Touching the Invisible

—Poetry by Linda Klein, Los Angeles, CA
—Public Domain Photos Courtesy of Joseph Nolan, Stockton, CA

INVISIBLE

Sometimes I feel invisible.
People look past me
or through me with indifference
as if I wasn't there.

What they see is a wall
beyond my transparent body.
I want to shake them
so they know I am here.
I see and hear them
and if we touch, I feel them.
At times I feel them without touching,
their vibrations and essences.

Am I indeed invisible?  No.
I am complex.  I have substance,
thoughts, emotions, ideas, questions,
a need to give and take,
to be a part of all that is, to belong.

Although sometimes people don't acknowledge me,
I am a part of them and they, a part of me.
We live our separate lives,
each of us wrapped us in our own personal pod.
We emphasize differences, and deny similarities.
We trust no one, share nothing, yet expect everything.
We seem to be afraid of being discovered.

I long to be discovered, but I am staring at a wall,
transparent in my fear.

STANDING UP TO FEAR

When dreadful dreams creep in through psychic cracks, threatening my serenity,
my wild imagination soars on an ill-fated course inside my mind.
Fear can cling like a cobweb, lurking in the corner of a steamy room,
watching, breathing, wailing an ominous tale of certain doom;
I follow blindly, a lemming.  No escape I find,
the captive, helpless target for any outrageous obscenity.

Then I hear my own clear, steady voice, some wise angel meant to save me,
and I am aware that my aloneness is power within, dark essence.
Fears are inflated fantasy without substance.  Only solitude is real.
Be gone, false phantoms.  You are beyond credence.
      Flee to your usual conceal.
I am not a fool to be molested by you.  Remove your loathsome presence.
I have at last regained the common sense and fortitude that nature gave me.

                                                     
WORDS

Words are multi-faceted jewels.
They can be blunt or sharp tools,
used to express feelings and thoughts,
to calm fears and expel doubts,
to drive home points when opinions differ,
or to offer solace to those who suffer.

I keep mine in a silk-lined box,
and use them often.  No need for locks.
Every day I scan and sort,
consider their value, what each is worth.
Some may sparkle like pendants emitting light,
Others soothe, smooth as pearls, they fall just right,

My objective is to select them
so those who hear them don't reject them.

 Recently Discovered Cave Art in France

                                                                 

                         

THE SCULPTOR

A large, moist block of clay awaited his touch and imagination.
It stood on a solid wood pedestal and was covered with damp cloths
to keep it supple and prevent it from drying in the air of the sculptor's studio.

Ah, the air—a variety of musty vaporous smells, a treat for his nostrils
as he entered the room each morning.  The air told a tale of the clay's
          origins and composition.
It brought images of plants, trees, and animals, decomposed, buried
          deep inside the huge lump of clay.

To him it was as though they were there in the room, alive again,
a wild forest of long ago, creatures ambling through shrubs and grasses.
Behind trees caches of badgers, beavers, foxes, and wolves, co-existing, moving about among the vegetation, consuming it as they went.

He reached inside the moist clay to reveal the scene, first with his hands
and fingers, then an arm, and found a baby deer.  The deer looked at him
curiously, lovingly.  Its ears curled as leaves curl.  He caressed its head.
With a cutting tool he carefully carved the rest of its graceful body
from the dense mound of clay.

He continued passionately, digging in deep, to find as many forms of life
as he could to release them all, bring them back to life again.
They were counting on him.

THE MAN WHO ISN’T THERE

He occupies her every thought, the man who isn't there.
Though he lies in their family plot, she sees him everywhere,
His spirit is in all the rooms of the humble home they share.
She speaks to him, seeks his wise advice, which is only fair.
She never wants to travel far,  has no need to go anywhere.
Her memories constantly recall his warmth and gentle care.
She sees him in the faces of the children who are theirs,
as she watches their expressions, and listens to their fears.
This is how she lives her life, content to always be his wife.
Ensconced in their own little square, they know no strife,
the faithful widow lady and the man who isn't there.

___________________

Today’s LittleNip:

For Age is opportunity no less

Than youth itself, though in another dress, 

And as the evening twilight fades away

The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day.

—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

___________________

Welcome back to Linda Klein this morning, and a big thank-you for her poems! About them, she writes, “ ‘Standing Up To Fear’ uses mirror rhyming. The first line of each stanza rhymes with the last line of that stanza. The second line rhymes with the next to last line, and the two middle lines rhyme. ‘The Man Who Isn't There’ is compact, almost a perfect square like the life of the woman it speaks about.”

And thanks, also, to Joseph Nolan for his engaging photos! Yikes—whatta shark! Think it’s really that size, or was it “doctored” in Photoshop?

___________________

—Medusa

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