ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for? (from the poem Andrea del Sarto by Robert Browning)
what’s a heaven for?
23 Tuesday Apr 2024
Posted Uncategorized
in23 Tuesday Apr 2024
Posted Uncategorized
inah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for? (from the poem Andrea del Sarto by Robert Browning)
03 Saturday Sep 2022
Tags
eternity, forgetting, love, memory, poem, poems, poetry, slipstream, time
i haven’t forgotten you
though memories have faded
and days go by when i don’t think of you as often as before
all those moments who knows where they go
will there ever be a time when we can slip into a stream
of past memories and let it carry us away
i remember most the feeling of nearness
of your being by my side
for some reason that has never gone away
the other day i felt i could open a door
any door
and there you’d be waiting
perhaps this is what will always remain
an essence a hope a dream
of what our forever will be
25 Saturday Jun 2022
Posted Uncategorized
inTags
ballet, creative writing, dance, dancer, dancers, fiction, flash fiction, memory, short story
she was once a famous dancer. in her brief time on the scene, she had only to rise onto pointe in second position, looking away in a show of disdain, and her steely resolve forbade you from looking at anyone or anything else. (such a moment was captured in a photo by edward weston hanging on the studio’s entryway wall.)
i knew her much later when she was white-haired and dragged a useless leg up a long staircase and across a dance floor to reach a throne of sorts from which she taught young children to dance but where she really dissuaded most from even trying.
in many ways she had become a parody: the cynical broken-down wretch who never got the acclaim she believed she so rightly deserved, and it had made her angry and vindictive, even to young children (like me). she had her favorites of course, the ones with beautiful quick feet, lovely elongated limbs, and a certain ineffable allure, but she ridiculed the rest of us who were lacking in such attributes.
it was customary to accept her verbal blows in silence, but one day an older girl, in her teens, new to the studio, snapped. she stomped up in a real fit of rage, and said, you think you’re special don’t you? well, listen, lady, you’re nothing special at all. that was the first time i saw her go quiet. no booming bitter laugh shook the room. no stinging retaliatory remarks spilled one after the other from her. there was silence. complete silence. but the girl’s words had hit their mark for an expression i’d never seen on her before flit across her face: an expression of deep hurt.
it’s been years since i knew her. years since she passed away. years since her name dropped off the lists of dance greats, but i for one still think of her now and then. i remember how she would sometimes demonstrate for us the way a movement should be done (all the while rooted in her seat against the mirror). she would sweep her delicate arms to the side, buoyed with an emotion that seemed to lift her off the chair, or she would raise her arms to form a rounded frame above her head, reminiscent of the likes of pavlova or nijinsky, artistically pleasing and spiritual at once. in those moments, her gruffness would dissolve, as if by magic, to be replaced by the gentleness of the young dancer within.
at such times, i realized the dance had never left her. it had remained inside as breath itself. and even though i was never one of her favorites, this understanding, this revelation, is something i cherish to this day.
01 Tuesday Jun 2021
Tags
creative writing, from dust to dust, poem, poems, poetry, star, stars, universe
little star
how bold you are
your faint blue light
comes from afar
little star
how shy you are
you hide among
a crowd of stars
little star
most precious star
i long to know
just who you are
14 Sunday Feb 2021
Posted Dreams, Poetry, Uncategorized
inlet us dream
let us imagine
a way out
let those of us who
have lost loved ones
or have survived a bout
with this plague
remain hopeful
in our cloistered cells
let us be like the cave dwellers
who lived entire lives
in fear of dark forces
who nevertheless painted
scenes upon their walls
of hope and desire
let us paint our walls
in like fashion
in thought or in deed
with visions and schemes
and stampeding dreams
of what we desire
let us emblazon our walls
our unblemished walls
with handprints
drenched in brightest red
the primordial cry
of our ancestors
to remind ourselves
that we are thriving
in our own space and time
in this way perhaps
we can reassure ourselves
that we too know the magic
our ancestors knew
that we too know how
to cast a spell
to conjure a world
of brighter days
07 Thursday Jan 2021
it’s all so difficult now learning to live without you:
you who were once a very part of my soul
i used to feel your presence everywhere
i needed you near
now that i’m alone your absence is a presence
and it hurts to know that even as time passes
and i’ve grown accustomed to this new life
there will always be moments that catch me unawares
and i will then know the full weight of my burden:
the everlasting presence of your goodbye
26 Monday Oct 2020
the last thing he gave me
was a small jar of honey from his beehive
this is it in the picture
the sweetness of honey the sting of bees
not a bad way to remember him by
though i exaggerate some
it wasn’t like we were lovers or even friends
he was someone i almost knew
it was just the promise that was there
i suppose like a flower
in keeping with the honey bee metaphor
he was a flower i gazed upon
his beauty was that alluring
and his body and his regard moved in concert
with a warm spirit so like the sun
his name was george and wherever he is
wherever the sun finds him
for the kindness he showed me
for this jar of honey
i wish him well
27 Wednesday Mar 2019
Posted Dreams, Fiction, flash fiction, Love, Stories from underground, Uncategorized, Writing
inTags
creative writing, dream, fantasy, fiction, freud, freudian, humor, love, queen mob's teahouse, short stories, short story, subconscious
A short story of mine, titled The Machine: A Dream in One Act, is now live on Queen Mob’s Teahouse. (This story has never appeared on my WordPress blog.) If you have a chance, please take a look and let me know what you think.
It’s a little different from my usual stories as it is based on a dream I had one night. So, blame the strangeness of it on my subconscious–and perhaps also on the fact that I once worked at a psychoanalytic institute…
11 Thursday Oct 2018
Posted Memory, Poetry, Reincarnation, Spirit, Uncategorized, Writing
inself-deprecating absurdity
that comes from my pops
thanks pops
dark visions of doom
that comes from my mom
thanks mom
somewhere in between
I reside
funhouse mirrors all around
sometimes I’m this
sometimes that sometimes
I disappear altogether
into the slipstream of time
but have no fear I’ll reappear
when the carnival’s back in town
20 Wednesday Sep 2017
Tags
creative writing, heaven, love, mayakovsky, poem, poetry, star
once again once again
i am a star for you
that’s from a russian poem
isn’t it? yes but it comes back
to me over and over again
as my own composition
for somewhere deep within
i see myself as that distant star
appearing in your heaven
somehow near
shining just for you