Creativity, of which poetry and other writings is a part, is not a one-way street. And the experiences and stimuli that engender what gets created are often shared and not just something affecting or relating to the author/creator. Some of what follows I categorized as “incoming.” Love and feelings and perceptions are spoken of and shared. I have taken a few ‘liberties’ with the writings that were mostly shared on ‘scraps’ of various kinds of paper. There were few titles and a little punctuation has been added here and there. The rest is pretty much as was resurrected. Enjoy!
A Message
I sent it on to you:elements in a universe
realized we are in space
the largest we become in each other’s arms.
are we to be alchemists joining in the answers
while we are the forces pulling wonder to form?
there is a part of me which is the worldless scientist,
star gazer,
earth mender
serving the perfection
of mind and desire.
a hugeness about us,
an open-ended scheme,
mandate: explore and record
react together,
opening our time to weightlessness, there are no wiser fools.
The Playground With The Fastest Swings
having a cup of tea,
nothing set before us in the day;
the sun would break through;
the rain would seem to stop.it became a much more
crowded world last night –
a place for lovers only in the mind.
there is no doing away with
the other’s lover – no thought of it;
but is there a ramble path through the other’s?can the stroking of black curls
in Ashland up to the morning
be felt in Woodstock hollows
on a walking head of salt & pepper
pressed to the life of another
found soul?plow horses riding the early morning,
a bluesy yawn, and all the solemn promises
play the futures on a nod.you’re an important man in my life;
your presence as “evolved” man
shapes a space for my womanhood.
you’re an environment for my history, present and past;
the Playground with the fastest swings;
the museum with the lushest walls.but time is tight this year as
everyone knows and creative centers
close early – may the luck of
being locked in, staying all night –
do gents gossip?the preview of the growth
ahead of you excites me
like the promise of a carnival
for one night only.the notion
to become lovers is a sweet notion;
strangers exchange lives in a moment –
carbon arcs.the need to talk to you;
the must of dialogue
last night (Sunday, Our Town)
set you as “not me,”
“other than me” –
Separate and beyond the region of monologue.so I write you, two cups of tea,
music to move me along,
and spoken conversation awaiting
a call.I find this all interesting,
the way humans feel;
what they choose to sustain recreation
(I love you)
can I touch your sweet lips?after speaking to you –
in the most complicated
association;
two humans,
I speak in images of simplicity,
almost ritual.tea, the smelling of air
with rain stuck in its teeth,
the licking of sandstone,
the making of each other human;
perhaps the creating of each other by touch,
anointed with sun, lips, earth, wind.
we are of the same mind.
there is consent to exchange knowledge.
I lie open to your imagery.
Carpetbaggers Of Love
the thought of you.The evening light is a saturation.
words are forming like February
buds on my limbs:
skin gardens of poems for you,
aiming one love on the light
and the other is held
like mercury in crystal.
as I drive,
the sky melts on my eyes,
clouds are holding the romantic era
and I travel in the folds.
We’ve made summer plantings of winter’s gardens
(we become carpet-baggers of love)
Winding My Way
Each day
Shorter.Tree’s soul signals,
Leaf’s lifeline dries;
My spirit, using rainbow brush
Touches leaf.
Spirit also paints you;
But mind’s eye,
And soul’s touch
Won’t cover your glimmer –
Your inner radiance.
God! So lovely!
Formed by that laughter
You patented and own.
Another laughter comes to mind,
Touched off by sensual play:
The music that you make
As I ride along.
You peer from familiar spot:
I put you, your light,
In favorite places to be.
My alone time is with you
As I reach, stretch out.
My senses try their wings
And I FLY
In ways I can’t fathom,
Except by touching thee.
My thoughts brush softly
The sides of your cheeks:
Finely covered,
Pink spheres introverted.
I salvate,
Seeking your tongue;
Juices flowing,
Seeking those fields
Where your puddles lay.
I am sky and cloud,
You mountain –
To lay upon and surround:
So softly,
So lightly,
Finding ways to unite.
Our skins, our covers,
Shatter as souls, juices, thoughts
Burst through
To unite . . . to fly;
To mix and tumble;
To intertwine;
To become as ONE.
The effort is exhausting.
I have changed.
I have given all.
All to know that I love
And am loved:
Knowing that fills
All my days.
And as the days shorten,
Light fades –
And so doth our time together?
Perhaps not;
There are ways . . .
Summer lovers?
Comets touching?
Wildflowers mating?
Trying phase after phase.
