sticks and stones

Every Moment an Instinct 30/30 by Illume System Studio



Oh, how we compare ourselves to caterpillars.

But it’s like the moths gravitating towards bright lights 
then dying that we mimic.

How we tell children that dreaming is where happiness is made.

That when dreams come true, 
wings unfold with unimaginable colors and take flight.

Yet, the lives of birds, insects and flowers are not so beautiful as we are told.
Every moment an instinct. 
They are not joyful for their magnificence.

Our happiness on the other hand has the habit 
of transforming like clouds to tears.

It’s not true that rain comes from the sky, 
and rain is not falling to the ground.

Why do we lie to ourselves?

At the top, will the view will be enough?

From the top, there is only room for one, 

looking down,
                                              looking down.


From the top, 
       there is 
                only 
                              looking 
                                         down.

What If? 22/30 by Illume System Studio



What if the rain never came?
Drip 
                  drop 
                               dry. 
There'd be nothing to wash 
The tangles from your hair,
Or the soot from your pores. 

What if the sky never filled with clouds?
Drip 
                  drop. 
Each lost droplet a lost idea 
For the clouds are the accumulation 
Of all the ideas and dreams 
Of the people down below. 

What if the thoughts stopped coming?
Drip. 
                                    Drip. 
                                                                     Drip. 
                                                                                                   Drip. 

What if?

When I Heard Your Heartbeat, I Cried 20/30 by Illume System Studio


#NaPoWriMo Challenge: Write a poem that states the things you know. 

The ground beneath my feet is really layers 
and layers of time.
Stepping softly won’t slow my growing old.
Walking in circles only makes me dizzy.

I know I need to embrace this journey. 
The sun doesn’t choose whose eyes to shine in -
I am here as witness to each glimmer. 

Your spring hydrates my crisp summer leaves.
When I heard your heartbeat I cried,  knowing 
The flood was on the way - and I knew how to swim.

I had thought I knew what love was,
I had thought I knew,
But love is like time,
beneath my feet,
with each step,
I grow wiser.

With This Sunny Day 18/30 by Illume System Studio





With this sunny day,
Collapse onto the first 
Grassy spot you find. 
Sit just for the sake of sitting. 

Take off your shoes, 
And your socks. 
Look closely to find little insects 
Wiggling around under blades. 

Aren't you also wiggling 
Up and over similar blades and bumps 
Looking for something?

Try your hardest not to squint 
When the sun touches your face. 
Don't be chilled by that cooling breeze, 
Instead notice every follicle that is feeling something. 
Let that fly linger 
Just a moment more on your arm 
And see the hundreds of reflections on its wings. 


Aren't you also always landing in places 
That try to swat you away 
As you try to be just who you are?

All at Once Yet Never Together 15/30 by Illume System Studio


Heart and mind. 
                                   A metaphor murmuring 
                                                          And melting evermore
                             Into puddles of 
       Desire and despair. 

    Always all at once yet never together. 

                            Which one could stand alone?

As the sea and the shore join endlessly 
                                                         Rock by pebble by 
                              Sand to silt. 

         I am left to reflect how the 
                                           Waning tide suffers 
                                                                          no remorse 
                                                       As it leaves me. 

                                                                    Returning later, 
                                           It will not grieve that
I have gone. 

A Hard Truth 9/30 by Illume System Studio


Waking up inside small circles
Still asleep. 
Still wrapping around and around and 
Around.

In truth,
The center is hard to locate.

The center has its own center.

Its own center doesn’t exist.

So what am I
Wrapping around if not 
Nothing at all?

This One to the Sea 11/30 by Illume System Studio


Mother takes the hand of little fingers,
kissing them one by one.
This finger down the mountain,
This finger through the trees,
This finger touch the sky,
This one to the sea.

Mother touches so gently each blade of grassy hair on little heads.
Here sprouts the life,
Here the flowing gold,
Here flowering seeds,
Here the dreaming folds.

Mother walks with care, small steps and slowly.
First steps in the water,
First falling to the ground,
First dance with windy music,
First whispers in the round.

River Won't Listen 10/30 by Illume System Studio


River rushing,
Messing through tranquility,
Upsetting soft grasses 
And still trees.

