Thursday, October 20, 2011

Construct

Sitting.
Shoulders slumped over a low table.
Shoes untied,
feeling socks that fell around my toes
with the walk to this firm bench.
Un-ergonomic.
With a mug too warm to sit over
and clasp my hands around it's circumference.
No streams of light from the windows,
only spots of orange from the lights above.
Highlighting the uninspired:
A seam of grout in the floor tiles,
a left-of-center factory defect of my table,
the tip of my frayed right shoelace,
a crumbling brown leaf that followed me in,
and gleaming,
for a moment,
off a hairless man's neck.
He rubs away an ache,
unaware,
he steps from the touch of the light
and no longer shines orange.


Listening.
Faint, pitching notes come from invisible speakers
and take the foreground.
But only on a rhythmic, seldom occasion.
Beneath is a low rumble of chatter.
I hear one voice emerge
saying commandingly, "dump it".
Immediately another says lightly, "differently."
As if impatiently snuck into the following slot,
like someone slyly cutting in a long line of sleepwalkers.
Followed by an odd, unintelligible length of deep white noise.
I sip from my cooling mug
and imagine the minds of whom the comments were directed.
They merge into one listener.
I see the faceless listener finding a way to follow orders.
With a soft ease, they hold a ceramic pitcher of unknown liquid.
Put their fingers in the pitcher
and draw their hand up from its base
with a reversed, sprinkling-of-salt motion.
Concentrating hard upon the idea of "dump it, differently",
they're able to keep the pitcher upright,
and the liquid follows their fingertips
upward in a helix,
like crystles on a string hung from each fingertip.
Obeying - the liquid falls to the ground
as their lax wrist passes the pitcher's lip.


I smile at this thought,
and blow softly,
taking my second sip.




Jordan R Shaver 10.20.2011



Friday, October 7, 2011

Distracted by Dad; A Haiku

Clouds hang suspended
like a mobile above the
cribs of all of us.



Jordan R Shaver

My Favourite Hat & His Favourite Hat

"My Favourite Hat"

Walking down the street one day
an electric wind forced my hat flying,
so i quickly grabbed it,
and began to roll and mold it between my palms.

I squeezed it solid to a torrent of dust,
and blew the remains from my hands
like flower petals that once fell
from my parents' wedding day roses.

Refusing my wandering mind,
I took three steps to my left,
retrieved my hat
and made it to class in a moment flat

"His Favourite Hat"

... so i used my sturdy cane to prop these frail limbs.
Squatting to secure the young man's hat from a quick retreat.
And as i bend low, I turned my head and focused on young - widening eyes.
Found myself crying while he graciously shared the white, bright shimmer from his eye -
absorbing my aged mind,
which quickly considered the reason of time.

Without seperation, we'd all be one.

Squatting on a broken sidewalk,
with tears falling toward a curling, opening smile.
I saw this hat as mine, and this stalling youth within me
- sharing unspoken gestures of love.
All on a day Time fell asleep,
and humanities atom's embraced,
and Emotion settled within me,
a quick retraction of existance,
a pause of important minutes -
then explosion back to realities' existance.
Saved as another hazy old-man-memory
as I resume my crooked stance,
and follow my cane, guided from the top
the few final steps to the coffee shop.

Jordan R Shaver

Outside A-Frames

I've been asked to remember
a swiss-cheese past,
half made up
through foggy photographs.
To find the home
of red shag carpet,
dog hair and busy fathers.

I think we've lost the pictures on purpose.

Of rats and flooded holy ceilings,
where I would hope for warmth
beneath prickley-woolen dreams.
She'd change me outdoors,
where Freedom stole neighborhood horses
trampling her favorite plastic garden.
Calloused children run for fun -
teaching the young to blister hands early
with that rusted axe,
still resting in the holes we dug.
While the A-Frame stands erect,
frowning still -
but the people inside
tire - then work away another day
only to pay that ubiquitous bill.
We were Isolated in red shag carpet
hiding a family's emotional blood stains
burred with time,
under a manifested A-Frame haze.
Mother's trees stretched upon themselves
while the weeping one embraced me
and we'd blink away another glance
of that A-Frame yards away.
My first home furnished little grace,
remembering somehow
where I am now

and how much I loved that place.
Jordan R Shaver

G'Night


G’night sweet love.
Let me haul you to safe dark.
Where the soft blues of night
wrap ‘round you tight
and warm your blankie.
Between spok’d crib sides
I always see your cheeks loosen and relax
as your dreams begin to tease me
behind my open eyes.
Your breaths echo with the beat of this old rocking chair
– Deep and long, causing the air
to velvetly drape over
the waving few hairs
upon your fresh wandering mind.

I let the longing scent you’ve left behind,
waft through my familiar insides.
Tonight the blinding white shadows assist you in sleep,
mixing with your new wisdom --
And I’ll protect you forever,
like mine protected me.

So tonight I’ll sit here watching
- rocking comfortably with prayer.
Tonight my mind sees these shadows
glisten and bow before my child
as a crowd in great fervor.
Tonight I’ve smiled many times
under the softly circling fan
and I slowly realize
– we’ve loved you forever
even before you’re life began.
G’night sweet love.

- Jordan R Shaver