oh your ennui, henri…
the plain rain of henri, you would think a french sounding fellow would have a bit more flourish, no, just a wet blanket really, no howling or even soft blowing winds for that matter, just straight up and down rain, what a pity for a hurricane, once downgraded to a tropical storm, no more, just a collection of clouds with a core, a big messy spigot floating over central park, poor barry manilow, at least he got to start, I can only imagine the mass of rats running relays in subway tunnels, backstroke? I suppose there is a rat stroke, although I hope not see it in person, leave those olympics to the feline persuasion (hopefully hunting the things out to extinction – although I know better), maybe pizza rat will make a pizza raft, quite the tik-tok that would make, fivel would have nothing on that take, or even nimh for that matter, I can only imagine what might lurk in the flood waters of the city, perhaps like that scene in star wars, as I imagine the contents of a garbage compactor are much the same as a city street swept by water into pools of filth, so I suppose henri, after all, had some teeth, gummy-drooling wet ones gnawing and swirling at ankles and feet, I shudder to think… thank goodness for the suburbs…
Author: David Koblentz
Inspiration is a fickle muse. Sometimes empty, sometimes overwhelming. These words I write are my own but they seem driven by something else (perhaps?).
the peak and flow: glory
‘glory‘
for I recall
the gilded halls
the glory, of my own memory
like a museum, for all
I know marble is slow to fade
locked-staring into a slower realization;
on those days I was the prize
a stunning stallion gliding by
like flashes, stills, brief catches
all this resident inside, but spent
days behind-number greater now went
for alas there still remains a spark
for I recall the time I was a king
and now my throne is bare
and so has been
to stride these halls and live again
in the past, what seems now hidden
within a shell, broken mantle given
the glory shines less dim
suns-set in eyes, a horizon looms
might I capture one more ray of light
and ride out this diminished glory ‘fore the tomb.
reading the leaves (not tea, stream of conch…)
the heavy summer air is full-ripe-pregnant-hanging-low with humidity, I can see the reading of the leaves nodding that a heavy rain is coming, my hand strum-slide-strokes up over on one of my newer shoots of bamboo and the protruding nodes, not unlike a lover, perhaps as intimate – as hairs on a limb, I whisper things in my mind to my plants, and when they do well I think they comprehend, like children do, I have conversations with my garden residents, for there are far crazier and more dangerous things to do with your time, when they start answering me though, that might be the time to question this or me, for now though I will still whisper and listen to the feel, the interloper wind is sneaky and subtle, a slight coolness slips in the door, cracks, gifting a micro oasis to the opposite palm of my hands as I walk, I want to stand here forever in the right now, however, I imagine even more of a release when the weight of the rain breaks the dam, so I wait…
(a few hours later)
I drifted off to sleep, expecting to be woken by a rollicking torrent-tempest worthy of noah, well, forty minutes at least, not forty nights at best, heck, I would even take a nice ten minutes and forty seconds less to break this humidity, I would like to tell you that I peeked outside and saw evidence of such a flood impress, but no, maybe just the equivalent of spit, or a light misting, as the idea of spit conjures a visceral reaction, ‘misting’ sounds calming, like a day spa commercial and flute music, so I suppose I need to work on my communication skills with my local nature guides, and perhaps… a better weather app.
(but wait, just now… I do hear some distant thunder… like hope off rubber bounce…)
notes… as I have said before this blog is me, not just works, works I do on the spot, this is not some contrived thing, this is more a diary than anything, a diary in works as I go, and maybe you learn a thing or four, I often wonder if anyone reads any of this babble outside of ‘likes’ thrown, I wonder, but honestly it does not matter, I am going to plow forward like a… and um, plow ? (but aren’t plows towed… damn semantics)… so anyone who reads this, thanks, your time and thoughts are appreciated, I can only imagine somewhere there are those I resonate with, one, two, a thousand? not important, just anyone alive in the right now, and if you read me you understand how I value the right now…. the universe conspired to have me posting at this moment in a billion years of time… because I am, and so are you, existing right now that is…
Among the Living… (stream of conch.)
