Lost the Alamos

“These are complex technical things, but they touch on the very basis of our morality. It is a grave danger for us that these decisions are taken on the basis of facts held secret.”

This was said on February 12^th in 1950 by a man addressing the President of America's wife, Eleanor on her Sunday morning television broadcast. 

This man with all the answers, knew best how to keep secrets. Top secret and under hat and he let those secrets bounce around in his radioactive being until the corrosion became more than the structure. Settling within him and festering around like a cloud, it seems he could come and go with omniscience. He was brilliant to all could not look at him directly in the eyes. Those that could take it knew he could have been brighter, more welcoming in the desolation of night, they were embedded in that sky under the same forces. So scared, some thought his yellow fingered trembling was evidence of this, that he need always clutch his own personal fire; via a wand or crutch, incessantly forcing his fingertip to take the flames off the cherries, he knew he was trying to make it numb. It was only a start, he never thought about the end before he lost where he was going and went instead with the wind and waves, swallowed and sunk safely away from the American Dream. off the Virgin Islands, he is perpetually pulled and pushed by waves of saints and martyrs. The legacy is nearly forgotten. Finally, there was none left awake to do the tactile work, like making bombs that would forever change the world. He holds his breath I fathom. 

Photo credit By Federal government of the United States [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. Trinity sight post test (Jumbo, July 1945).

Gatherer

While you are here, make yourself useful. Instead of leaving no footprints or blazing trails, in place of rooms stacked with forgotten props for making memories and treasuring trivialities of these in trinkets and symbols of some emotion we once had while collecting bones and relics for hanging in closets just in case of a storm. Rather, you could pick up what I have lain down before, it was already here and waiting like this red carpet for barren feet in which you may tip toe so softly so that none notice the shift in shag or bulging pile, the insistence of your presence, the red of your wait makes the earth feel like home for a time.
With you staying longer and nearer, it has made a lasting impression to run fingers over and collect the tips of things to make sense of the things we may feel, like more than necessary for one. 

By Kuroda Seiki (1866-1924) (http://bunka.nii.ac.jp/heritages/detail/252689) [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Fools Rules

Things have changed. 

As usual, kids these days, they say, incapable of paying attention to only one thing at one time.

They cannot afford to be bored, the kids will claim this while earning lack of interest and learning to invest in installments by bits or bytes of feed and data to collate and parse or peruse ever to gently over the surface, present without touching a thing but reaching further than conception can fly by rail, by plane or Falcon 9. 

And the whole time they were growing taller and able to see over the heads of past generations,

often not understanding the foreign language they use to say how big and strange the kids have become. 

The untranslatable said to be familial if not familiar cuts the tongue and distance is breathing

room. 

Some rules apply to all tight circles.

These are not rules.

Conflict creates sparks. To kindle this is Choice. Paper or plastic. Cash or credit. Fruit or Vegetable.

Man ate the apple.

We should all agree, unanimously, to treat each other with Great and Grand curiosity, instead of the horror and heart racing fear of the past passed at the speed of light, a code they will crack well after we can look back and say progress is not a lifeline or any linear conception that stretches generations.

Of course, the kids thought the adults were obedient and simple.

Always being right of something that has no sides or edges but event horizons, similar to virtual reality or alternate avatars of us which shows that only perception is infinite and limited unless you can learn to balance both ‘i’’s and juggle while focusing on more than five to seven things which may mean the multiverse is possible, or probable in a world where rings carry truth into black holes.

Poor us that shrunk while the everything expanded, who could no longer reach the ends and make connections in the dark by feeling our way around things and knowing what they may be one at a time, intimately aware of all the potential items and uses, like a life and what one should use it for.

And yet the youth always thrives because they are soft enough to adapt and keen to collect the sharpest tools that came before them and eager to learn how it was done with bright eyes that see better ways.

And yet the adults still call them fools.

Women covered up.

There are no definitions of circles that end. 

There is always room for growth. This much won't change. 

There are no rules for making lifelines with what was found.

The minerals line and build up with the bodies both old and new. 

It was only different from this view

Photo of The Atwater family, from archives by unknown, in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Fire

Burning…does that spark any distinct memory as in location, stimuli, an inkling? Burning, as in unstable state, seethe with what it means to turn matter into smoky air, burnt bridges but cremation and incarnation of time and place, thermomagnetic transportation perhaps it was never there in the ashes or stars carried away in heat waves. A ray of sun then magnetized on top of the red dirt, bark dances low and white in motes on the trail before me, nymphs and fireflies and feel always lead to castles and sweet escape of now, smolder and embering to meet me another way. 


