Once uncertain feels distance
Abysmal, lovelorn mist fraught
Lonely, lowly, sinking, hold me
Never let me go through temporoparietal injunctions
Mental storms fog, shoveled death beds
Where dropped flowers lay
White roses arise
Stemming from paralysis
Dirt strewn among the blushing clay
My heart strains when I miss your face
And dying cares to slow this pace…
Coiling off—farewell acceptance
Trailing back to DNA
Our bench boat warmer
Because what can’t be
Provisional learned lies, profit sized
Unamended changing ties
Fooled cause, your training wheels
Blister heals as pinwheels turn
Broken seals, clubbed line
Derivatives at brunch time
Reflecting our liquid mirrors
Iced to stone
Served with sprinkles
Scooped into cones
Leave it to Beaver
Scintillating, this mantle drifts
Aligning skull bones, in lit fused
Cosigning algorithmic, beta, fish
Over billowing horsey rides
Starfish grow limbs throughout the night
Beneath day, a cross of sand
Beyond smoldering spreads of “muster seed”
There’s us again—each grain a second
Forgetting me; not to mind
Whispering suspensions
As you turn down
Lost lanes
Plush pillow spreads
No carousel exile
Arcade revolving
Cranks carnival tunes
Crackling vitriolic, ultrasonic
Soundtracks stamp eternity
Doffing fedoras from origamic newspapers
Placebos in your Coke and wafers
Kindness never asked for favors
Running red lights
She howled in labor
As the morphine drips…
Sandy seconds ensconce frail wonder
Tick-drops, bleating thunder
What’s that again?
Wind chimes entangle
Shearing sheep
Cat tail run
Under rocking chair
Comp-bleat
Pinched ivy vines
Rusted watering cans
Dreg coffee grinds
Fresh sheets billow country laundry lines
Detergent to the blacklighting moon
Humid swelling summer nights
Her leg sways in sundress, to bluegrass
Mandolins, banjo picked
Lip-licked, swing pushed
Reality over Everest
I was there
Few lines measure
Tenderness until buried
Treasure, missed
Open chest
Blood and grist
Unobserved en masse
Before holding back, your hair
Only time hearing swears
Supplicant before porcelain
Cold compress to forehead
Throw rugs and beach blankets
Combating hypothermia
False alarms, miscarriage
Like our sea this afterbirth
Brine stew, circuit breaks
Welding sparks
Riding bikes
Dream built
For two that is
Really one—what a deal!
Once knowing love
Recounting us
Experience proves
Unquestioned trust
Carry on this being
Your certain return
Recalls warm new eyes
An apocalypse of pupils
Blinking bulbs of feeling was
When our children first called me
Daddy, it was their mother’s garden
Were Lilith tended floral bloom
Aching through time
Without possession
We are nothing
Except for another’s memory
Reality being what disintegrates
Crumbling into liver splotches
Broken time pieces
Tears watering hospital lots
Cracked windows
Unwound watches
Among the oil stained stalls
Past vacation spots
Means to end
Holding hands
Beauty, I could
Feel you
Hoping not to
Pass alone
Or go
Home, emotions swell
Of principled uncertainty
Vibrations, atomic energy
Coded bones, human genome
Stemming from cells
Imprisoned wake
This naked room
Accredited mistakes
Leading to continue…
Fumbling amid the apathy
Blinded by universal surrender, fate
Overlook, pathology
Born back into dreams of oblivion
Among the hints that banish afterlife
Finding each other
Lost from age
Yet closer through time shared
Existing until the end of our days
___________________________________
*The above photograph is courtesy of UK photographer & friend Fee Easton. Fee returns to One Stop Poetry for a second time. Her photos comprise today’s One Shoot Sunday Picture Prompt challenge.
Fee also lent me the photo prompts for my triolet called A Golden Scheme, Dying Requests, and a recent poem called In Love Again.
This entry was posted on May 14, 2011 at 11:01 pm and is filed under One Shoot, One Stop Poetry, Poetry Reading with tags Blog, dustus, Fee Easton, One Shoot Sunday, One Stop Poetry, picture prompt challenge, poet, Poetry, Poetry Reading, Time Shared. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Dustus Blog 
May 14, 2011 at 11:25 pm
Wow Adam this is a journey….!!!… 🙂 Felt a lifetime wrapped up in it and this sense of retiring and getting “away” on a “time share” <merged sense if I'm gathering this correctly. I'm always one who loves the work that depicts something endless, and the last stanza really nails it…however your talent never ceases to amaze me…. 🙂 certainly going to miss reading these for awhile (time put off until the 22nd leaving – get 'em whilst I can ;)) I WILL be back eventually though *hugs dear friend and please do keep a smile!!! As for me, I'm trying…take care of yourself…stay GOLDEN! 😉 ~April
May 14, 2011 at 11:31 pm
I’m always grateful for your encouragement, Apr. Take care of you and do let me know what’s up… or else! lol Wish you all the best with your new journey. hugs
May 15, 2011 at 12:23 am
An epic journey into someone’s past….excellent reading…very dynamic!