Among the living
There are times I feel outside the world. Maybe by my own choosing or belief that I am the only one who understands, for surely I am, the only one that is, the only exact conglomeration of atoms at this time, this place, this stanchion in all history of the universe, but the common threads of all are what made me, just a different burst of color here and there, I think we all wish for more even beyond our miraculous existence, and who knows, maybe I have a twin out there, maybe not now, maybe not then, perhaps a thousand years in either direction, for numbers are finite, at some point that is, all things are, including myself, but how do I bind myself to this fate, to feel this rush and desire down into my hemoglobin, to my core, my soul, should I have one, the force running through me is just random circumstance? no magic to operate this primate puppet of late? perhaps… but what does the ending of that tale contemplate to fate, rather I would believe in a greater voyage, but yet, I feel anchored in the mundane, separate, distracted, locked in my own domain, a comforted prisoner in the plane of my choosing, soothing, like a bean bag chair I can melt into, a dream I can project into, but this is the living dream, regardless of circumstance, for I am better off than most, lesser than some, same at the end of the day regardless of outcome or income, so what tethers me, what can bind me to lash out into that sea, the unknown pending reality, not just the expected casualty, what more springs from behind doors, beyond perception, beyond regular-ation, a summation of stars, mulling about in a frenzy, with all the importance of the ending of time but all the importance of a meandering summer fire fly, luminescent, perhaps not so much outside, luminescent, from the inside, but how do I shine? For among the living I must go, but like a traveled river comes and goes, rocks, falls, whirlpools, traps, all there to shatter rafts, or at least test them, I am afraid to drown, but yet how else can I make it down this… this river path, bobbing to the whims or furious with paddle smacks, sometimes just to let the lazy river ride, spinning in circles in a mesmerized tide, no real progress made as the sun sets and rises into days, feet dangle, reflections mangle, hands trace, water soothes over, where are my fellow travelers, for as much as I feel different we are all floating just the same, for whom to I make a flotilla run, or a house boat appointment, or party on the banks of the shore for awhile, with like minded folks of like minded times, what shall keep me afloat, my connection, an umbilical reaction, a collateral reaction, to stay, not stray, among the living, if I have not learned now, when, if I can not turn back then, I must come to join and find a common hand…
notes… written in one stretch today @ work directly into that scion of technology, ahem, notepad, if you meet me you would say I am an affable fellow but there I times I feel isolated, and comfort in that isolation, which becomes habit in a dwelling, even mulling about the world you can be tip-toeing through the shadows of others, they just not might know, I think there is something to the summer, the sun, a reminder to bloom when you have the chance, there will be plenty of time to not be alive, worry about that later…
lost.love.letters.
I have not slept the same since, again
without you
within the fold
of the cradle
of my arms,
in my arms.
now, those paintings
are long ago
haunting my attic
covered with a cloth
but still I know
snap.
went outside just now, damn, the musty heavy smell of passing summer rain, the pre-swamp freshness a mix of grass and pavement tar, the dank, utter dank heaviness of humidity waiting to pounce on the dawn, it is almost intoxicating, maybe that was more the glass of bourbon on the porch earlier, but no, this is a seasonal smell, and a tell, a telling of a story, a trigger of memory as this time comes around once more, as the years pass they convey more and tell less as my own experience fills in the rest, perception, my walking through a moment that will never be… again.. amazement, miracles in the simple, and I am allowed to be a conductor, my own being fleeting, but yet allowed this meeting, I take in a deep breath, yes, this is august, the wet, the heat, the near rot but sweet, soon too soon the sun will set on this burst of life, but for now, life is rife and wild, and all about… take it all in my friends, take it all in, from a car window down, a beach bound toe in sand, a hike into forestland, even the baked cookie flavors wafting up from the driveway cracks… such is the now, so take it in.
fire, for we are, then we are embers, and then ash…
for I am fire-
seems the obvious enough,
and fuel for this-
shall run scant, I know this
but still persist- to burn on
I know not the source but yet can speculate
for the writers, the authors, the morai
“to the fates !”, dare I
for more puppeteers than scribes
pull on strings rather than script the divine
to fellow flames, such as they were
shelley, shakes and thoreau may contemplate
crown thy mantle with a metaphor
might they be ashes now in the evermore
but the burn-marks still inspire scores
even when spoken toward the dwindling dawn
such might believe the theogony
to spark the daughters of ananke
to dwell in this most glorious dull
a tool of the realm upon the shoal
such as the fuel does inspire
such as the wake does drain the soul
for this I know
for I, am fire.
fuzzy (trapped between the two or?)
