Liquid Words
by
Arthur Weil
SMASHWORDS EDITION
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PUBLISHED BY:
Arthur Weil Smashwords
Liquid Words:
Copyright © 2011 by Arthur Weil
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Happiness
A state of well-being and contentment: joy, a pleasurable or satisfying experience – that is how my Merriam Webster defines ‘happiness’. If that’s the case, then I’m happy to say, that along with that blinding, uplifting, emotional state called ‘love’, I have been most fortunate to, on many an occasions, be overcome with happiness. Sometimes this feeling sweeps over me, flooding my heart and blood with its chemicals and emotions, unstoppable, like an uncontrollable sneeze. Other times, I had to consciously work at it – consciously seek it, consciously force it to trickle in.
So then, is this ‘happiness’ a fleeting thing? It seems to be – unless one cultivates a healthy, happy ‘attitude’. How one goes about maintaining a happy attitude is key. Studies show that a healthy, happy attitude has the added benefit of creating a healthier body. A healthy body in turn, contributes to our happiness. Happiness has a physiological affect on our body chemistry, sending positive signals to the brain, which in turn sends positive signals to our body. People who exercise regularly report adrenalin surges of happiness, as do lovers. The happiness felt when winning an award, or getting a diploma will be short-lived, unless there is a steady flow of this currency in the body.
Sometimes we can fool our body into generating happiness simply with a positive state of mind. I’m in a constant search for positive states of mind. My calendar is filled with live entertainment, pleasurable experiences, and daily challenges: theater with friends, lunch with my Men’s Group, weekends away with my kids, my daily quest to write the best poem I can. Yet, the most sustaining happiness of all, I find, is the peaceful and passionate relationship of a partner.
As we get older, our idea of what constitutes happiness changes; our perspective changes. We mellow. We accept the imperfection in ourselves and in others, and actually begin to admire our eccentricities and our uniqueness. We realize we don’t have to control everything and everybody. We know that life is full of compromises. Our aim is simply to live peacefully, in harmony, with a positive outlook and spirit.
Sometimes, we cannot avoid negative feelings, sometimes, but once you’ve felt the contrast of having happy adrenalin chemicals flowing around your body and brain, you’re more likely to want to revert to that feeling. Joyful poems, happy endings, lively songs, blissful dreams, good food, moments of kindness, and loving gestures may be all I have to rely on at this age, but it’s everything.
I intend to live in the moment; discover every moment of happiness. Hug and kiss each moment – and by doing that welcome even more of it.
******
She whispered
“I miss you.”
A beautiful, powerful statement
Sincere
I was, I am same body (to be missed)
Of course, I missed you too.
It was but hours ago that we met!
Threshold of the Universe
With visions and fireworks
Pinnacle on Mount Loneliness
I experience the hues of the rainbow
Frothing, haunting formation of clouds
Cirrus, Nimbus – like angels, scaring demons in the sky
The radiance, the magnificence of life
Uncanny inspiration, all too short!
You and I stand at the threshold of this universe
Confined, deliberate – ready to dare or do
Planted firmly to explore our vision
Gift of life in all its brilliance
Like Moses holding the tablet of the Ten Commandments
Downward – exhorting his people
To abandon the Golden Calf
So you too – here – retreat from the steep mountain
Inspired/halo – visionary
Truth – in awe of The Creator,
The Unifier of the Universe
Queen/King of nature’s power
Admire, thankful, humble,
In this, our place, the infinite universe
The spirit is within you – me!
Yet, we are but on the threshold!
Go, take another first step!
******
Airing Out
I fling open the window
To let the cool, clean air in
Or the stifling, stale air out
Sometimes the brisk draft is uncomfortable
Depending on which way the wind blows
It’s Nature, sloughing off dust
Fumes, chemicals transferring
My atmosphere –
For me to inhale warm or cool –
Breezy – silent
Can’t you feel the change in the air?
You, I, we – simply, automatically breathe
Who has time to analyze the gasses?
Amazing – the power of air and water!