May 15, 2011 at 1:09 am
I am totally at a loss for words after reading this.
you tell such a beautiful, grand, and detailed story without losing the essence of poetry.
how do you do it!?!? 🙂
May 15, 2011 at 1:48 am
This picture must have been so inspiring to you – this is one the longest poems I’ve seen from you!
I loved the rhythm of these lines:
Whispering suspensions
As you turn down
Lost lanes
Plush pillow spreads
No carousel exile
Arcade revolving
Cranks carnival tunes
Crackling vitriolic, ultrasonic
Soundtracks stamp eternity….
May 15, 2011 at 3:50 am
A life told through the whole senses with passion
May 15, 2011 at 5:30 am
dude…way to frickin rock the mic…love your long form…this is epic and weaves a cohesive tale…fabulous…your rhyming is off the hook
May 15, 2011 at 6:10 am
It is both a love poem and a life poem – and a wonderful story. Great poem, Adam.
May 15, 2011 at 7:40 am
ok – i don’t even start to write down the lines i liked most…otherwise i’ll be here for the next hour…excellent adam – and the reading was superb
May 15, 2011 at 7:42 am
“We are nothing except for another’s memory” Wow. That’s a powerful thought. Difficult to think that a lifetime of experiences can be gone when no one remembers them. Intense and thought provoking poem.
May 15, 2011 at 7:46 am
Adam, a great journey.
May 15, 2011 at 9:07 am
…”each grain a second”. Lots of great pondering woven throughout.
May 15, 2011 at 10:03 am
Adam, quite the ride here, monsieur. A gamut of emotions during the course of driving the path of life you’ve cut with this text. I had a few particular favorite spots, but I think that “coded bones, human genome; stemming from cells” is the one that stood out, and fittingly, at the end of your poem. Great response to the prompt.
-Pounds
May 15, 2011 at 10:06 am
Adam, this is truly an epic poem. It serves as an example of how one picture can bring out a memory that triggers a hundred more, kind of like tipping the first in a line of dominoes.
I loved the punchy rhymes that dotted this. You just wrote as they came and didn’t worry about leading them in or fading them out… easy to see, because the result is so very natural.
My favorite part:
“Riding bikes
Dream built
For two that is
Really one—what a deal!”
It made me think of a bicycle built for two and from that I saw for the first time a metaphor for relationships within a tandem bike – one built to serve two.
Beautiful work, Adam. Absolutely amazing.
May 15, 2011 at 10:45 am
you see all that in there? wowzzzzzzzzzzzz!
my favorite line is “placebos in your Coke and wafers”. That’s six words that do the work of fifty.
May 15, 2011 at 10:54 am
Well well well, I thoroughly enjoyed this stream of love and life lessons woven into what is, at its core, technically a very tight poem. It reads as though it flowed from mind to paper, yet closer looks reveal this flow did not allow the poem suffer in any way it might have done in terms of style. Particularly, I loved the portions of internal rhyme and word-play, perhaps best captured by the “pinwheels” stanza which leads into the gorgeous slice of word-play “…seals, clubbed…”. Epic journey, but one I travelled quickly, which is testament to your skill as a writer and poet. Nice response Adam.
May 15, 2011 at 11:38 am
all that can be said about this, has been said – such emotion, beautifully expressed. And the end lines were perfect.
May 15, 2011 at 12:30 pm
You’re mention of morphine brought me back to my mother’s death bed as she received more of the drug to ease the pain of cancer. She was delusional and talked about all kinds of unrelated, sometimes fantastic things. Your poem could almost be a recording of such a scene. Amazing.
May 15, 2011 at 12:30 pm
thanks adam for featuring my photos and writing your poetry around them… completely overwhelming for me to read them… and particularly like to hear your voice as you speak them. this photo was taken in happier times for me….
May 15, 2011 at 1:15 pm
damn. no piece shall ever offer more raw power, adam. I’d say your muse rode with you into that image and captured a lot more than meets the eye upon casual glance. great job!
Monty
May 15, 2011 at 1:18 pm
Wonderful write, powerful pull of a journey.
May 15, 2011 at 1:52 pm
This was for sure a challenge for me but you seemed to have done very well.
great read. Makes me feel as if I can see your word flowing in front of the couple.