Painting by Philippe de Champaigne (c.1645-1650) in  [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Water-Aqua Vita

As if we could withstand the curiosity, in fact, this is how it all began, not with fire as men may say. This terraqueous planet describes us, shapes us, prepares our moods, reflects feelings in water with rainy days, and on hot days it seethes to the surface. A love-hate. The odorless, tasteless, colorless, rainbow making substance making up most of what we see, including our own body, its secrets hidden behind surfaces sometimes called skins and in reflections that can be blinding. Tears may escape this wrath, you salivate, you sweat, there are many ways out, but we all know thirst in a more intimate way. Why does the river run or meander? Where is it going so unstoppably. The sea, you say. Yes. I guess these tides too taunt sameness, require membership, seeks its own kind, mutual matters. The tides taunt us relentlessly, love-hate, push-pull-sun-moon, always churn so you know it is breathing, there is life in there, resistance and persistence. Trapped as we may be in our bodies that need, trapped like ants on our hills and screaming about wills that fall on deaf ears, we still climb, we crawl, claiming to know where we are going on our islands by push-pull-time of day-we know ice when we see it, we see cold water steam, hot water vapors, and boil and evaporate and condense and it all boils down to the one scientific question-whose is it, not Prometheus, not ours to steal, it was all part of it, it needed the other matters to matter the most. Water is life always returning to become part of another body, just like we, genetically.

By Moran, Thomas, 1837-1926 (artist); L. Prang & Co. (publisher) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Earth-ling

Pleasant, soothing at it sounds seemingly to some, Mother Earth may be a callous symbol to Others.

For arguments sake, if this Mother is no longer responsible for her children-

Then why do we need to claim

Heritage, Hierarchy, Habituation, Home

By relation-dirt don't hurt no

Ship of Fools

as if entitlement and document were worth trading or grinding down.

Apes with tools erected schools of thought, others say Respect your Elders even if given shorter straws.

Piles and miles we move dirt as if we made it matter more, who is keeping score, who cares who matters

Who dares to entertain the road, let the line lay and bears all the load, but no resemblance-to us,

She is the soul maker of Beauty. 


Painting by Herbert James Draper [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Air

Noble Highness, Princess Ayre,

I see you up there-everywhere I stare down the atoms,

                                                 showing off your prowess with your plumage.

Spreading the skies with talon,

                                                  a parting breeze-Please-you dance as if the world

were watching,                                                your silhouette in spritely gambols.

without a word

Still as Summers Eve,

Avian apparatus                                       demonstrating what stirring is

and how                we should                    exhale in murmurations

                             after swallowing  

the heavens whole-                                and absolve the tears from rain.

Following your advice to Look up I have been mistaken for preying again and again.     




Artwork by Nicolaes Piemont [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.   

Blue Study

I think you know the familiar kind of-- sick of yourself --each swallow tastes like a glob of chunky chartreuse, you feel disgusted, dirty inside and nauseous unable to sit still and so you try to clean but realize after your hands are raw from chemicals and red from pressure that it is futile, so you think you should read for a little while, you think perhaps you have been busying and stretching  the wrong muscles and you could use the preoccupation of the mind, as though it was ever unoccupied or somehow free from little dust devils, a gathering of motes or thoughts that matte the shine, whose raspy murmurings stand on top of the very tracks of thought causing some horn to blare, so you decide to walk away, nearly deaf, you decide to take a hike, chew the view, and out there too, every step, left, right, there, reminds you of you, so you decide to seek Others to preoccupy the eyes, which you see, only reminds you of how you act that stupid human way.

It is like the days you wake up with a thought-most certain, confident and clear that you will remember and capture this crisp epiphany, but before you can even begin your word search or jar finding the temporary file is unrecoverable, contents empty, the pen dry, poof…. As when photons, which add up, yet individually are equally as heavy, contribute to experience and now it is forever out of focus and you decide the pen is too sharp, a gentle brush may work better, colors may even cure the acidic aftertaste, acrylic may do the trick, at least aromatically, or was this only about aesthetics, taste, yes…oil needs water, and I find footprints on the canvas. Somewhere near, a cat walks with blue paws.

The stuff at the bottom, the sediments, dregs and lees, the slag and settled matters, remnants and residue of making, fermentation and processing-were better to spit out on the page than swallowed whole hearted murky dejection, carbonation or abandonment of pursuit with ennui and flat out No Thank You, repetitively dishing disappointment on an uncoated bleached paper plate. Serve yourself please.

Be a spork. Utility has you. Continue to recall. Not all answers end in never. Some rhetoric is right for some, for some rhetorically left alone. Stand over here-in blue and corrected, this is what I red, primarily. 

Painting by Ludvig Karsten [Public domain], The blue kitchen (1913) via Wikimedia Commons.

How to mingle without getting muddy

Explain how the ripple came to be?

Easy.

You were right about one part. The air sleeping atop the crisp sheets, yes linen has always seemed lovely and of comfort. Let us say a semipermeable comforter, we like blanket terms too. The special phenomena, right off the top, is that this form of gentle is incomparable to the world or anything you have never felt. It occurs soundlessly as a culmination of friction, passionate projections opposed, finally finding its apex in a touch, a synchronized demonstration of composure, expect this, it is a normal reaction to momentary chaos.

It is when the air forms solid cubes and stacks together, carving out valleys with detritus shapes and wind with in it, water rises to the challenge and pinches back for measure of dream, getting an atom or nose in between swing and edgewise, push and pull, awake and snap.