Just a little penetrating draft and
Our perception and thought soon are modified.
******
I’m So Lucky
I’m so lucky
To be here
Alive!
Cherish this moment
Sipping this drink
Gulping a bite
Eyes eat up action
Whispering noises
Breeze against my cheek
Rejoice
Smile as taste buds are jubilant
Anxious to share
This very moment
With you
With friend, twice celebrated
My mind stuffed
Filled with pleasure
Appetite just right
Tease for more
This is the innocent void
Simple thought
Heartbeat of freedom
Of now –
Is what I see, I feel, no pain?
No thought of whining
At peace – no complaints
Flashes of love, the sensual
To gently touch you, stroke you
Hold you – ravish you
Here – now
With curtain drawn
Yes, facial muscles completely relaxed
In silence – I am so lucky
So rapt – I want all to stand still
Inhale the spirit of this moment
Euphoric, physical, self-satisfied
Until someone suddenly interrupts:
Angrily, quizzically
“Did you know?
There is a bloody war out there?”
******
Spins on Its Axis
As the world revolves
So too our tumultuous life
Spins on
Its own axis
Helplessly
We spin with it
Barely keeping our balance
Don’t you feel it?
******
Fill the Atmosphere
Fill the atmosphere
Perfume
Irresistible
A beautiful day
All of it
Treasure it
Let it surpass illness
Positively engrained
Fervent approval
Be that enactor
Inhale
Excite your six senses
Experience all
Time gone
Never to return
Never to return
******
Refresh Your Mind
For purity and health
We wash our body, brush our teeth
With vigor and with stealth
Wrap our body in delightful clothes
Refresh, replenish, face and nose
Yet, how often, each fine day
Refresh our minds without delay
Focus on healthier, happy thoughts?
Intuitive, from heaven wrought
Appreciate and celebrate the little things
That ranks us with the happiest of kings
Relish in the realm of bliss
A laugh, a little humor, and a kiss
Walk the splendid carpet of tomorrow’s gift
And with it, elevate our soul, and give great joy a lift
To the kitchen, heart and soul
Make a good anti-pasta
******
The Magic is Us
Engrossed in thoughts of you
Your eyes, your face
Your lips, your bosom
All magnets shooting
Love rays to consume
And drum up more desire
Ah, envious, most accomplished thoughts
I wipe out,
Forget the world
It can wait
For now the magic is us
******
Conquering Stallion
Unrestrained, I’m like a stallion
Keenly trained – run amuck
I graze; jump fences
Nip and tuck
My stamina enhances –
Relentlessly challenge – pursue
When inner sensation of the fair sex
Out of the blue so overwhelms me
The sinews
Muscles, now revitalize my brain
Such concentration (can it be?)
Fixes to pursue, or is it all in vain?
Still this urge to conquer and to consummate
Chemically driven – so blinding, strong
When at last a splendid date
I know with her I now belong
It is a trot, a dance – or call it our fate
A gallop unstoppable
Until mare subdues, unquenchable song
Powerful, manly, deliberate
With pronouncement and determination
We now celebrate
Nature
Merriam-Webster defines Nature as “The creative and controlling force of the universe.” The word nature is also used to describe “The inherent character or basic constitution of a person or thing.” In other words, our nature is also the creative and controlling force in human beings.
Is it any
wonder then that wise men and poets have found themselves
inextricably connected to nature throughout the ages? And they have
pondered and pontificated, dissected and described, the power, force
and awe of nature
in all its mystery?
The
question asked since time immemorial has been “do we control
nature?” or, “does nature control us?” We may try to do the
former, but really, we are as powerless to the lashing of a
hurricane, as a bee is to the scent of
a blossom.