May 15, 2011 at 2:09 pm
Wow Adam, you really were inspired here !!
Beautifully written !
JL&B
May 15, 2011 at 2:27 pm
A sprawling journey into character and history…raw and emotional, surging with expression, with some true power lines for life: “We are nothing except for another’s memory” one of the ones that sticks most in my mind.
May 15, 2011 at 2:42 pm
Oh my. I worked as a nurse with death and dying for so many years and you transported me back to one of many death’s I’ve attended where, as loved ones watch, stories and memories recreate a life that is about to end. This is stunning, Adam.
May 15, 2011 at 6:45 pm
wow…i wanted to use this photo,but it brought back memories of my parents.great take on the prompt…i was just on the beach this week and wished my mom and dad were there to see the majesty…you captured the togetherness and love of this couple.well done.bravo!
May 15, 2011 at 7:10 pm
Thank you for visiting me and your encouraging words. I read this tenderly as both of my elderly parents have died in the last two years and I work for Hospice in my city. So many contrasting phrases describing what was then and is now… resonates deeply. ‘ Til death do us part’ isn’t really true is it?
May 15, 2011 at 7:27 pm
I really found this to be an intriguing piece. I enjoyed the intermixed elements of reflective grace and the more carnal examination of the life partner journey. I unfortunately have yet to listen, look forward to hearing you read this one. Will return soon for that 😉 The closing stanza was profoundly beautiful. ~ Rose
May 15, 2011 at 10:46 pm
truly a piece that all readers may take from…some wonderful lines, internal rhymes, end rhymes and overall play with words, but not just for words sake (if that makes sense)… 3rd and 4th stanza, esp. first few lines, are brilliant (very partial to the image of holding the hair, such a loving image)…a tribute to time remembered, indeed ~
May 15, 2011 at 11:24 pm
“We are nothing
Except for another’s memory”
stunning, Adam! what can i say except that you’re brilliant!
May 16, 2011 at 2:54 am
A powerful take on the prompt. this your poem of intimate history, Adam! It ‘talks to me’ so tenderly through that life as this:
“…I was there
Few lines measure
Tenderness until buried
Treasure, missed
Open chest
Blood and grist…”
to this:
“…Born back into dreams of oblivion
Among the hints that banish afterlife
Finding each other
Lost from age…”
So true, so faithful to a reality often elusive. Thanks!
May 16, 2011 at 10:04 am
You really opened the floodgates here, adam. I read it yesterday but my brain was just mush. Today it’s even more amazing, and I’ll add, full of an odd twisted and kaleidoscopic beauty to me. esp like “…Doffing fedoras from origamic newspapers…’ and the reference to Lilith, to the laundry lines, and all the spotless internal rhyme and slant rhyme, like ‘coded bones/human genomes” etc. One of your very best, and that truly puts it up there, my friend.
May 16, 2011 at 5:43 pm
Thoughtful and powerful poem reflecting on something that so many people have to go through, and something we all must eventually face. Great use of vocabulary and flow.
May 16, 2011 at 10:46 pm
Thank you, Adam. I read my parents, here. Like a gift it is.
May 17, 2011 at 1:56 am
[…] Time Shared (via Dustus’ Blog) May 17, 2011 by Fee Easton Once uncertain feels distance Abysmal, lovelorn mist fraught Lonely, lowly, sinking, hold me Never let me go through temporoparietal injunctions Mental storms fog, shoveled death beds Where dropped flowers lay White roses arise Stemming from paralysis Dirt strewn among the blushing clay My heart strains when I miss your face And dying cares to slow this pace… Coiling off—farewell acceptance Trailing back to DNA Our bench boat warmer Because wha … Read More […]
May 17, 2011 at 8:23 pm
Fab tale.
May 18, 2011 at 12:28 am
Hey first time on your blog and i am kind of just staring cause never seen something so unusual and beyond words a thing..Lovely poem..
and the narration just as superb as the feelings contained in this piece..
Alcina
May 18, 2011 at 1:03 am
this one is so beautiful..so many sentiments swamping one while reading it. All beautiful but at times so sad….
May 18, 2011 at 12:05 pm
Beautiful and profound. A brilliant piece!
May 18, 2011 at 3:55 pm
Wow, such an epic poem.
There is a lot of time shared in these verses.
As always, your words blow my simple brain away
May 18, 2011 at 8:13 pm
This one took me on quite the journey. Time shared indeed.
Thanks for not keeping it simple and telling a story while also painting a picture.
May 30, 2011 at 8:18 pm
Gorgeous poem, Adam.