dogtrax @dogtrax@mastodon.social

Perhaps I need to do another #introduction here, since it has been some time since I did it last. My regular forays here include composing #smallpoems, writing #smallstories, sharing #smallquotes and other connected sharing threads. If you write there, I'll try to respond. I may even remix as a way to honor your writing. I try to keep my heart and mind open.

Run, rainbow, run

Drop your colors
from the sun
Drip your ink
while we're young

Run, rainbow, run

#smallpoems

https://flic.kr/p/2kHsK4c

Chalcentrous
(Facing any challenge)

No matter
the battle
the barrier
the challenge

We still enter
quiet expanses
with inner strength

With fortitude
of ancient netherstone,
roboreus, yet rooted

in bronze

#smallpoems

Inspired by an exploration of the word in The Cabinet of Calm (Soothing Words for a Troubled World) by Paul Anthony Jones

Little Geometry

One single silent
snowflake, loose
– a goose lost from
its group – slow-motion
tumbler

Its landing softened
by her outstretched
hand: melted time

then, her lips
on skin
on ice
on sand

We're lost in a
moment we may
never understand

#smallpoems

"Moon marked and touched by sun"
— from A Woman Speaks by Audre Lorde

A man might
mark her moon
and trace her sun

what a man can't do
is walk her shoes
for she's the spirit
of grace and love

the one, and only one

#smallpoems

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1DBGC0NvC8bfFjvcXAThA6jUDbYagJ-7E4weKJwmR0jo/present?slide=id.gc2d0c0af44_0_0

Catacosmesis
(efforts at organizing what’s disordered)

There is no sense
in making sense
of this nonsense
but still, we pretend to try

with lines and lists
and maps and clicks
and written paper slips
of disorganized crimes

Some just let it go,
for one really never knows
where information goes
when it flows from our mind

#smallpoems

Inspired by an exploration of the word in The Cabinet of Calm (Soothing Words for a Troubled World) by Paul Anthony Jones

”... meeting you, exposed, in open water”
— from Something You Should Know by Clint Smith

We saw the otters from afar,
just beyond the beaver dam,
past the old abandoned yard
of broken tractors and forest bones,
debris brought down by last winter's
storms;

their eyes were at the surface,
floating on the quiet tension
of our curiosity, neither scared
nor angry but no doubt wondering
what ripples we might make
in our wake as the river called us
onward

#smallpoems

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1xvTiQ1EAangk3wl0aA2rkyNfD8cURdCDoS8413lArLo/edit#slide=id.gb5f2d9d6fc_0_12

This wind -
this ferocious wind -
this wind that sings
with gust and din,
this wind that brings
a fury as it flashes in,
'til I'm wide awake
to the siren call,
and up and out
before the day
begins

#smallpoems

Carpe Noctem
(feeling as if time is running out)

Diem’s sister
haunts the sky of night,
the voice of history
beholden to none but light

as Noctem’s journey
tugs each of us along,
the passage of time
singing morning’s song

#smallpoems

Inspired by an exploration of the word in The Cabinet of Calm (Soothing Words for a Troubled World) by Paul Anthony Jones

"We walk into that which we cannot see"
— from Elizabeth Alexander, Praise Song for the Day

Always there is
unknown, uncertainty,
a doorway opening into
obscurity

Lives are spent
considering options
of inquisitive regret
or incremental
courage

for the movement
that brings us forward
into something
we cannot ever see

until we're there

#smallpoems

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1xvTiQ1EAangk3wl0aA2rkyNfD8cURdCDoS8413lArLo/edit#slide=id.gb5f2d9d6fc_0_0

Beaute Du Diable
(worried about losing looks, with age)

You never told yourself
you were beautiful,
when you were young

It’s only after time’s passage
and your portrait, painted,
has it even begun

to spin its net,
that regret that arrives
to us all, growing old,

the ones whose
mirrored eyes know:
this, story, too, will be told

#smallpoems

Inspired by an exploration of the word in The Cabinet of Calm (Soothing Words for a Troubled World) by Paul Anthony Jones

"And the sweet earth flying from the thunder"

from Storm Ending by Jean Toomer

Soundscapes
beckon, frighten
foreboding thoughts
tighten the spine

There is light
before the sound
There is sound
before the night

This winter god's
a vengeful sky,
with broken pieces
on the ground

#smallpoems

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1udol7-pcOIJ3yiFtdG6RTj7gAHRXN7ecYM3gqJsymzE/present?slide=id.gbc263d0c5f_0_15

"... visioning the world
where none is lonely ..."

- from Frederick Douglass by Robert Hayden

Freed but frozen,
the man stands -
the statue commands
our attention

Words reach from
the pages of the past
with stories, and the
little boy pauses and
stares and touches
the bronze lectern

as if to rub off
into his own hands
the forever call
for freedom

#smallpoems

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1udol7-pcOIJ3yiFtdG6RTj7gAHRXN7ecYM3gqJsymzE/present?slide=id.gbb0b13625e_3_9
and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_Frederick_Douglass_(U.S._Capitol)

Autoschedism
(Definition: Spontaneity, to break from routine)

Even when
the needle’s stuck

We’re still the ones
who’ll break the rut

by doing something
unexpectedly nuts

like turn the compass
inward, on love

#smallpoems

Inspired by an exploration of the word in The Cabinet of Calm (Soothing Words for a Troubled World) by Paul Anthony Jones

One for every one
thousand; one thousand
for every one

Collectively composing
eulogies, etching ink
in the shadows of candles
of lights of remembrance

One for every one
thousand; one thousand
for every one

#smallpoems

inspired by the candlelight vigil marking the US pandemic death toll at 500,000 (and acknowledging, too, the 2.5 million, worldwide)

Any writer working
with words easily
becomes dazzled
by science;

Like mapping
the Sun's magnetic fields:

each daily interruption
a cause for disruption,
light years beyond
our vision and thought

Such science, fuels art

#smallpoems

inspired by https://scitechdaily.com/unprecedented-map-of-the-suns-magnetic-field-created-by-clasp2-space-experiment/

Oh, Root, can't you,
too, do
the corkscrew?
Can't you
twirl
and waggle
and boogie your way

t
h
r
o
u
g
h

Or maybe you can't yet dance
because you can't yet feel
the rhythm of the soil,
singing its song just for you

#smallpoems

inspired by
https://phys.org/news/2021-02-time-lapse-reveals-hidden-roots.html

”... some roots can't do the corkscrew dance. The culprit, they found, is a mutation in a gene called HK1 that makes them grow straight down, instead of circling and meandering like other roots do.”

Found letters;
Gathered archives
older than dust
and time,

boxed from way
back, when; then
we start to re-read
the world,

following each step,
in order to find
our way forward,
again

#smallpoems

— inspired by a passage about Sankofa, an African (Akan) symbol of learning from the past – from #write4right

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1udol7-pcOIJ3yiFtdG6RTj7gAHRXN7ecYM3gqJsymzE/present?slide=id.gbc263d0c5f_0_0