An interruption smoother than prophecy, symbiotic as choreography, responses are red and al dance without stepping on toes-

That is how a ripple goes.  

Painting by John William Godward [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

All thumbs

Payne’s grey dried and embedded under my right thumb nail and as obvious as this is, numbers won't help me, my digits deny wrong-doing, I have an alibi.

Porcelain gesso flakes on these forearms pretend this doll skin can peel, I must step out of the light so  may scratch these off, knowing even after all the bleach I was immersed in yesterday, the stains and imperfections all remain as if the function were to remind me of what this is not, mirrors and pixels which explains the impulse to smoke and blur, these gestures sweep and move genres.

Sure I may talk big, but I could never carry out such cruelty as to send my dearest enemies these mirrors, so instead I paint and portray cells, the canvas becomes a loose cage able to contain this heart embedded rage, this one gives me trouble and the door remains ajar.

I am stuck. The cracked glass. The hour stand and black sand that not just trickles down and out but spills upward and around the sides and I no longer am able to get the picture- still defiant and incomplete, I know it could just be me, lost within this painting to be profound, I ponder and fume at the empty reflection knowing it needs some heartbeat, a sign of life somewhere, people, and wall to race against. For now, the background is all sky,

For the life of me, I cannot fathom why? 

Painting by Gerrit Dou (1647) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

killing time

To Others-

Watching them, it appears as though the two were dancing around each other, aware of each other toes or playing the same game. Not against each other, or themselves, not a team sport or idle play, just for fun.

No, for mastery. To have won. To be declared-a winner-as if always applicable. It does sometimes. When one has won, over another, they are familiar with the feeling, as though it were the same as before.

The two were not competing, not against each other, occupied in their own two feats.

It was a race against Time.

It was attempted murder somewhere along the way, a second-degree homicidal revenge, an all out assault waged on time, two against eternity, injustice in exchange for all the lives taken by the monster T.

In stead, in lieu of, making more with what they had around, they bet it all, waged what they thought was the same war, fore time,

She was trying to save Time, he was busy killing it. There was none left over for playing games together. 

One view with two eyes

After I realized how few only one of us truly are, as in, the rarity or endangerment of the only child, I see how few may understand me-genuinely-the way my children understand each other but not me and the crucial if not mortal necessity I feel for solitude. And alienation is not ostracizing if one never felt a connection. It is not found in silence. And although there remain tones of this essence underneath, it is too muffled to make out. Somehow I made it through until now, more than once I made it to the outside world, to others, to simply touch something and come back, quickly I recoil from over-stimulation.

I see others acclimating quite nicely. You get used to this, one could say, like the train or the ocean.

Meanwhile, I am watching all this from inside these windows, I see connections and glass; crystal structures and rainbows, and although I stand so low to the ground I feel out of place, a touch of vertigo because I know I could be the only one who smells the rain rising from below, feels the clouds falling on my head, see them spinning…and say too much.

This is why we blink, I realized, it should not be up to us only to refresh the view. 

Watercolor painting by Winslow Homer (1892) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Too soon?

'You had to be there',

was what we used to say back in the dumb days not quite dark ages, before smartphones and googling.

Now, it is all there, unfaded, in easily reassembled pixels, or virtual memory, clouds.

Both of us, born before Search and Share and compare versions of history, or alternative facts, we can crop and auto-adjust the lighting, or apply filters-for warmth.

It is the way he shows me, pointing down the rabbit hole, we were just bunnies.

He says I will come across these pictures myself in the morning so he should explain.

I prepare for the confession, he is pointing to a collage of She’s, some he has known since high school.

The photo of the old school developing film paper type, a bit blurry some seem hazy with sun,

I squint and see girls, maybe sixteen, all dressed and posed as Cinderella’s, he points and says that party was fun, costumes of trying to look twenty-one. I see these young ladies racing, smiling, at what lie ahead.

He asks if I recognize the birthday girl and I do. The others seem more of interest to he, smiling fondly. 

It was obvious. 

Teen girls wishing to become-and portraying to be-savvy little ladies, married to Mr. Right, looking marvelous and wealthy- now -really--only miserly unfair maidens merely mulling over memories and what could be's, looking strangely silly to me.  

Weren't smartphones supposed to parse us all through this?

Some of the photos were duplicates, I had seen them before. Recently.

I have no photos of myself at that same time, at the same age, the boys did not take pictures back then. And then I am thankful. What an opportunity to forget…a thing of the past.

He still stares at his hands and I see sun spots, in case you were wondering. 

These women all worried the men may forget-what was then, what they looked like in a Kodak moment, when they had unlimited possibilities and poorer photo qualities, sadly they say they see

Then as the Best time, now it is too late. I never went to Pity Parties. 

Lately, he has shown me many, he agrees. He must be hungry for the plumped up past. He enjoys a reheated repast. I am never hungry (for leftovers).

He says, see there’s Me and un-pinches the post to zoom in, close as he can. I see.

That is not where he has been looking. He does not confess, he laughs it off walking away.

Close enough.

Things never were the same. He is googling away. I am deleting photos. 

Painting by Édouard Manet, On the Beach (1873) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.