Becalmed
written by: Craig R Kirchner
There is no silence.
It is quiet, no manufactured noise,
no machinery running or dog barking in
the background, but a hum, a teeming,
the earth breathing, the planets spinning,
the synapses pulsating in concert.
There is always a scent of sorts,
no smell or odor but the taste of breath.
Eyes closed, worlds swirling,
dancing, between the eye and the lid,
tiny red dots in the blackness,
more solar systems than in the night sky.
There is no movement, no muscle activity,
no strain, a still, to a meditation
and the force of an unfulfilled levitation,
the motionless effort to resist dead weight.
This is the hushed spirit the holy men speak of.
This is life, upper consciousness, soul.
Craig has written poetry all his life, is now retired, and thinks of poetry as hobo art. He loves storytelling and the aesthetics of the paper and pen. The parallel, horizontal, blue lines on white legal, staring left to right, knowing that the ink, when it meets the resistance of the page will feel extroverted, set free, at liberty to jump, the two skinny, vertical red lines to get past the margin. He was nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize, and has a book of poetry, Roomful of Navels. After a writing hiatus he has recently been published and has work forthcoming in a dozen or so journals.
