bump
Clumsy
"A visit at my table,
a very welcome visitor,
has a cup of coffee
set down,
but not before
the friend has seated herself
does the surface
of the brew spill over,
splashing quietly
as as she bumps the table with her knee.
Such a detail,
the dark, dark liquid
spread across the light brown
wood of where I write,
threatening to soil
the art being drawn.
The spillings
of the latest happenings,
the earnest devouring
of each others stories
lead to reading,
of depicting the next best thing
in lives still be finished,
download in progress.
A spiral
from one image to the next
from the warm-lit coffee shop
to digital acquisition.
Like this poem,
the conversation goes,
topics spiraling.
Not out of control,
but wildly different
in varient,
from the new job
made of dreams
to the steaming progress
of artwork creativity.
Reading,
the visitor stirring
with silent smiles
and sparkling eyes,
asking how and why
my poetry winds
into art so quickly,
but my answer is clumsy,
the failing of conveying
a real reason
for words written.
Awkward in handling it,
and unable still
to write out the soul
in one sentence,
stanza,
poem,
book, even.
So let's write three,
I tell her,
and glee is sounded,
rounding back to her departure,
bumping coffee again.
But it's wiped away,
no evidence
of the one who sat across.
Nothing lost.
Meaning, rather.
No theme,
but a underlying feeling."
I'm Singing and Consciousness is on the Drums
Bump and bop and knock then stop.
It’s a rhythmic beat to reap the sleep
and see what’s been shown, not meet what’s
been known over and over again,
just changing how it flows from pen to pen
or mind to mind.
Just mind the edges and don’t fall off,
but conquer those hedges secluding Truth,
hung aloft up above for all to see,
and perceive Love,
shoved beneath and stomped
under feet, but breathing
and needing our attention,
undivided and whole—
a beckoning to our eternal soul.
-Ryan K. Fuller