[Marlo]
Freed from hellacious daydreams,
bathed in scattered white, bright beams
with thin translucent,
pale green, maple leaves flashing,
he reminisces
about past playful delights
with photos of kids and kites.
Good Kevin Jacobs
recalls joyful photo shoots,
models to recruit,
and studio shots composed
for hot fashion magazines.
His current passion
envisions past persuasions
that water succeeds
to alter through invasion
to move solids to liquids.
Inwardly absorbed
his mind’s eye spied his last shot,
a deed forgotten
until freedom’s gift lifts hope
renewing his vision’s scope.
[Kevin]
Supple sphere, clear, clean,
serenely pristine, simple
droplet of water
suspended by fast optics
when strobe lit to spilt time quick
floats in memory
of youthful images stored
behind closet door
of abandoned apartment
due to a forced departure
to alter one’s plight
through prolonged guided insight
into obscured core,
for I am mostly water,
minute membraned liquid orbs.
Infinitely small
seas of proteins from first cells
mutated to be
basic elements of me
arranged, specified and tied
into agreements
to cooperate with goals
over time to heed
the command to understand
the choices made to succeed
and breed better seeds
to survive other creatures’
need to feed on us.
Yet seawater gags sailors
on desert-dried wooden ships
that slipped far beyond
their filled-to-the-brim barrels
into parched peril.
Liquidized I(s) die to see
raindrops from blue cloudless skies
that deride soft pleas
from bold men seeking more gold
to hold themselves high
above all other creatures
including fellow humans
whose basic features
are our species mandate
that equate men’s lives
as singular expressions
of one manifestation.
To ride vast oceans
and die dry, dehydrated
by greed’s desire
requires true ignorance
of why one should ride the tide.
Bill, are we the same?
Explain our difference,
with significance.
[Hastings]
Apart from my good looks and wit
I read more books and am taller
by a most significant inch.
You, the smaller, look up to me
as it should be between mentor
and inexperienced brilliance.
Kevin]
What a pompous ass!
You better laugh heartily
to mask your weak speech
and barter words pleasantly
to achieve veiled harmony.
Lunacy behaves
erratically spastic
producing rude fits
equipped with strong flailing arms
and youth’s railing rage gone wrong.
You grin and laugh more,
but I’m a dangerous man
quite hard to withstand.
[Hastings]
My friend, I will take my chances.
A soft risk enhances Life’s bisque
of friend and foe simmered in milk
spiced with uncertainty and guile.
** * **
[Kevin]
Do you remember Light Sphere,
that photo I shot last year,
one drop suspended
intended to freeze moments
from first emergence
to final reabsorbing,
cataclysmic convergence.
A blink of an eye
and we all must swiftly die:
juiceless, shriveled forms.
But water rejuvenates,
evaporates as vapor
to cling to cloud dust
to grow robust and freefall
as single droplets
crashing on Earth’s dry, parched skin
to bring forth green from dull brown.
Pooled in crevices
excesses first spill over
sharp edged rock worn smooth
beneath light gurgling sounds,
as fresh water wares down mounds
that bar its race home.
Confined rain binds together
to morph when constrained
into small brooks that converge
into feisty streams that merge
into wide rivers
that cut deep gorges to forge
grand canyon landscapes
for awe struck eyes that will see
water’s soft severity
that facilitates
the rush to the global source
of Life’s wet resource.
But Henry Twisting can’t sue
to renew his well fed life.
He is gone for good.
Should anyone want him back,
We lack such power.
