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Tag: beauty

The Thread That Holds

Published on February 24, 2005

The thread that fasts the edges of the fabric
to link the warp and woof which forms our life
is tenuous, at best – so thin and fragile.
This tapestry we take so much for granted,
whose boundaries extend to memory’s end,
is but a million of these strands and slivers.

That it remains a whole is quite surprising,
considering how little work it takes
to cause a snag, or worry loose a seam.
The pattern fades, and shows its age in places
where time and stress have worn through either side;
through these holes often come epiphanies:

it’s where the surface thins and turns transparent,
that life beyond our isolated realm
makes faint connection to our sense of known.
In those quite rare and brief enlightened moments,
true balance becomes difficult to find;
despite the danger, we must seek the edge

and look to the abyss that lies beyond,
to find within ourselves the fabric’s mending,
or pulling that loose thread, unravel all.
Because in truth, we are just as connected
(despite the separate spools from which we start)
as those fine strands of nothing in themselves;

and can together form a thing of beauty
beyond the ken of isolated minds.
If just an inch is lost, we are no more.

24 FEB 2005

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The Heart of Beauty

Published on February 7, 2005

When Beauty stands alone at last
upon the wretched reefs of time
and watches as her suitors sink
beyond the pale horizon line
where tied to masts of providence
they’ve closed their senses to her charms
and set their sextants to new courses
far from her beseeching arms,

no matter then how sweet her song,
when each note, lost to swells of surf,
is but a whisper on the wind,
a worthless seed in barren earth,
and even in her own soft ears
will sound like scratches on the rocks,
a cackle from a passing gull
who sees in this no paradox.

Then bitter, she will turn her head
and swim back slowly to the shore,
her salt tears mixed with brine and sand,
and come down to the beach no more.
For Beauty needs an audience,
despite her bold and showy ways;
even the proudest actor fails
in time, without applause or praise.

And Beauty, how we keep apart,
in careful boxes locked and sealed,
her essence from her mind, and heart,
and with that care, is hate revealed.
For we would have her, just for that
which titillates us and our lust
and not be bothered with her soul,
though have a soul, she does, and must.

We drive her off to lonely shores
or high in towers, where she pines
to share a dark and loveless cell
among the dead, like Prosperpine.
For ’tis the trophy we would claim,
the right to Beauty for our sake;
and care not if the heart we cage,
without our love, can only break.

06 FEB 2005

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Before Attending Miss Teen Louisiana Training

Published on August 8, 2004

We do not want to go and sit
for three long hours of this shit.
We do not think it well-spent time
to learn to walk the judging line
or show your beauty, just skin deep
to leeches, dilettantes and creeps.
Revealing if our wallets reach
quite deep enough, that’s what they teach.

But we will drive, in monkey suits
and gag ourselves on their false fruits,
suppress our thoughts, lest they betray
the fact that we despise the way
these things are run, and come about,
attempting to smooth out the doubt
that if you have good looks and poise
(at least as deemed by vapid boys)
you don’t need brains, or self, or sense
just ego and experience.

Alas, the time is drawing near –
hair washed, clothes pressed, complexion clear.

So off to some great hotel, we
advance to meet sad destiny.

In my back pocket rests a check
which writ, will debit self-respect
and add more funding to the cause
of empty, self-indulged applause.

There is no up-side to this thing.
There are no praises I would sing
to lift up pageants as some good.
I’d pull the plug, if I but could.

08 AUG 2004

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Building Around a Thing

Published on April 23, 2004

“I know it when I see it,” said the man
who vainly tried conveying truth to friends.
“When it is absent, the space that it leaves
unfilled describes it clearly, end to end;

and though there are no words to put it plain,
nor etchings I could render without flaw,
there is a quality about a thing
that you would grasp at once, if you just saw.”

“Alas,” replied one listener, “when you speak,
I can appreciate your sense of it;
it vibrates through your being with each word,
as if using yourself as conduit;

but sadly, in the context of your speech,
the futile nature of your quest is seen –
to clothe in logic’s frame that beyond reach
one must assume a great deal in between.”

“And, too,” answered another, “there is this:
that beauty is too frequently construed
to be only one aspect of the whole:
the menu, presentation, or the food;

but when it crosses our familiar lines
and cannot be contained in narrow themes,
the most common reaction is disdain.
We dare not seek for substance in our dreams

beyond those limits, set and firm, agreed
by all to guide where useful knowledge ends.
True, by this means we seem to guarantee
that we are not evolving.” “It depends,”

the first man answered, holding up a rose.
“There are some constants, in spite of our toil
to obfuscate our instinct’s depth of field.
At some point, reason’s gifts begin to spoil

and eat away at simple, common joy.
We lose that sense of awe, and we are doomed
to live as if machines, devoid of cause,
the boxes that we build ourselves, our tombs.

23 APR 2004

When I am working on a problem
I never think about beauty.
I only think about
how to solve the problem.
But when I have finished;
if the solution is not beautiful;
I know it is wrong.

— Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983)

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Rilke

Published on August 10, 2003

Where did you find the most inspiration,
as each line cut like a diamond-edged drill
through layers of effluvia that still
the seeking heart? Was it your frustration

with a cold and unfeeling world, that sought
to silence any expression of joy
in the blossoming soul of a young boy
whose only sinful act was being caught

worshipping beauty in ordinary
things? Was it a way to battle against
each day’s regimen of daily dross,

the hardness that can infect one’s very
core and so cheapen the experience
of living that its end is no great loss?

10 AUG 2003

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Hidden Beauty

Published on January 22, 2003

Looking out from behind the holly bush
as the early morning fog gently lifts,
watching the gauzed-tinted light softly push
its way into the air like a shy mist,

one can almost forget the waking world,
with its constant focus on ringing clocks
and deadlines for conflict. To find the pearl,
one must grasp firm the mad oyster, and shuck

quickly, to avoid contamination.
But it is there – in the quiet wren’s song,
and the sharp greeting clicks of a squirrel;

there is enough time for contemplation,
to explore one’s choices, sense right and wrong
and augment life in this sad, troubled world.

22 JAN 2003

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