Author: thinayr

You, In Colors

I think of you in colors
I mix them on the palette of my mind:
Blue-green
Like the ocean held in jade
A purple so deep
I tumble into its embrace
Chestnut brown
Rich and sweeping
The scent of your hair
The warmth of your skin
For twenty years I have painted you this way
Hung them on the central pillar of my world
Now I see the folly of art
The guile of painters
I don’t blame you for burning my portraits
Idealized caricatures to fight
The loneliness that stalks me
I must face the depths of my faults
How foolish I’ve been
To think of you in color

~r

Transformations of the Spirit

A half-remembered embellishment in the spirit of Nietzche

Ocean

Oneness
Cast off at birth
The baby is the ocean
An expanse without boundary
Sensations are totality without name
Selfless, other-less, wordless and timeless…
Until the waves reach the shore and reflect back
And the sensations most struck become familiar
Patterns of light and sound are remembered
Infinity settles into its next selfhood
Crying out with selfish needs
To a motherly world
Cradled within
Oneness

Camel

Polarity
Parental masters
The youth is the camel
Kneeling down to the ground
Pridefully incanting “put a load on me”
Shouldering the weight of cultural fullness
Until burden becomes new knowledge and muscle
Reflexive memories from countless acts of service
Patterns of provision, protection and care
Infinity engaged and sustained in time
Young boys and girls shaped
By values of elders
Seeing only
Polarity

Lion

Truth
Responsibility
Young adults are lions
The heavier the youthful load
The more powerful the culture’s pride
Carrying the light and defending the ways
The frontier’s edge is met with cunning and claws
Where the greatest dragon stands fearsome guard
Halting progress with fires of “thou shalt”
Each scale emblazoned with authority
Only the fearless lion can slay
Expanding knowledge
Transcending
Truth

Dragon

Revolution
The dragon slain
Lions become dragons
The brighter the new Truth
The grander the shrine to protect it
The next generation inheriting the wisdom
Dragons make lions make camels out of oceans
Until the waves reach the shore and reflect back
Civilizations rising and falling in this flow
Patterns remembered and forgotten
Infinity weaving life in death
Carrying on the spark
Of our creation’s
Evolution

~r

Renga/Renga (one)

R/J

Trees in forest fall
Paper calendars whisper
Winter is dry now

Dry hands, dry eyes, dry earth
a sky as cold and clear as steel

Earth mother dreaming
Weaving living forms from death
Gifts fuel and spark

The fuel had lay in waiting
We encroached, greeted by flame

Flame, fuel, earth exhales…
And castles turn to ashes
To dust we return

J/R

Hawks and highways both
Unfurl themselves to the sun
Absorb the new day

Highways flying overland
Asphalt boundless as feather

Feathered silhouettes
Guide us home, through receding
Snow, and carrion

Home inside these walls, our dreams
Soar with their spirit’s secret…

What is a secret
But a path yet untraveled
Awaiting fresh eyes

Anniversary

This bed
She told me
Is no safe harbor
I’ll scour barnacles
Cut moorings
Burn maps
Take back my soul
To give to the wind

Your mind
She told me
Is anchored 
Dragging the bottom
Caught on old stories
Of dead selves
And journeys that
Were never ours

The past
She said
Is gone
The future
Uncertain
Erase yourself
In this truth
Only then
Can our lines
Be drawn again

~r

Righters

Poetry
Flows in isolation
Thoughts of others
Wax brilliant as the moon
Against a darkened sky

Ordering the world to our thoughts
Fears and desires held captive
At the tip of a pen

Artistry
Is a public celebration
Living poetry in the company of others
Entwining stories like dancing leaves
In the bright blue light of day

Engaged and present
Enjoying the poetry of life un captured
Hearts open, minds quiet
We become Artists
Living the Poetry of Earth

~r

Canvas

Hearts pounding
Bodies blending
Their histories like paint

In a palate of sheets
Reds and greens and purples
Spilling out in new forms

Massaged from containers
No longer capped by shame

Forbidden dreams of
Soft flushed bodies
Naked and vibrant atop canvas
Possessed by creative spirits

Tracing secret curves
Teasing desires from darkness
Sculpting pleasures that erupt
Giving life back to stone

Lovers as artists
Each encounter the raw surface
On which to spill their souls
Revealing in this dusty life

The fullest forms of the spirit

Cage

A bird of paradise 
in a wooden cage
Made from branches
We both collected

They have kept me safe
From this creature who
With selfish pleasure
Could devour my very soul

Broken open now:
hearts and minds
This cage was never
Woven from the Earth
The branches are the trees 

Above the blue, wings stretched
My soul glistening in every feather 
Joining the souls of all those brave enough to see it
Without laying claim to its beauty

~r

Five Seven Five

There is great power
In the act of limiting
The ingredients
Of our creativity.
Bounds amplify art.

The great shapers knew:
Harmony comes from balance,
Relating fixed forms
In patterns through time and space.
Melodies from scales,
Awakenings on canvas
Born from fixed palettes.

Our minds are the bounds
Limiting each new frontier…
But art shines within.
Reflecting the eternal
Creative power.

~r

Opportunity Cost

For a simple exchange, my good sir, you may buy:
A slick, polished future, with views from on high.

A seat in a chair so soft and so right,
When you get there you’ll never remember the fight.

Or the things that you loved that you missed on your way,
Up this hill where on top is that big, bright “Some Day.”

You’ve made a fine choice my discerning, new friend,
For a much grander future awaits you in the end.

All I need from you now, to make best come to be,
Is to pay for your dreams with a low one-time fee.

It’s all waiting for you, so act now! Don’t delay!
Success can be yours!
…The price is today.

~r