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Sunday, August 18, 2024

Make Music~

 —Poetry by Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal, 
West Covina, CA
—Photos and Original Artwork by Luis Berriozábal
 
 
SOUND OUT YOUR SILENCE

Sound out your silence.
Make music with passing breath.
Bend water in glass; bend trees
that surround the lake where
the forest ends. Sound out
the only song you know by heart
as trees fall with no witnesses
near. Make music with dead air.

Hear the earth’s voice speak
with the faintest of sounds;
it is like the voice of the dead
long silent, who cannot tell
the living what they learned;
the living, whose ears only
hear what they are offered.
The dead only offer silence,

the echoes of shadows
veiled in doubt.
 
 
 


WAITING ON THE OCEAN’S WAVES

Waiting for the ocean’s
waves to wash away
the sand from my feet.

Waiting for the ocean’s
waves to wipe away
my name scrawled on the

wet sand. Waiting for the
ocean’s waves to cool
off my burning feet.

Waiting for the ocean’s
waves to bring me shells
or pearls of wisdom.
 
 
 


UNUSUAL PLACES

I see eyes everywhere;
some filled with the joys
of life and some with its
sorrows. I see them in
some unusual places.

I see eyes when I look
up to the skies, one
is the sun, another the

moon, whiter some days
in my keen observation.

I fear my eyesight will fail.
With sadness, I am waiting
for that day, waiting for
those last minutes of sight.

The eyes in the skies will
remain, some on fire, some
in the mouths of vultures,

some in usual places.
 
 
 


GET LOST

Let’s get lost where what we plant
what we grow to eat, and let’s get
lost in the song and flight of a solitary
bird, and let’s get lost in night before

the stars and moon shine like lamps,
and let’s get lost in the yellow fields,
and the gardens with tall green trees,
and let’s get lost in the plains of spring

before they or us are here no longer,
and let’s get lost just you and me,
yes let’s get lost, just you and me.
 
 
 
 
 
BUILDING DREAMS

Tree after tree fell
to build dreams.

To build dreams
from trees, nightmares

came to birds and other
animals that lived in

those trees. Gone
are those dreams

to build human dreams.
Goodbye dreams.

What else is there
to say? Houses and

furniture are shaped
from those trees, spoons,

spatulas, building blocks
and sawdust.

In grief the birds
and squirrels move on.

If they could put
their words to paper,

which also came from
trees, their words

would be more elegant
and profound.
 
 
 
 

SINK INTO THE SEA

Let night fall,
watch it sink into the sea.
At morning
time, watch the clouds sink
into the same water.

The heavens will sink
like anchors untethered,
the white paper moon
and amber paper sun
will sink into the deep darkness.

Under candlelight
people in boats will sink
into the darkness
with all the thick foliage
and their fortune.

See it all sink
until nothing remains
but silence
and the melancholy of the past.

Far down below
a new world will
reveal itself someday.

_____________________

Today’s (Longer) Nip:

WE SING
—Luis Cuauhtémoc Berriozábal

We sing
when life is hard,
when we are sad,
when the poet inside mourns.

Things call
or long for song
night or day, when
the wind blows sideways.

Build or
destroy, I do
not really know
what is best or worst.

We sing
eternal songs,
never mute songs.
It’s all we can do.

___________________

—Medusa, with thanks to Luis Berriozábal for today’s fine poetry and visuals!
 
 
 
 —Artwork by Luis Berriozábal















 
 
 
 
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