twisted thougts

Knight’s Move Thinking

linking tangential ideas

off-putting to some

comes naturally to me.

Isn’t that where new ideas come from?

Don’t poets and artists build

bridges

between otherwise disjointed ideas

to let others cross?

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progress

what is the sound of one hand clapping
how do you know when a fitted line

fits

every step forward
brings loss in its wake

tears of joy

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what is want

what what is need
what want is want
when wants gets what want wants
is it a burden

when want is not get
want moves us

motivation exploration ideation

but when want is get and get and get

and no give away
too heavy
to have to hold

wanting getting
letting go
not grasping
holding ideas in

balanced equations

these lines

of words

table of solutions
tucked away safe
implied

just fitted lines

a gesture of a brush
the whole of my experience shines

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this is me

cloudless sky
breezes blowing away
the sun light
making brightness cool

i stand
on pebbled path
saturated in these waves, this radiation
from our close star

sun ticks off its timely orbit
each step moves me in space
and time
diurnal walk
i orbit this path
days and weeks and years

these days are so long now
new leaves glow yellow
transparent
feasting on the light
saving up –  even as individuals they must fade
and die

i carry myself
each foot-fall
articulate and purposeful
knowing this; the measure of each foot-fall
the march of my time

yet for a moment
looking inward
i stumble – caught unaware

stop
look
feel

radiant energy all around

sun
high
wide
full

tall grass waves and beckons
wild daises have contorted stems
fat robin hops then flies with no great care or effort
lonely bird calls in the distance
ferns unfold as from Jurassic forests
wild dill grown five feet – plate sized white spidery flowers spill over
blackberries’ tangled thorns threaten to take over
fire weeds’ magenta blossoms flames in a pyramid of blooms
wild cherry and crabapple trees have twisting limbs

we watched a grouse there once

wild roses show off their hips
elk have left paths and their pellets
fir trees, alder, and birch are silhouetted black against cerulan sky
– airplane above! six cylinders shout
electrical wires on wood poles – still tall, once live fir trees
dandelions yellow blossoms and white geometric orbs expanding
exploding
releasing parachuted seeds

forget-me-nots

this whole path a rail-road bed now un-railed
concrete bridge with chain link fences
stream flowing currents making patterns
trout swim constantly rising for food
in shallow water fish and shadow move as one
or in still sections chocked with
duck weed, green algae murky oily water
blue dragon flies, yellow iris

some beer cans sully the scene

sun starts to burn my arms

salmon berries ripe for eating
fox gloves spires with purple purses detailed with dots
wild flowers unnamed and unknown speak to my senses
ivory morning glories spirals unfold each day
axial forces of twining stems choke neighboring shrubs
thistle down fluffy flower and spiked spire
and a small dead weasel grimacing teeth

a vulture with very large wings flies slowly away

feet grounded
this trail and this track and this time
my fingers stretched out like the veins of a leaf
reaching into the light

lymph and sap
warm blood in birds
cold in the fishes
all of us chemical engines
elements and light energy

absorbing
ingesting

Aware

i am this – this is me

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seen sound

The longer I listen
The more I hear

Birds

Filling up the

space

air

Foreground middle and
Back

Expanding

Painting a picture
Perceived
Patterned
punctuated

seen sound
Strokes of solos’ song
Each individual’s cry
part of a whole

Each to each
class and category
Variety, kind and type all

Call out to the

Noon summer now

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out on a ledge

full tank of gas
open minds
rain behind us to the west
leaving the shadows
this morning’s yin
for
the sun
the yang on the
eastern side of these mountains

our separate wakes
trails of phosphorescent fears
fallow behind us
what’s the point
it’s these
waves that yet wash on our
pebbled shores
still lapping
for five long decades
finally ‘getting it’
that
wrong turns
can be right
when we don’t strive
for direction

self seeing self being seen
as a skeptic
can be a good thing
playing with words
looking for double meanings as
if a conversation
were a poem
or a debate

you know
you know
you know
i have stopped saying that
i say
a habit
observed, extracted and altered
self reorganized
like Feldenkrais practice for awareness

up a random road arriving in a forest i see
a  trout lily
rare orange and graceful
A cut-throat lily
you say you see,
more like a rainbow
i hear a bird i heard
in my yard
No
It’s not the same individual
you laugh

on the way to discover the whisper of the
tiniest of seasonal streams
hiking down hill
barely bush-whacking
leaving
vibrant bright dry meadows
for
patches of cool shady yellow-green young trees
recalling childhood
a past
not often pleasant
you show me how to make markers for this trail
turtles
of sticks and stones
a Boy Scout trick
so we can find our way
back

you at the wheel
the Subaru – guided by stars
winding down the forest road and
up  another
having traded an expected outcome
for observation
a high peak is easily found

we have a ledge
to perch
comfortable
on car blankets
no real precipice to fear
there is solid
although steep
ground beneath us
we will not die this way
today

here
at journey’s height
we view the opposite ridge
to the south
covered in clouds
a future destination
an unknown country

far to the west
the sun has pulled the ocean up into the sky
white puffs
cool winds push
weight of the water
scoops of the sea

clouds roll on over
to the far distance of the Yakima Valley
blue and fine in the farthest reaches of our vision
waves of fresh marine air
touch us as the wetness
in the currents of air rush by
on their way
to water the crops
the life cycle of this world

you remind me of a Pascal quote
the self is a median between
nothingness and everything

balanced on a boundary
on our rock edge
on a line
of radical acceptance
the earth
the sun
the cosmos
the sound of our voices
the audacious flight of tiny birds
at this attitude
our vista
our vision
expands to infinity ever outwards
full with each inhalation
and
as we exhale contracts towards
the asymptotes of self

by evening’s return
yin and yang reverse
sun at opposite horizon
still raining on the west side
of the mountains
you talk of history
recalling how any invading force
even in victory
cannot win
they are
simply overwhelmed by local culture

Maybe you’re like Rome,
you laugh,
and maybe I’m the vandals –
or is it the other
way
around

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empty head

after

pondering

no reflection

is clear

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a world of connections

I am very excited that the author of A Twisted Pair has quoted me in the post – Be here now – particularly since I hadn’t remembered writing the comment he quoted and it sounded pretty good – I had one of those, gee, did I write that moments?

But as an artist who has been working almost thirty years for a very limited audience I have been delighted to find others out here in a creative and nourishing nexus.

I am reminded of a professor I had in graduate school in the early 1990s – Teachers’ College, Columbia University.  I was improbably working on (but destined not to finish, thankfully) a Phd in math education. He had returned to teaching after working as an experimental mathematician for Bell Labs and he had done a lot of work on multidimensional geometry. He talked a lot about modeling geometric solids that had more than three connections in space from their vertices – any number, n dimensional! It ended up having a big impact on how phone traffic is routed.

This was all before the internet was much – but I suppose it was a vision as to how it works now – a connection, to a connection, to a connection – almost a living network of nerve cells.

And so we blog. But not to boost our ego, but to lose it in our work, in the game, as we are reminded by A Twisted Pair’s post – out here in the vastness of the internet….

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summer is never now

summer is a wave
moving

leaves and flowers
burgeon and diminish

we  grasp the
tangent to the curve
and think the instant can be held straight
for the season

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Parallax

it is with no small supply
of pebbles that we
pelt each others’
ponds

debris from the bottom
is stirred up

orange fish flash
among the green and blue
obscured by the silt

*

moments shared
show
shifted singular perceptions
history, disposition, and even gender

only parallax experience
knowing the different distance
between
me and you

the comparison of two
points of view

can give us any measure
of the one
event

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