spirit in three parts

Sincere thanks to Mariya Mileva for permission to post these three deeply intriguing photo images!  Please visit her websites to learn more about her photography.  click image above for full size view
http://mariyamileva.com
http://mariyamileva.wordpress.com
http://mariyamileva.com/blog/

  

spirit in three parts

  

holding my heart inside my grasp.
holding my heart inside this open bowl.

wondering if the canvas is broad enough.
it thrums inside my fingertips.

fear is one answer between the beats.
meanwhile, oh there’s my back.  illumination.

all I see is so dark with crafted shape.
all around my spine, brightness, brightness.

then voices.  your name.  then mine.  found
then lost, two moon ethers, one breath alight.

light becomes arms becomes swimming tails
becomes no memory.  someone not me

is writing all this down.

names have elbows.  they land like rain.
wind has breath.  it begins in the chest.

please, don’t say lies.  all those words.
a hand an ear a brow a belly like earth

like a mouth.

here is where the water flows.  wings
flutter on the roof.  my attention goes.

then you then me then only light.
then one touch.  then the river, right.

swimming bright without a mark.

        ************

I rake and rake and still there’s more
leaves more thoughts lapping up wet

along my thighs.

        ************

no hand would be within reach
without also notknowing lapping

in between our fingertips.

 

neil reid © march 2012

 
comments:
I was much excited to discover what might come from this series of photo images. What sort of transitions? More to the point, how much could I stand aside, simply listen, allow the images to say what they might. (I get bored often with what feels like my own familiar poetic voice.) While the prompt suggested “story”, I took that as a purely linear progression or response to the transitions, image to image, for this poem. That’s simply next to next, story enough to satisfy.

Almost immediately I found two voices inside how I felt about the images and allowed them a conversation of sorts. While I wasn’t trying to make it that way (so maybe it’s less obvious), neither did I want to condense or suppress those two threads – foreground, background, left or right, whatever whoever they might be.

I feel rather content with the initial primary section of the poem but partly because of the title (three parts), I wanted that to be more overt, thus the two short additive endings, which I do yet feel less certain about (more my own voice?) (and it has been a difficult week for me as well; meaning more doubts). But so be it. We can always say “draft”, but really, why that pretense?

Written for the We Write Poems prompt #97 A study in Transitions  Write a poem (of transitions) based upon three photo images provided.  Responses of others are linked here.

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questions of a Heart

questions of a Heart

 
who will bare-handed dig the dirt without shame?

who will break the last morsel of bread with their teeth?

who will tether embrace to their last breath?

who will wipe the bottom clean?

who will adore the broken toe?

who will thank wildness that stalks ungracefully?

who will give fates a wink?

who will dress the open wound?  who loves?

who will witness pain without discomforting?

who will speak love poems in spanish with unknown words?

who will adore then fill the empty pages like a waterfall?

who will open their lips when they smile?

who will annoint cats-paw doubts?

who will be eager to pounce?  teeth flashing bright?

who will speak in tongues to the red grace moon?

who will read aloud in the dark?

who will put sweet dawn in their mouth?

who will allow their heart to change?

then change again?
 
 

neil reid © august 2011

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being

b e i n g

there is a gate, we call it sky
 
when visible, we call it cloud
 
or sun’s bright shadow
 
or dusk, when we close our eyes
 
 
there is a gate, we call it heaven’s eye
 
and there is no intent to restrict, rather
 
it means to say, here is the heart
 
you live within, here is the heart
 
that is your own
 
 
now that you see it, let it blow away
 
and blanket all your thought
 
 
like grains of dust between your toes
 
 
permeable, be like that

neil reid © july 2011

 
 
photo credit:
Both photographs, “Sunset in Taos” by Annell Livingston (images 8502 and 8507 respectively); used here with gracious permission (and appreciation).  See the full set of four (and so much more) at her blog somethingsithinkabout.
 
Annell is a gifted artist (and poet) who lives and works in the high desert of New Mexico.  Please visit both her art website and poetry blog as well.  Annell writes about the creative process, It is a problem unsolved, that turns into another problem unsolved and I must continue.  I am responsible to the process.
 
poem commentary:
This poem would not have been written without seeing these photographs; and then, it could hardly help from writing itself.  In truth, it already was, just in image rather than word.  My blessing this time to get to perform the wording part.  With much thanks to Annell.
     Actually I am more than fond of doing poems in response to images, be they photographs, paintings or otherwise.  I think these images make evident the relationship of image and word: an equality of meanings, just in different languages.  More, I agree with Annell, it is our part within existence, our responsibility, to participate and respond to what we experience.
      neil

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Untitled

U n t i t l e d

Untitled, that’s how all these poems begin

an empty old battered pot. (Says so

right here in soot and thumb.)

Will I ever love you rightly or enough,

lingers in thought past when eyes close to sleep.

And do you wonder who? I mean you.