Calm sky clouds
Stay open for a wide sun.
But river shatters the rays
Upon rocks and edges.

River won’t listen 
To birdsong or deer hooves moving.
Instead, tantrum-ing down mountainsides,
And butting up against boundaries and lines.

Always running,
although towards or away from,
We may never know.
Whirl-pooled and streaming puddles of childish tears,
Crying until they’re all dried up.

I'm No Sooner Arrived 8/30 by Illume System Studio

I'm back from the woods where I spend a few days off the grid...I couldn't post for #napowrimo, so the following posts will be catch up posts of what I put together at Breightenbush Hot Springs in Oregon.



Sooner and later I'm always
Looking for shadows and shapes
That disappear behind 
Each distraction,
Dissolve into every reflection
And dip beneath an under-looked depth. 

And later I awake to find 
I'm no sooner arrived. 

A Drop in The Bucket 7/30 by Illume System Studio


Today's writing prompt from NaPoWriMo is: Write about Money

A Drop in the Bucket

It’s in our DNA,
To build upon and build upon.

To multiply, and increase.
To take up more space, 
To be our own. 
To identify what is ‘mine’. 

One penny connecting to another,
Becoming another form of currency, 
Attracting more connections.

The endless becoming of many pieces 
That together represent 
More than the whole.

Culturally the monies display differently, 
But underlying the structure, 
Their concepts, 
look the same.

Like with our own DNA, 
Money buys ninety percent junk, 
Only ten percent for what we need to function.

Often, our wallets suffer from disease and loss. 
Some feel emptiness,
Some are obese,
Some are tainted with bad blood.

Many submit to the God gene and feel all powerful,

While others are stolen
Disappearing into the masses,
Unnoticeable,
                  An insignificant 
                                              drop 
                                                                       in the bucket.

It’s in our DNA to make more.
It’s in our DNA to take over,

As we spend
                              we speak,
                                                                 Through our voices,
                                          we evolve.

Birdy Told Me Nothing 3/30 by Illume System Studio


A little birdy told me nothing. 

Nothing about what was to be. 
Not a tweet about love,
Or loss, or glee. 

Of pain, hope and joy, there was silence,
Only a lone crow caw upsetting the balance. 

No flits of light on my shoulder,
Or visions of happy life when I'm older. 

Just here and now, amongst sky and ground. 
Inside just this moments sudden breeze I am found. 

A little birdy said nothing to me,
                                         and as it will be, 
                                                   Only a song for its mate
                            High in the tree. 

The Sound of Every Heartbeat by Illume System Studio



How is it that one heart is love,
And one is poison?

That Two hearts can beat together
And overcome the rhythm of another heart's fury.

How can this evil heart rest beside this sweetheart,
or how this good heart broke and became numb?

Whereas what difference is one heart to another?

Truly.

Have you ever wondered
what the sound of every heartbeat
together is?

It must be a sound.
Why don't we know how to hear that music?

With so many hearts alive whether open,
scared, calm or bleeding,
How is it not the only auditory sensation we hear?

Your lonely heart echoed loudly for me.
The brum pa pum of my beat pushed me
towards your buh buum buh buum.

We swayed softly to the music
and filtered out all other luring.
But we were still vulnerable hearts.

Each heart we meet is a dance, trying to align the rhythm.

We don't choose this.
It happens.
Every single heart we meet.
Our hearts want to dance.

Inside this chest is no different than yours.
The heart know this.
The visceral reds pulse and brood,
whisp and pour through streamlines and rivers.

No difference. No good hearts or bad. Open or closed.
All heart
until it bleeds out,
silences or is forgotten.

If only we walked through our lives
meeting each heart willing to accept that dance.

Each heart open to be loved.



from Instagram

Failure by Illume System Studio




Let's talk of failures.

The worlds of should of's.
The expansive sky full of
Dead star's lights,
As if trying to send blinking morse code cautionary messages,
But we're too enamored of the spectacles to read. 

Of failures to do this or that, or because we did. 

Really, what is failure but
Another speck of light
Trying to be seen.

Another angle exposed and reflected 
from the tangled prism of being. 

Do we fail to learn or learn to fail?

Don't we just want to be luminous, and does failing make us any less so?


#puddlepoem