Remembering and re-living:
Intertwining by the fire –
Becoming the fire –
Touching, licking, burning,
Flaming side by side:
Two bear hides
Slowly rubbing,
Interminable hibernation:
A different way of dancing –
One of Love’s
Many faces.
Oh, there is something
Burning inside:
Growing spirit
More in love with you –
It is so easy then to fly:
Just plug into DC.
So love, I’m connect;
I draw from your current;
Your flows and your energy;
Your spirit and drive.
Your swings are the fastest
And on them I do ride.
Keep the flag flying
When tears we are crying;
They make a river
On which we can flow.
In these waters,
We can join and mingle
Our hearts,
Our minds,
Our souls.
Our ripples come together:
Under and over –
Making circles and eddies
That will forever remember
Our lives and our loves.
What, then, does it matter
If our bodies are apart?
So shortening days
You are welcome;
The change of season
Merely stimulates other ways
To reach out and be touched.
May I now paint you
With rainbow;
Blow upon thee with cool breeze;
Cover you with falling leaves?
I caress your sweet warmness;
Your lumpy nextness;
Your twinkling presence;
Your luxurious languor.
We exist forever
In our togetherness World.
My Cells Howl
the power of lions in your jungle strokes?
my cells howl at the moon for you:
man who’s very, very bright –
soul and passions as soft and holy as candle’s light.particles, waves,
ether suspensions and a floating walk,
until the touch –
the teeth shown, the tongue coiled:
the deepest heaven.rest,
fold your hands held in my arms,
tones burst forth around our love.
We Are The Players
lovers peel back my eyes,
hello my sweet.
lascivious giants –
carnival jugglers with my possible lines,
and I prefer you
feeling your way through
and giving
shelter in the personal unknown.Sunday
There is instinct urgency
and the opening of a smile at the “ain’t that just somethin’”
lunar docking, click, of no touch – vapor joy –
desks and furniture wise as all get out.my love,
we are the players of each other’s mystery.
© Mary Lou Quinn
Our Galaxy
From afar,
What magic attraction?
You could be cool,
A mere fragment
Of that mysterious firmament,
Forever adding just a spot
To my dreams of you
And night.Eyes wander
With forced thought
To other constellations –
Other bodies who spin and glow,
Who call with siren’s song,
Falling on my ears
As only the static
Of the Universe.Bright star,
Growing sun,
Filling my nights
With blinding glow
Of all the suns
Of my days.Days past, whose clouds
Are burned to nothing
By the light and warmth
Of each tomorrow’s sun,
Shining through my heart
To inner eye,
Delighting my soul.Shining star,
From afar,
I rise and grow
To fill the space
And time in between.My dust and parts
Coalesce and burn,
Falling in, while falling up
To critical mass.I, too, am star.
I rise and grow,
Gaining equal orbit,
Matching light and heat.
Twin suns,
Feeding each other
As matter flies
In passionate exchange.
Symbiotic orbits,
Drawing in from near and far –
Matter and force,
We spin –
Each a sun.Together we suns
Are a new galaxy,
Finding new power,
New force,
With each orbit
Of our special days.I rise and grow
To your call and light.
This truth
Is our fate,
Is our destiny.
Unresolved
dreams from days ago fall into
morning tea –
as unresolved
as the future.I’m afraid
Of the truth in worried ideas,
pile on the load;
there are no endings
in the bleak tenderness,
just building corrals
for the quality of life.I am clattering
the knives on the bars.
Molecular Fog
with standing onslaughts
by ‘aura.’
dazzling molecular fog,
lipstuck to our skins and
falling in veils.molecular fog –
particles of our spoken thought,
ranging desires
and color
chewed on and spit.love me the color of
moon’s skin tonight.
Reverie
Love’s sacred and roaming monks set the tones;
I cannot carry anger or cynicism within it.I go there for the secrets we discuss most freely academic.
I lay me down on springs of laughing souls –
simple cacophonies (of blown notes)
tune the buoyant lunacy.
embers cross my lips with songs
(century twine)
slung like South American sleeping hammocks
in this rambling mind;
a restful perusal of all that has been;
(that you are laying in a hammock
of centuries from which you gaze
at times).
Luxury
The luxury of laying about, sometimes propped up,
with books each held in silent opportunity for thought –
that active passion we rarely share the enjoyment of.Each of us reading quietly, agreeing, passing,
breaking in inaudible cheers.
Side-by-toe or head-to-belly
Until an extravagant break into kisses ‘’
Exchanging the workings of an author’s ideas
as we fold them into our minds.