Nature controls our physical world: where we live, what we propagate and harvest. As Michael Pollan points out in his book, “Botany of Desire”, we may think we are dominating, harnessing or controlling nature by planting fields and orchards, but really, the pretty, pink-skinned apple with the juicy flesh is controlling us. In its wily, blushing way it attracts us to its taste and flavor, then uses us to propagate its species by the field or the orchard. Sure, it would reproduce if we weren’t around – it would rely on its blossoms to attract butterflies and bees, and on its fruit to attract herbivores. But to nature, man coming along with his inherent disposition, wanting to create and control, wanting to plant and harvest fields and orchards, is a godsend.
Nature also controls us by appealing to our emotions. The emotional sense of peace and restfulness we get from a garden of greenery, forces us to surround ourselves with flora. The wistful sense of satisfaction we feel watching our bulbs pop up in spring keeps us looking forward to planting the next. The colors, textures, sounds, compositions, the might and the majesty, the fleeting and the delicate, all engage our emotions in meaningful, connective ways.
It is in poetry that we often see the power and beauty of nature most finely reflected. The phases and forces of nature, the variety and variation of its moods provide all the word pictures, similes and metaphors a poet needs to describe our very own nature as humans.
Frost, Waldo, Emerson, Thoreau, Sandburg, Kipling are but a few of the poets who have used nature so expressively to enhance the meaning of their ideas.
I watch them in awe and admiration, as if stuck inside a hurricane.
Before the Storm
The ripple placid water
Becalmed icy melt
At sequoia tree trunk
Absolute silence
Isolate at midnight
Away from civilization
A slow, relaxed, beating
Heart content
Snowshoes at 11,000 feet
All these spell tranquility earned
A fleeting, lucky time
Before the next snowstorm
******
Sunlight
Bright ray of sun’s dust
Immense like Milky Way
Specks, flicks in small cosmic shapes
Hues of colors keen
Each so distinct, each so pristine
The bright sun’s beam
Penetrates, energizes leaves
Perceive the many motley shadows
The symmetry of cloud and light
All reddish-yellow-green glow
Iridescent – most majestic
Leaves on slim branches sway in gentle wind
Orchestrated as if led by a melodic wand
Kaleidoscope in rainbow colors
Conducted by some magic power
Leaves irradiated, alive, begging
Majestic foliage from afar
But close up, a painter’s dazzling marvel
Of nature’s best
******
The Vacuum of Silence
The vacuum of silence
Seeps into full-fledged thought
Peruse, confused, pervasive
The enemy a friend against adversity
Healing in the empty space
Nature blossoms
Beauty so beguiling
Temptation to absorb
The bloom and petals
Dance under blistering sun
Entice the honeybee and butterfly
Each season meshes into next
The pumping heart reveals
Fed by the tentacles called arteries
Dance in my cranium
The bed of glowing ashes
Gives orange, red, crackling heat
Quickly traverse to the other side of nothing
Fills the vacuum
So imagined and so real
******
Watch Birds
Never took time
To watch birds building nests
Too busy – school, work
One Spring I did
I left one world behind
Patiently – curiously
Each day into the woods
Watched as twigs, branches, added
To the nest by instinct and great labor
The female finally laid her eggs
I know the young ones hatched
Now I see birds everywhere
******
Youth, At the Beach
No shoes or stockings
Each footprint of my bare feet exhilarates
Like Adam’s sole, touches nature
Reversion to my childhood’s freedom
Nature naked, unashamed, unencumbered
Hot summer wind gliding by my cheeks
Until I reach the bristling, burning beach
Sand, rocks, shells and glass, forging ahead
Finally my soles touch the cool ocean waves
The festive celebration of life is now in progress!
******
Flowers
The red, yellow blossoms
Bouquet, rich colored blooms
Visual blessings from nature’s bosom
With perfume fragrance into the house
The world outside now so within
But lifeline cut, the stems suck water
The flowers, distant from her warmth soon fade
Will wilt and spoil, sadly to be discarded
But you and I outlast those flowers
Our memories latched to their sunshine state
So lucky, I’ll bring you more flowers soon!
Another rainbow cascade
Fleeting, relish in their gratifying beauty
Before the exhilaration pales
Weirdest Thing
The weirdest thoughts creep into mind
Beneath the house, what will I find?
