Inkblots—The Opposite

We are butterfly
Here on edge.
There 
Inside the
Exhaust pipe,

Of blackest '41 Imperial,
We flutter, waxy, inside
The thick carbon
Monoxide.
Xerces Blue,
The scientific
Name of smoked
And fully shriveled

Chitin—blue
With richest splotches of ebon—flush
Against the pavement.  Under tires, we're under
Feet:
We're
Ink-
Blots—
The
Opposite.

At last we've become
Poetry.

But What Does It Matter?

What does it matter?  Asking I, at first
on sunny days (my body shivers, aches).
Life's a dream, in death it's enveloped firm—
though over pocket myriad gashes felt.

This letter now I'm living—or am I
more the letter written, rewritten, signed?—
tell me to whom it may concern, and why?
Is life a curse?  Or from the lord, a boon?

If my life's the letter, sung it's my tune;
under glasses, moments noted are runes;
and moments not, are endless landscapes strewn
with blurry ink—a soft inert cocoon
(dark enough to dream of butterflies soon,
common dream of hopeless humans unhealed).

Who's the receiver, postal system, dank
tongue that licks with care the envelopes sealed,
unknown unknowns in heaps, and myths unpeeled.
 
Who am I, the poet, poem, rhythms
and rhymes that hoist the feelings, senses, thoughts?
If received, then tell me: What has mattered?

Moments

Moments are butterflies.
They die, kept in a jar. 

Moments are kunik* kisses from the stars. 
They're breezes, cooled by moon and warmed by sun. 

Moments are wombs.  So too a lifeboat fleet,   
with all the boats deflating, one by one. 

Moments are lonely flower buds. 
Caress them each and watch them bloom. 

Moments are sweet receding rooms, 
with crooning walls and scented floors. 

Moments: this verse, this word.
See it, feel it...it’s gone.


*Kunik: a way of kissing or showing affection, associated with an Inuit practice of breathing in the skin of cheek or forehead.

Mold

Mold on the lime to 
the moribund butterfly:
Blossoming snowflake.