The exuberance of reasoned reaction to someone’s work;
The pleasure of expressing one’s sense of it all up to now –
making the love of scholars pleased with themselves
and looking for the perfect mean.
Walk But A Bit With Me
The forest for the trees?
Sun’s glare, moon’s glow,
Casts out the mind freeing
And never ending possibilities
Of a trip through the vast Universe
That lies beyond.Spirit entwined
At the mouth of the cave,
High on purple mount
Struggles to free itself –
To look first
At the endless green and stretch
Of the fields and valley below.Spirit yearns to soar
O’er peak upon peak.
But how, when entwined,
At the mouth of the cave,
High on purple mount?I stand and grow,
As forest over tree;
As Universe beyond sun and moon;
As endless valley and reaching range
Of snow-roofed peaks.I reach
To clear eyes and ears;
I call to show the way
And light the path
To realization.Walk not ahead or behind,
But by my step
To test the tread.Listen but a bit to words,
Echoing the mumblings
Of soul’s furnace,
And to the sounds
Of wind, of bird,
Of rustling tree
Of roaring brooks,
And snowy tread.Share a bit –
For no matter what,
It will stretch your soul;
More room for feeling and giving.Walk a bit with me;
Look at forest, Universe,
Plain and peaks.
Fear not for yourself
Your love,
Our seed.I am gentleness born on the wind,
Riding a leaf over gushing stream,
The sparkle in the web
Lit by fire’s glow.Fear not –
Love
Motes In The Air
so it is that I read:
(skimming centuries; a sleek flat rock on mind’s skin)
Pythagoras, who grants us to be born
with the music of the spheres
in answer to its silence
and souls pulled from the void as numbers.The soul is the motes in the air.
Motes of their own nature continually move,
even in complete calm.The soul is attunement.
The soul is . . .
but the body.
the body is to receive it;
diving to the soul,
we love in tender storms –
the day is held,
and we are the day.In the afternoons
I dress in the muse,
exhausting myself
on fantasies and rhyme,
leaning on the evening light
‘til fallen asleep by.I accept lovers,
and all of them
are you.
Where Silence Thundered
from surfaces of moon glitter
and rode them
down snowy dunes
into shadows of stillness
where silence thundered.I thank the gods for sweet night
which opens heaven to my soul.
I thank you, my sweet friend
for flowering in my sight of joy.you coached the morning
pastel colors to my door
and covered my wakened eyes
with your soft glow of rose
hovering over mountain breasts.
Moments Of Ours
to think of you
or touch lip to face and palm to falling hair.
a thousand times we’ll never laugh together;
time chews you open and I am alone.there are moments of ours –
a kiss lasting or when you,
with ancient hunger only, wet my hair
with your tongue and chew soft circle
of darkness in the gold.
tell me the truth with your hands,
you know that thought blows wild,
invisible in the gathering woods;
warming dragons’ bone dust, and
century-old light to burning night,
we will sustain the flesh of summer.
Apart – For Togetherness
Some room,
SPACE
For growing;
For looking down
And around.To me,
Inside has to grow.
All about you,
I want to know
The bits and pieces
I want to sew,
Creating the fullest life
That we can have.We will make air,
Room and space,
And time for soul,
Body and face;
For smiles, laughter, and delight;
For tears, turmoil,
Pain, and empty nights;
For rekindling flames;
Relearning names;
Contemplating from below,
Aside and above:
Time, space, room
Researching the love
That was there,
Covered over and hurt;
If it is true and strong
Out it will spurt.So it begins –
This experiment,
Testing strongly
If for each other
We were meant.I throw myself in
With strength;
Confidence and grace,
To let love
Come back,
Through time,
Room,
And Space.
Do I Reach You?
I can project my thoughts;
My experiences;
My feelings
To you
Across whatever time
And distance separates.
It is scary
And exciting.You fill empty pockets
In my being –
Blank spaces
In my thoughts;
Dips in my emotions.Here,
On the edge of so many things,
Are you to be a part –
A partner –
A vehicle?
A destroyer of recreation?
What?I’ve been reaching out;
I’ve been aching.
Do I reach you?
Can you feel those threads
Moving around you,
Running up your limbs,
Caressing each patch of flesh,
Brushing by and rubbing against
Each hair,
Resting in warm spots –
Moist spots;
Running and flowing
With your juices,
Being swallowed
And entering the inside of you –
Maybe becoming a part?Do you feel that?
Do I reach you?I ache from
Loving you.
Image by Pixabay
The Eternal Sea of Creativity 