Brown soil, anxious to breathe
Underneath the ancient Indian graves
Cool spirits with love potions, full of action
Buried bones and remnants to no ones satisfaction
Spellbound, an Indian maiden’s vision
Romance – her jealous lover’s angry decision
Weird? Hell no! True –
Down there – Indian land, magnificent
I didn’t know
******
Ghost
Come my ghost, play with me!
It was but last night that your lips met mine
So luscious, warm, soft, begging
Chased you before you vanished
Bereft, worried, concerned
What devils play concocted?
Disappearance – you lurk near by
I know it – feel it
Come ghost bring back that idle youth
The dreamer, whose eyes melt,
With visions of tomorrow
Inducted in the teenage art of love
So clumsy, yet driven by desire
I sense you still – behind the wall
In lurking shadow, close, so close
But then I remember the accident
Can happen, did happen, you left me – bereft me
All is forgiven
But only after I awake fully
As guilt and innocence and sweat
Bring wonder all so real
That I can almost touch your ghost now
******
Love
Nature has given us a unique gift for special, romantic feelings. From puberty on, our glands are stimulated – translated through the mind into desire – a deep wanting to be close, to admire, to touch and be touched arises – we begin to feel the euphoria of LOVE, enjoy the bond of loving relationships, and know the pain of this feeling unreciprocated.
Love is one of the strongest desires known to humans. Unless we feel love, there can be abundant food, water and shelter, but we will still feel unsatisfied. So with strong desire, we go out to seek, reach out, to conquer, and endeavor to display our love. Love has launched many a ship, written many a mellifluent note, and expressed itself in a myriad of poems. It is reflected in the smallest gestures from a mother to child, to the grandest such as the Taj Mahal.
Its intensity lies on many strata – from the stimulating love of nature’s beauty: sunsets, rainbows, spring – to the love between two friends – to a love so deep, you want to procreate with your love and live with your lover forever.
They say love is free. I say love has its price. A love once so intense often dissipates ending in separation, divorce, illness. Yet our love is so deeply ingrained and interred in our bosom, that it remains long after the physical spirit has departed.
We feel grief, depression, a hole in one’s heart. Healing is slow. Reality is hard to accept. Love can take us into the heavenly stratosphere and also into the blackest caves of hell. Please don’t die for it now!
No wonder the greatest poems of all have been those which express the universal searching, yearning and expression of love. The need for love is twisted into the fiber of every human being. Love has been written up in every known language. Finding love, being in love and losing a loved one has been the lingua franca of poets since time immemorial.
My time is now.
******
Importance of Love
Is love, romantic, more important
Than food and drink, shelter and security?
In love we risk our name, our wealth
Struck by the love bug
Infatuation blinds our thought!
As a blind voyager in search of ecstasy
All focused on the union to reunite with lover
Is anything more important in life?
Spun in the maelstrom of love
All senses tremble with touch of delirium
Unquenchable desire
Hormones and testosterones
Chemicals in veins and arteries dancing
Magically transformed in lover’s realm
Weird sensations fly me to her
The magic, magnetic nature beckons
It is fantastic! It is almost too much!
But then the wise view from distance
Reminds us that trees and forests survive
The dog next-door barks, the avalanche cascades down
Eventually focus, perspective returns
They tell me, the morning after is brilliantly alive!
It seems that the earth still spins on its love axis!
A Lover’s Game
I can’t warn you enough
Teaser, flirt
Feeling hurt
A bit rough
Promise of hope
Someday as lovers to elope
Tether soothing words at edge of slope
Caution: sunshine could be replaced by hangman’s rope
Touch of soft and sensuous hands
A secret feeling neither fully understands
In flesh, body chemicals in heat connected
Own sphere of beauty, honorable and self-respected
Emotions stirred – some call it love
We twosome close, fit like a glove
Lovers melted intertwined
Delicious feelings, touched and mined
Delirious joy, my buttercup
With tongue so intimate, on flesh we sup
Explored, closer feelings now enflame
Delight in nights of heaven without name
A lover’s game
Where Did My Libido Go?
