By: Doug Bolling

Urn Times

0ne night a year I attend the
esteemed artist telling of his life,
his travels through the long
tunnels that become poems,

poems in their rich cream,
their motions and sounds
that lift from the page
and mingle with the
shadows.

0ne night a year I join the
inner circle of three or four
passing the wine and Brie
around and around

until sleep or dawn
takes over and brings
the end of awe,
of the urn slowly
turning offering its
stories.

0ne night a year I leave
my feet behind and travel
in the brilliant fantasia
of image, of metaphors
linked, dissolved,
reborn.

The wars of humanity are there,
rendered moments of sudden
light in the labyrinth,
the death bed,
the arms of a lover.

0ne night a year I witness
the delicate balance
between life and art,
their cousinage,
their apartness.

                  The unknowings



                         Rather the flight of the bird passing and leaving no trace.

                                       _______The Keeper of Sheep XLIII, Fernando Pessoa

The two infinities
Pascal concluded:
the huge, the small.

It rains and mind
divides itself.

So much sought
So much unknown.

So then to reason.
The three ks of that:
knower, knowing, known.

So much separation there,
so many false steps.

Think slippage, think a
labyrinthine lostness.

Spillage shameless as an
autumn leaf falling,
falling.

Even love in all its shapes
and faces.

The ancients seemed to understand:
all things arrive, linger awhile,
vanish in the universal
dust.

So here you are:
a betweener,
restless Pandarus slurring
back and forth in dream
or frenzy or whatever
worse.

You the bookish one trapped
in a thousand texts
that promise much
in the reaching
but fail to touch.

As now a sea gull lofting
skyward whatever message
already gone to cloud
and distance,

in its feathered grace
elusive as the ever shifting dunes
in winds just off the sea,
your laggard words
of small avail.

LITYARD21

Doug Bolling

      Urn Times

0ne night a year I attend the
esteemed artist telling of his life,
his travels through the long
tunnels that become poems,

poems in their rich cream,
their motions and sounds
that lift from the page
and mingle with the
shadows.

0ne night a year I join the
inner circle of three or four
passing the wine and Brie
around and around

until sleep or dawn
takes over and brings
the end of awe,
of the urn slowly
turning offering its
stories.

0ne night a year I leave
my feet behind and travel
in the brilliant fantasia
of image, of metaphors
linked, dissolved,
reborn.

The wars of humanity are there,
rendered moments of sudden
light in the labyrinth,
the death bed,
the arms of a lover.

0ne night a year I witness
the delicate balance
between life and art,
their cousinage,
their apartness.

###

The unknowings

Rather the flight of the bird passing and leaving no trace.
_______The Keeper of Sheep XLIII, Fernando Pessoa

The two infinities
Pascal concluded:
the huge, the small.

It rains and mind
divides itself.

So much sought
So much unknown.

So then to reason.
The three ks of that:
knower, knowing, known.

So much separation there,
so many false steps.

Think slippage, think a
labyrinthine lostness.

Spillage shameless as an
autumn leaf falling,
falling.

Even love in all its shapes
and faces.

The ancients seemed to understand:
all things arrive, linger awhile,
vanish in the universal
dust.

So here you are:
a betweener,
restless Pandarus slurring
back and forth in dream
or frenzy or whatever
worse.

You the bookish one trapped
in a thousand texts
that promise much
in the reaching
but fail to touch.

As now a sea gull lofting
skyward whatever message
already gone to cloud
and distance,

in its feathered grace
elusive as the ever shifting dunes
in winds just off the sea,
your laggard words
of small avail.

---