness of the nearby world.

Pink has ascended in the sky, and is diffracted further up; now salmon paints the tinge.

Life takes its steadying breaths;
And Earth awakes again.

Societal Boundaries

The cat and I lift our nostrils to the screen door.

sniff

      sniff

          sniff

We sniff at freedom.

This box all day won't satisfy our appetite for air,
and too much metal and plaster fills our lungs with the decay of the orderly.

We yearn for the wild, 
and take our fill --
the earth is condensed,
in a diet pill. 

Ulysses

Max is the north star.

His nose points home and his eyes shine
Like a father returning to his young.

It doesn't matter if he dreams of fish,
Because I'll gladly feast with him.


Photo by Ian Martin 2010

Chasing Waves

Everybody in the front of the boat is throwing a party.

No stomping could turn us over like
The throbbing of our hearts
To the beat of our electric motor,

And the pink liquid waves of newborn night.


Photo by Ian Martin 2010

Sea Spray

Hello, Little Ocean,

This is your secret admirer,
Swimming in your sea of cool.
I don't wear shades;
I could never miss the rainbows you pull.

Hey, Mister Sky,

Are you jealous yet?
Your little brother tries twice as hard as you
Putting on the same clothes.


Photo by Ian Martin 2010

Catching Breath

Slick water, like oil.

Our ripples leave mountains in Lake Champlain;
Every shade of cloud,
Pink and blue,
Puts on his own show,

And the green trees and orange-scarred rocks watching us
Reaffirm the beauty of the world
In the small image of
Vermont.


Photo by Ian Martin 2010

47 Hours Since Prom

The amateur musician 
is familiar with this common dilemma:  he (or she, of course) wants to hit a new note beyond his range.  He sucks in all the air he may need, but cannot hit the note.  Why?  Because in his mind he has condemned himself, he says it is too hard and from that thought he is doomed.

His lungs, hearing this thought, are unwilling to dispel the air necessary to produce the new pitch.  They know it is futile to blow the note if the mind will not back this effort with some elegant air of strength.

As a result: a hiccup in the performance; a vacuum of sound. 

Lovely evening date, charmed by you I hiccuped for more.  Now I am catching my breath.  I wish I knew for whom I will ever sing, not to flatter, but to charm.  This last performance makes me ashamed, and this blog becomes an act, an air of elegance, but the substance beneath it lies doubtful . . .