I cry out – my libido’s gone
My dream of sexy creature now undone
New medicine so neutralized
Feel like spayed cat or fixed dog
My sex simply capsized
Erased, black sexy hose and garter belt
Before her idle, I crawled and knelt
No more, that overpowering feeling
No more, before my goddess reeling
Slowed down, more consciousness of sex in world
D e l i b e r a t e
Now in neutral abyss I’m hurled
At least my joystick sex glands still intact
Though latent, fast asleep, won’t interact
That longing for a sexy, luscious kiss
Evaporated, testosterone and hormones – I do miss
My hand glides over her silky, perfumed skin
An apparition only, wonder where I’d been
And all that fondling
tempting touch
In mind, my empty body
doesn’t mean as much
New medicine, new medicine
revive my sexual urge so clean
There’s hope, there’s faith
Soon I’ll stabilize and reenter life’s exciting race
And all that hidden latent stored desire
It must return –
Return and set me once again on fire
And leap into the fray of flirt and tease
The longing, urging drive again will please
To tantalize, idealize, my friendship, rich
As for now, no sex; my life; so stagnant; is a bitch
******
More Than All the Diamonds
Nothing so gross or empty
As the numbness, loss of love
Not ready to capitulate
Resolute and dutiful, hang on
Our escapade did last a while
Embattled at the height of ecstasy
Our union, holy
Filled with the soul’s delight
Romp, raving, rugged
Yet gentle as a kitten’s claw
Too intimate, too close
Recoil from such delicious thought
And in the frenzy of jealousy
Abundance of misunderstanding
So the ax finally fell
But not the feeling
Not the yearning and longing
A gruesome, callous trick
Here yesterday
Body somewhere
But ghost of shadows do pursue
Recreate the image of beauty
Even beyond the mountain ranges
Our love unites and festers
In brazen arrogance reappears
To swoon and haunt
And as in purgatory’s torture
With life comes love
A heavy price to pay –
Worth more than all the diamonds
******
Hot Love
Am I a mutant or infatuated
Sex freak, mind clouded
Or just sex starved?
By love bug bit a thousand times
Imagination run rampant
Thirst for a touch of her
Single codger, searching
Lost in her presence
I melt – in hope that she’ll submit
So much movement
Touching, so close
Her rich, red painted lips
Perhaps a mutual attraction
Touch, feel – hands, arms – real
The busy flag of sex flown
The air scented
I, like an addict, thrive on fix
Internal combustion plays its tricks
Any angle – acute, obtuse
Give me more loving, better than booze
Blind ecstasy
Strip, piece by piece
The blouse, the bra –
Discover love knots near and far
Get lost in love’s most tender touch
Of Neverland and such
Unless you are in love, and rave and rant
You’ll never understand the obsession
Dark horse, silken panties, more than decoration –
All now displayed in sex starved nation
Work aside; forget all obligations
Lover to please
On hands, knees
Recline and dine
Delight we match
Congratulations, cuddle, stretch
Wonder as I find myself in awkward form
This whole sex game is not the norm
In deference to my partner sweet
Each kiss, encounter, our treat
Rampant and frolic lips do meet
So spirited we carry on
In privacy at night or by daylight sun
Until delirious withdrawal
Brings some sensibility
As slowly, most exhausted, each
Lies on their side of bed
Fluids necessary to refresh
Too many loins and body members’ mesh
The hormones tired and fatigued
Somewhat withdrawn, now shy and meek
Have stood the test of time and might
Just dreams and romantic recollection right
Does now remain at intersection
Delight and joys, no retrospection
But sex and love so wonderfully swell
Often so distant, yet suit us well
Until next time
******
Watch It Grow
If love suddenly lands in your lap
Cuddle it
Cater it
Cajole it
Watch it grow
******
Give Me a Hug
Give me a hug
Surround my bulky body
Warm pressed, comfortable, friendly
I look into your eyes