I look for a word. I look for a life.

Some feathers fallen onto this path.

But not really only of mine. Something from

this spiral arching net, a thousand thousand

seaward fish. Some omen I might translate.

Make invisible into soup, some flavor

we’ll both understand. Some language

we both enunciate.

Is that your Spanish or Chinese tongue?

Or just an old English psalm? Honestly,

all more than easy-as-butter led-astray.

It comes to what a heart is willing to reveal,

willing to give away before some last breath

claims me back again.

I’m not afraid of going home,

but empty-handed, of that, yes.

It would just be a shame not to appreciate.

A shame to pretend I didn’t care, didn’t see

what’s feral turned friend.

And I do understand. Just as is a rose,

untitled or named. Like you.

Neil Reid © March 2010

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Some hints toward happiness

Some hints toward happiness

Open your arms to a dawn

Cast your heart into a night

See what grows

See what follows

Spread a few wild seeds

Wild knows what to do, You observe

Take a breath

Now let go, everything dances on fingertips

Eat some cake

Pleasure is good for you

Butter too, cook some fish

Lick your fingers during meals

Go fishing with your heart

Harvest what is bright

Beauty is inside every shell

Also outside, right to horizon’s bow

Dare to see with generous eyes

Gently stir the soup

Appreciate every bowl you meet

Allow friends beneath what you fear

Be of good heart and understand

Who you will become, is enough

Eat dark like chocolate

Understand matter is a choice of life

When you’re in bed in night and

her breath is just that close beside and

you’re feeling all is lost from you and

no matter what you wish you seem to be

getting less and less of what you thought

was right to you, now instead awake

Awake from what you thought was awake

Remember that very first best desire

why you held her hand (or held his)

You listening, listen now to a rhythm’d heart

that is kin to the pulse of unlabored wind

It has never been about you

It is about what you’re beside

It’s about what love says it is, allow and

Open your arms to a dawn

Cast your heart into a night

Love reaches meaning only outside a box

And heals everything broken, even

what was never broken at all

Eat your vegetables and some fruit

Share a spoon and some soup

Break bread because it’s meant to be

Recognize a hand that speaks in light

Meditate   then   act

Move in right directions you see

Use fewer periods when you write and

breath, and oh yea,

Dare to write bad poems too

Maybe a friend is looking for you

Neil Reid © March 2010

with thanks to Sean for the idea and being a friend

Sean Fraser’s blog, The Dolls Point Blogger

and posting: Time Always Runs Out

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Charles, with a period at the end

Charles, with a period at the end

Starting Over, READ WRITE POEM Mini-Challenge

poem group index POEM #4 RWP Mini-Challenge Prompt

It won’t be easy you understand.

Said to myself as an afterthought.

Who would believe what I believe?

Even me?

He taught me to pray, really pray

for the first time in my life.

Because there was a need?

Or was it desire?

It was a daily public place.

People all about. But before

I ate, a prayer to say.

The theatre audience was dim.

I was afraid to look.

Say it’s a day like others are.

And for all his genuine faith,

fearless spirit, there towards

bright and bright,

He earnestly wanted life!

With all his mind, with all his strength.

With all his heart.

Yet when another common day

arrived, and to no one’s surprise,

he didn’t answer any more.

Surely we were wrong. He is

kidding us. He’ll stand, and

the joke’s on us.

One brief ride into sunny

country hills. We gather round.

Someone says a few more words.

It’s not too late. It’s possible.

I’d be willing to believe

a new common place.

We stand, mostly words remain

in our pockets, and watch.

Really real approaches close.

Last chance. Last chance,

before the mortar goes dry.

Arise. Say it was just another

lesson we needed to learn.

I’ll believe. Willingly.

And he never knew that day

what he’d given me.

I still pray, and one day

it saved my heart.

Neil Reid IHL Remembered this January 2010

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Through this doubt

To borrow a little prompt (“Through this word“) from Pamela Villars.

Through this doubt

Common stuff, in my pockets every day.

A random hurtful word, everyone understands

reasons why. However consider, allow,

right-handedness.

When rain gives way to star blue eyes.

When an uncertain glance surrenders

what it should never have kept. When

the root corners of a smile

let chance shyness abate.

Where is doubt when first thoughts

stretch languorous beneath sidelong

intended sight? Should I grant

better angels an open door?

The lines will go slack, the heart

to open word by word.

Neil Reid © December 2009

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Hide and seek

Hide and seek

 

 

This reality is called, no method.

This dream is sleeping now.

 

This hand holds the keys to you,

I’m sure they are.  The other,

something that smokes?

 

This heat contains winter eyes.

Clouds know even the summer

melt just brings them back again.

 

That storm, it was close.

I gathered a seed or two, even

if it was against the rules.

 

This heart, it is yours.  You know,

use it or loose it.  Just a smidge

to your left.  There, that’s it!

 

 

Neil Reid © October 2009

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