Sol's Stray Poetry

Healing happens haphazardly in its own time and season beyond our best efforts  noble as they are. Healing happens as normalcy returns the small moments we enjoyed remember us again, it will be fine we realize, after all.

Humankind as the tree  full of parrots me, me, me each bleets all at once this is where I am hear me hear me, hear another year and a day zoom away.

One wants to say so close to Paradise only so far away. We're two miles from the beautiful Pacific  beach coastline which is fine. You can't stroll the sand due to crazy crime. You can't touch the water  due to bacteria slime. One wants to say maybe better someday  so close to Paradise only so far away

Wisp of moon near a veiled horizon the early dark sky  still deep in slumber as I stand in the cool silence of the hour both palms to face  before night's mirror as bracing cold water dissolves the last trace of fluid dream while a chilled stray wind just before dawn  slips under my door routines line up by habit the day begins once more.

Whoever knows the connections of things or why attractions molt into fixations of the mind's math recalculating all the data to best estimate a clue that reveals you  always see first  that middle star from Orion's trio Alnilam by name how it calls out to you all these decades as if a beacon beckons  from a far home.

Long shadow      of curling cat around the dark corner      on a cool and stealthy  mission, that is you. Fever dream      of earnest eagle in steady sloped flight      across breaking hillsides of dawn, that is you.

                        Clouds In the village today         processions of cirrus clouds                                     passing across the fields of sky through the slow haze of afternoon                      each time I notice them I think of you                                       somewhere smiling or talking or simply being so casually beautiful                  ...

That random week  that ordinary unexpected morning when you awaken and realize all at once that no you're  not perfect but you are better than perfect better by far. You are real.

Where is it going so fast and faster this Milky Way galaxy  at over a million miles per hour zooming along towards the constellation  Leo, as if there's something  there that can't wait another millenium or two, then who is the hurried Conductor on board  it's not you, just here for the ride.

Distance An exercise in imagining considering star distance  the vastness between them  but witness how two massive galaxies with a hundred million  stars gravity drawn straight thru  each other like drifting ghost barges of celestial treasure yet no two stars will collide.

This morning, Facebook's chat feature, "Meta AI," invited me to compose a poem together. Always the skeptical optimist, I said, "Sure, let's call it an experiment." Spoiler alert - it was an utter failure. But this could be the big insight. The myriad nuances of poetry are irrevocably based on the human experience. There's no faking that relationship. The bot began with the first line, and then we took turns. But twice, I had to reject repeated words and also point out a mixed metaphor. Then, I had to call an end, or the word folly would have continued. Although the algorithm was most agreeable to my edits, the result was still crap: "In a world of wonder, where sparkles play, the otherworld of politics is in deep disarray. A realm where shadows dance and truth's veiled in gray, common sense is canceled, then led away. In chains of rhetoric, where reason's light is dimmed, you'll spend eternity there with your spirit broken, your hope tr...

Startled  by my own afterthought how sadly  uncommon now  the boy on  a bench so absorbed with his book.

Providence or chance or something else unknowable or  just stumbling  circumstance. One takes  a bullet the other takes  an exit for the  country both say and say and say.

Exactly how do we even function with all these crowding  emotions engaged at every moment imagine if trees were as encumbered by similar reactions  then how could they  ever survive changes of weather or seasons passing in their haste would there be joy in the spring then the long dry summer would fall bring tears from each fallen leaf or winter come like sad frozen angels  sparing most yet taking some down how could trees even  thrive thru all this drama knowing glee then fear then hope and such as we seem  to know year after year?

His hapless heart yoyo on a string up down up down she was having far too much mean fun toying with his earnest imagining but he had no idea what was in play nothing less  than his future and  every single dollar he had then she vanished back into the stark dream that spawned her.

Remember when a silver dime had weight or when watermelon had flavor or when the day's pace wasn't  a lost race but more like watching snails. Remember how folks smiled at your antics they nodded approval for practically nothing just for you being so young and new.

Action Jackson A creaky cursing gaunt cricket of a man all of five feet the first four  pure braggadocio his head full of Cutty Sark he would shout it from the high barstools Cuttyyyyy!!!! Saaaark! drawing out the vowels in a throaty screech that pissed everyone off every damn time but that was what he liked best because he was Action Jackson  to you eighty-two years  dead drunk most of them  but some said he made it in Hollywood with many  bit parts just as many  fine dolls on each arm  and he still imagined them five whole decades later he still had it with the charmed bar flies one or another would stumble him home when he could barely talk or even see he drank so crazily he would get quite delirious then harrasing the boys shooting pool until one would shake a stick saying shut up you fool but he couldn't stop being himself over the bar's hard jukebox like one last  call night I took him  to his room around the corner a stout stucco...

You recall her eyes that gleamed like the green amber pendant she wore  secrets in the dark  free Celtic soul  passing thru lives like  old discarded coats  her low dusky laugh  mimicked bamboo  chimes clapping with the brooding desert  wind but then after only  one unforgettable week she was gone, and you  are left in fond disbelief.

All poems are strays seeking their mythical family all songs are cries against the dark empty all psalms are balms  for aching souls all proverbs are heeded by the world weary  beneath the sky above the ground all hope is found where it's most needed.

New Love Falling upward wingless flight wheeling to open sky to the perilous sun ascending to quick height all cautions ignored this surge of new love elevates aloft with glee by rapturous cord you're free from gravity. fttt