“fuzzy“
is this a dream
or a memory
or the chi.ld.mera of the two?
tea for two, only with you, of course
a fuzzy room, white-light diffused blinds
forms form obtuse outlines
no sharp designations or edges, soften
red tinted-felt tucked in victorian furniture, plum scented
fancy attachments adorned to wanton crowns
perhaps I am phasing out-
I hear myself, having conversations
I hear answers, but in no language to my understanding
might I panic in this blurred reality?
somehow though calm has the best of me
is this how this ends?
is this the heaven of the self?
or paradise lost in paradox
set beyond all living clocks
built inside our inner blocks
limbo cycles lock to lock
notes… going a bit old school metal on you… this band became… nah, I won’t ruin it…
thoughts from the porch… (lost. love. letters. edition)
‘a wash of nature’
humans, above the animals we place ourselves, perhaps, but instinct, still an unseen force coursing through our being, and maybe, maybe that is what drew me outside, my own subconscious need to survive, or at least better my now
sometimes the days feel crushing, as if bricks are piling on and you have no choice but to take the tension, the tension of pushing back to not snap in half like a twig, and every minute seems to make the ground softer, the weight larger, until you are just a witch ditched under the corner of a house in a tale on some small CRT
so I venture outside, the banal but rewarding task of watering my bamboo plants, they don’t talk back, or at least not yet, they do not have names but certainly have faces I have come to recognize, and then I notice to the west, the breeze hits, the type of breeze that just might be carrying a parcel as a portent to some distant traveling storm, but the clouds they stay quaint, without a word the breeze speaks to me, washing over me, not like water, like only wind can, touching but not, invading but cordial, intimate but not intrusive, I stop – arms out just to bathe in this, a wash of nature, so I sit down on my concrete steps, trying to capture the breath in, watching the water drip from pots just wetted, the drops out-slowing with every moment of age, as all things, trying to bask in the last embers thrown of day, fading, not dying for I know the world is spin, just resting, just sleeping while I sleep
and I think of you, of all the lips have mine have touched none have been as yours, nerve endings are only the beginning, the vessel, a means, I remember peering and curling up in your eyes, so I could immerse myself in every inch of you, to be one, and now I am just one, I dream of you here, even now, all these years later, I still wish you to be here, quiet in this moment, together, what else is better? I’ve not known, I’ve not found a mere sustainable sliver since, a key, a door, no – just rambling wilderness guided by the faded scribblings of a once fierce cartographer, no more, a meandering nomad yearning for mirages to appear, something so intense even if pure hallucination might mend, at least for a moment, I wish you were here right now so I could tell you everything and nothing, just to feel your gentleness once more, just once more, I slide into what was, what could have been, but no, these silent moments in a comforting summer breeze relent, the soft tin-din of seasonal locusts in chorus, crickets chiming in as the light dims, in my mind I reach for your hand – to know it is gone, so I sit within the phrase-waves of this somber summer song, stripped away of all the world around, my focus has but only sound, I whisper in the most warming tone, as if lost in your sight-line, if only once more…
“I will always love you”
notes… stream of my consciousness, all rivers bleed into the sea, or at least they do… for me, sometimes.
on passing an old cemetery…
there- ! storm clouds a’ gathering
o’er the grave- of my brave- dead king
pray-tell, what portents, will this bring
more dead wars-
more dead kings.
notes… sometimes I don’t know from where it comes (inspiration that is), I was passing a cemetery, not as old as the country, much older than years I can know by touch… and the words just popped into my head, the idea of a surviving warrior, longing for former glory but also realizing the horror…
Shades of My Garden 