art

Every Moment an Instinct 30/30 by Illume System Studio



Oh, how we compare ourselves to caterpillars.

But it’s like the moths gravitating towards bright lights 
then dying that we mimic.

How we tell children that dreaming is where happiness is made.

That when dreams come true, 
wings unfold with unimaginable colors and take flight.

Yet, the lives of birds, insects and flowers are not so beautiful as we are told.
Every moment an instinct. 
They are not joyful for their magnificence.

Our happiness on the other hand has the habit 
of transforming like clouds to tears.

It’s not true that rain comes from the sky, 
and rain is not falling to the ground.

Why do we lie to ourselves?

At the top, will the view will be enough?

From the top, there is only room for one, 

looking down,
                                              looking down.


From the top, 
       there is 
                only 
                              looking 
                                         down.

For Something Pure to Bring Home 27/30 by Illume System Studio




From far away, 

Squinting sharpens your features,

Brings definition to your edges, 
But you are still too far to touch,
Comprehend,
Have. 


I listened to the music that 

Tickled your ears 
And softened your heart. 


But all I heard 
Was the droning of a tired bee 
Out looking for something 
Pure to bring home. 


And all that squinting for the future 
Brought tears to my eyes. 

What If? 22/30 by Illume System Studio



What if the rain never came?
Drip 
                  drop 
                               dry. 
There'd be nothing to wash 
The tangles from your hair,
Or the soot from your pores. 

What if the sky never filled with clouds?
Drip 
                  drop. 
Each lost droplet a lost idea 
For the clouds are the accumulation 
Of all the ideas and dreams 
Of the people down below. 

What if the thoughts stopped coming?
Drip. 
                                    Drip. 
                                                                     Drip. 
                                                                                                   Drip. 

What if?

When I Heard Your Heartbeat, I Cried 20/30 by Illume System Studio


#NaPoWriMo Challenge: Write a poem that states the things you know. 

The ground beneath my feet is really layers 
and layers of time.
Stepping softly won’t slow my growing old.
Walking in circles only makes me dizzy.

I know I need to embrace this journey. 
The sun doesn’t choose whose eyes to shine in -
I am here as witness to each glimmer. 

Your spring hydrates my crisp summer leaves.
When I heard your heartbeat I cried,  knowing 
The flood was on the way - and I knew how to swim.

I had thought I knew what love was,
I had thought I knew,
But love is like time,
beneath my feet,
with each step,
I grow wiser.

Modified Haiku in The Key of Sea - in three parts 17/30 by Illume System Studio


#NaPoWriMo haiku challenge-4:9:4

Modified Haiku in The Key of Sea
In three parts

I
Another wave 
Won't stop for the shore because it can't. 
Energy's curse. 

II
Compulsive bursts 
Spit up the underbellies of thoughts
Then back to sea. 

III
Then back to shore 
Then back to sea, a marriage of fates
Without a truce. 

All The Things Your Heart Is 16/30 by Illume System Studio




Take all the things your heart is
      And all the things your heart isn't, 

Can them 
      Into a jar 
                                  And watch the flickering lights 
                                                                   Blink on and
                                                                                      off like summer 
                                                                                    Fire bugs on a 
                                                                             Dim lit hazy night.

Above stars will play
                                Hide and seek
                                                  With night clouds 
                                                                             And moon-shadows.

When you go to slumber
Your mind will buzz 
With a million thoughts 
Until 
        Sleep 
                 sets 
                         you 

                                 free.

All at Once Yet Never Together 15/30 by Illume System Studio


Heart and mind. 
                                   A metaphor murmuring 
                                                          And melting evermore
                             Into puddles of 
       Desire and despair. 

    Always all at once yet never together. 

                            Which one could stand alone?

As the sea and the shore join endlessly 
                                                         Rock by pebble by 
                              Sand to silt. 

         I am left to reflect how the 
                                           Waning tide suffers 
                                                                          no remorse 
                                                       As it leaves me. 

                                                                    Returning later, 
                                           It will not grieve that
I have gone. 

Tomorrow is Tax Day 14/30 by Illume System Studio


Each moment is significant. 

For example, this line at the post office. 
Tomorrow is tax day. 

That mom with the two young children. 
What she says to them: wait here. 
How they look at her. 
And they are watching, learning, learning about waiting. 

Children are always learning about waiting. 

The older woman behind me. 
How she chews her fingers and looks around. 
Once she was young and then after that she was somewhere in between 
like me. 

