Tell all the truth but tell it slant -- Success in Circuit lies Too bright for our infirm Delight The Truth's superb surprise As Lightning to the Children eased With explanation kind The Truth must dazzle gradually Or every man be blind --
I hear the rains accelerate From the lightest sprinkle. Soon the streets are aflood; mere sound Makes my fingers wrinkle. The rain continues to ratchet Up: faster & faster. 'Til it's maxed out at a speed that Spells certain disaster. How can it keep up this dire pace? What sponge this cloud must be To hold on high, up in the sky, The contents of a Sea. But, in time, the downshift begins Towards just drips & drops. No matter how boisterous the band, The song, it always stops.
The Ladybug of my childhood had polka-dots of black, adorning the split red shell that covered its wings and back. So, who erased this bug's black dots to make it less dice-like, making it a Lady in red? Said thief can take a hike. I had so many fine questions, but it just flew away. Maybe a bug somewhere out there has more spots coming its way.
There never was a Golden Age,
a time much better than right now.
But playing martyr 's all the rage:
to think our world the garbage scow --
whose stinking mass forever grows.
Lest you think that I'm saying these
are times of pure and sweet repose,
Please, let me put your mind at ease:
These times are best. These times are worst.
(To blatantly steal from Dickens.)
This twist is just how we are cursed
to shriek like that sky fall chicken.
A white-knuckled grip on the rail, though the ship is sinking. The brain insists one hold tightly; there's no mind for thinking. A samaritan pries at your fist, but it will not budge. In giving up, he feels guilty -- conscience jury and judge. You couldn't wedge just a single breath to crack a space for thought. A simple thing it is to let go, but look what fear has wrought. A quarter million tons now drags you to the cold, dark depths. Until the body's unthinking gasp of watery breath. The hand lets go, but still you sink trapped by your last mistake. The tragedy of a grasp reflex that you could not break.
I sit within an empty cave. It's empty, that's for sure. It's dark, so dark that nothing shines. What sound is that? A purr? I'm in this cave, and not alone, but with what I can't say. It's in the back where it's jet black -- a predator? Or prey? I'm walking now; I don't dare run. the ground is all cockeyed with stalagmites and stalactites. I grope, in need of guide. And feeling through Stygian space, I bust open my head. Warm blood, I feel, run down my face. I'm squeezed by rising dread. I hear a squeak, a mouse strolls through; then silence is restored. If only my mind were so rid of its outsized horrors.
There is no breath that's like a breath
that's taken three miles high.
And never so deep was a sleep
after days of light in eye.
And water is the most beloved
when burning thirst is slaked.
To starving souls no gourmet meal
e'er bested bread, fresh baked.
I stared, and stared, into a leaf
until my vision changed.
And I could see the whole, wide world
so artfully arranged.
The leaf, it mapped my universe
from atom to the sprawl.
Compressed, layer-on-layer, there
was one and, at once, all.
But before I could grasp all that
this vision truly meant,
a gust of wind did catch that leaf,
and fluttering it went.
Climbing a mountain, I feel like I've escaped Plato's cave. My senses reel as though they're a crew of newly freed slaves. The sky is bluer, rivers green, each grit granule is clear. And even at the very edge, there's ease in feeling fear. By "ease" I mean not frozen stiff, but like a friend so dear that one can take one's grand peril, a gift received with cheer. Take me to the mountains, I say, where it's serene and real, and I can open up my sight to a world that's ideal.
I've seen in ordinary eyes a special twinkling glow. In rough and sinewy muscle I've seen a grace in throe. From rotund torsos, I have seen a lithesome prance or strut. I've seen a thing called character, in schnozzes that kink or jut. If beauty below the surface, it finds you splendor-blind. Then defect 's not in the object but in the viewer's mind.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 