Sunday Afternoon

March 1, 2026 BobAbstract, poem, poetry, prose-poem, walking, writing1 Comment

Fairy tales are true. The birds transform into us, and we transform into birds.

But that’s not completely true. Neither is any of this. True enough mostly works. And the remainder? There’s always a remainder. How true. Even black holes leak radiation.

Complexity long ago outgrew the two-dimensional world. How many dimensions are there really? The solar system is a crop circle of gravity. Unbeknownst to you, your dreams keep a calendar. Wouldn’t you like to know the dates?

What does the cosmos wear? Some sort of driftwood hat? The storms of Jupiter for a buttonhole? All the highways for a fingerprint?

I like to follow along, tag along the railroad on rainy afternoon with waterproof boots and a simple blue jacket. Could this be biography?

It’s also meaningful to just sit and do nothing. And probably wise. I’m writing this in a bathrobe and a few days removed from a shave and wondering if this tooth ache will go away on its own. A garden is lots of work. But I’m glad of it. Meandering is a branch of philosophy. Take is seriously. Eating together is civilization.

Later on, as night sets in, I look out the window. The cold rain is indifferent. Maybe I need a little of this indifference.

Scribbled Lines

February 21, 2026 BobAbstract, poem, poetry, writing5 Comments

Sometimes the sad gallons of the moon

A tattoo of a trash heap

The sleeve of poesy rolled up like an ode

The sky 

Was never where it was

The stillness you feel

Is the universe expanding

The measurements needed

For new windows in spring 

How the mystery spends its gambols

Is ever after a just-so story

Strange

February 15, 2026 BobAbstract, poem, poetry, writing21 Comments

The strumming reaches the ceiling and out
The open window, 

Till far from its guitar, files in with the dusk,
Whose thoughts are gold-red and blue-gold 
And gold-pink.

The UFO is a treasure map.
How an angel, in the city, 
Sitting on a power line, marks the spot.

Till the cosmos tickles on the tongue
And expands between the ears.

Three Short Poems

February 8, 2026 BobAbstract, poem, poetry, writing22 Comments

SYNTAX 

The velocity of connotation
Paraphrased
By time

Mirrors the exuberance
The commotion 
Of finitude

Only the living
Possess slang


POEM

Because of waves
Coherence

Because of coherence
Complexity

Because of complexity
Mystery 


A PHILOSOPHY 

The stars have a
Bright finish

And a loose mayhem of birds
For a heartbeat

Veins and arteries are the riverbeds of consciousness
Rivulets and inlets are the infrastructure of metaphysics

A Poem For Lunch

February 5, 2026 BobAbstract, poem, poetry, writing15 Comments

This should be absurd and it’s not. 

Take childhood, for instance. 
It’s ramshackle centeredness,
And hostility to interpretation. 

Or what of calamity, this simple game 
Mastered by no one? 

If this ditty sings, biographies of musical chairs.

Unguarded

February 1, 2026 BobAbstract, poem, poetry, writing23 Comments

The cosmos is an open clearing,
On no rampart, unguarded. 

The cosmos is willing to be unsure,
Incalculable, even to the heavens.

Like a love note, unfolded, in the glow
Of the house burning.

And who rouses these symbols, 
And the impetus to overcome themselves.

As the physicists would say, 
Sometimes mass does funny things.

Poem

January 25, 2026 Bobpoem, poetry, walking, writing24 Comments

How often does
Beauty start as an error
That finds its way
Again 

In ambition
Of all that wonder.

Beauty is the set list 
Of all lost
And gained

In a life, in a day,
After all these years.   

Beauty annealed
By the wingspan and the walking shoes

And all that curiosity and cosmos
Templed

In the open fields.

Fable

January 18, 2026 BobAbstract, poem, poetry, prose-poem, writing22 Comments

We lost the moon in the war. No one remembers the name of the war. Kids spray-paint the nicknames of the moon. Only they know its whereabouts. Rivers are an expression of gravity. Spines too.

The paperwork, we burned it. I thought we should save it. But you said we should write it down afterwards how we remember it.

There is so much strangeness to this day. Like asking clouds not to comb their hair into astronauts, it can’t be done. Butterflies drink the same wine as volcanoes.

We met again, years later. To sort out what we remember. It was mostly poetry.

Lines Dashed Before a Meeting at Work

January 11, 2026 BobAbstract, poem, poetry, walking, writing22 Comments

When a dream breaks the fourth wall.
Like the footsteps of red autumn leaves

Determined by the wind’s simplicity. At night
So much of what we haven’t done 

Lies awake. And wonders. The walker
Visits roam. A ghost spiritually can no longer tie its shoes.

All ghosts have untied shoes.
Which is a tripping hazard when going through walls.

Handwriting is a cosmology,
An archipelago of inklings

Like the orbits of our footprints
As we walk through puddles. 

Because the calendar still has one foot in poetry,
Outcomes, whoever simple in the moment,

Over time gain in complexity. The horizon is always
Present-tense,

Yet the clouds like coins
In a time machine.

Here and There

January 5, 2026 BobAbstract, poem, poetry, writing18 Comments

I ranged 
I mapped crescents 
Abolished the number one

Ridiculous poetry 
On imaginary stilts 
In a suit of daffodils
Hurdles an inchworm
And chews on Saturn's rings

Suddenly here
Is everywhere 
For all of us

I plant a tree
First its shadow
Then its velocity
 
See you there!

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