Each line has a memory of another line. 
Whether or not the end of any line gets you what you wanted, 
the wait is often noted, recorded, reviewed. 

Each anticipation of any wait-er has been solidified in the mind; 
calcified blocks of 
personal stories and vignettes. 

How our waiting settles into these clerks, 
perhaps to ground their slowness to slow 
and then seemingly slower.

Did someone press pause on this moment? 
Is it for me to finally notice?
Should I take this time for something significant? 

Conversely, sometimes it seems we believe 
that frantically looking around at anyone 
who will meet our eye will speed up the process. 

We are all waiting for our turn. 
Life is not waiting for us, but oh how we wait for it. 
For it to happen. 
For it to unfold and reveal its mysteries. 

Right now is always fighting our anxiety with 
elongated space between here and there. 

Every line in our life is like time passing. 

How we wait is telling. 
How we wait 
is who we are

In each 
significant moment. 

Somewhere Between Neither 13/30 by Illume System Studio


Yesterday I said I will

Catch up to a breath,
Catch up to the moment.
 
But Today I'll be somewhere between neither.

Try to hold what it was,
It disappears. 

Try to hold it tight,
It begs to be let go. 

There is no future for wanting. 

There is no breath waiting to be had.

A Hard Truth 9/30 by Illume System Studio


Waking up inside small circles
Still asleep. 
Still wrapping around and around and 
Around.

In truth,
The center is hard to locate.

The center has its own center.

Its own center doesn’t exist.

So what am I
Wrapping around if not 
Nothing at all?

This One to the Sea 11/30 by Illume System Studio


Mother takes the hand of little fingers,
kissing them one by one.
This finger down the mountain,
This finger through the trees,
This finger touch the sky,
This one to the sea.

Mother touches so gently each blade of grassy hair on little heads.
Here sprouts the life,
Here the flowing gold,
Here flowering seeds,
Here the dreaming folds.

Mother walks with care, small steps and slowly.
First steps in the water,
First falling to the ground,
First dance with windy music,
First whispers in the round.

River Won't Listen 10/30 by Illume System Studio


River rushing,
Messing through tranquility,
Upsetting soft grasses 
And still trees.

Calm sky clouds
Stay open for a wide sun.
But river shatters the rays
Upon rocks and edges.

River won’t listen 
To birdsong or deer hooves moving.
Instead, tantrum-ing down mountainsides,
And butting up against boundaries and lines.

Always running,
although towards or away from,
We may never know.
Whirl-pooled and streaming puddles of childish tears,
Crying until they’re all dried up.

I'm No Sooner Arrived 8/30 by Illume System Studio

I'm back from the woods where I spend a few days off the grid...I couldn't post for #napowrimo, so the following posts will be catch up posts of what I put together at Breightenbush Hot Springs in Oregon.



Sooner and later I'm always
Looking for shadows and shapes
That disappear behind 
Each distraction,
Dissolve into every reflection
And dip beneath an under-looked depth. 

And later I awake to find 
I'm no sooner arrived. 

A Drop in The Bucket 7/30 by Illume System Studio


Today's writing prompt from NaPoWriMo is: Write about Money

A Drop in the Bucket

It’s in our DNA,
To build upon and build upon.

To multiply, and increase.
To take up more space, 
To be our own. 
To identify what is ‘mine’. 

One penny connecting to another,
Becoming another form of currency, 
Attracting more connections.

The endless becoming of many pieces 
That together represent 
More than the whole.

Culturally the monies display differently, 
But underlying the structure, 
Their concepts, 
look the same.

Like with our own DNA, 
Money buys ninety percent junk, 
Only ten percent for what we need to function.

Often, our wallets suffer from disease and loss. 
Some feel emptiness,
Some are obese,
Some are tainted with bad blood.

Many submit to the God gene and feel all powerful,

While others are stolen
Disappearing into the masses,
Unnoticeable,
                  An insignificant 
                                              drop 
                                                                       in the bucket.

It’s in our DNA to make more.
It’s in our DNA to take over,

As we spend
                              we speak,
                                                                 Through our voices,
                                          we evolve.

Murky Waters 5/30 by Illume System Studio





Murky waters. 

A place to stay away from,
Perhaps a state to beware of.
Or rather something to not get mixed up in. 

It might be too deep,
Too dark,
Unclean or worse. 

Yet, from the womb we emerge
A sooty mess,
All muddy from pure beings blood,

And we arrive full of light,
Having endured the darkest 
Mysteries of life.