NOTE: I have site  for viewing some of my graphics. It's at:

http://www.saunalahti.fi/msiivola/jan/index.html

THESE THINGS VARY

Breathing in, breathing out

Can be a sigh, a sneeze

A shout.

These things vary

By degrees

And breath

Persists until death.

These things vary

Into style.

Sometimes instantly

Or

After a while

A furtive smile

Can creep into a grin

Explode a laugh.

But half

The grace

That ties the lace

With love and life

And how we race

From birth to death

Paced by our breath

In every case

Involves play

With atmosphere.

That much is clear.

These things vary.

DESTINATION

There is cold

In the country of the old.

Heat of life,

Heat of love,

Heat of curiosity

Has drained away.

From its terrain,

Stony as a terminal moraine,

Sprouts pain,

Sprouts anxiety,

Sprouts isolation.

Desolation fills the atmosphere.

It blurs perception,

It blurs tactility,

It blurs memory.

Lonely, confused and feeble,

Old creatures creep in insecurity,

Stumbling on the roots and vines

Of bodily infirmity,

Await with temerity,

Await with resignation

The final mating

With the monolithic dominator

Whose acid flames

Burn away the self,

Dissolve and dissipate the substance,

Reduce to bland simplicity

The intricate design

Of individuality.

THE MAJESTY OF DEATH

The majesty of death

Cannot reign without love.

All power draws its strings

From the intimates of common things

That cross and tie our lives

From day to day, one to another;

The touch, the look, the joy

Of living in a world to share

In happiness and misery.

Time blooms with wondrous insights

That intensify when held in hands

Together.

To feel and know each other=s universe

Weaves a web of mutuality that

When ripped by death

Leaves threads

Swinging in a midnight wind.

FORMATION

The patterns of the world wash in

Across the sands of mind

And ripple through the thoughts which drift

And scatter unaligned

'Til gently rocking back and forth

Their edges catch and bind.

They bind and mat in patterns that

Echo those outside

To map the weavings of the world

That glisten, slip and slide

And change in forms extremely strange

Which shatter and collide.

We construct ourselves upon

These waves of sight and sound

Collecting from these drifting thoughts

An entity that's bound

To shifting inside structures

And whatever runs aground.

FRAYED AT THE END

Along the way

One collects.

Sparsely,

If one has the wit to realize

The trip may be long

And pockets meanly shallow.

Youth and simple fascination

And an innate sense of order

Folds acquisitions into sense

Which fit most sensibly to stores.

But time overwhelms

Most economic husbandries

With plenitude.

Memories ferment and melt

White clouds to lift me up

And off to nothingness.

To Pollock patterns.

Order and disorder meld.

Stars and tissue paper,

Unstrung pearls and graveled skins

Of tangerines long consumed.

Furniture no longer squats

In set configurations.

Curtains sag. Corners soften,

Faired by dust and crumbs

Into spider playgrounds

Where choruses of flies ensnared

Hum in symphony.

Dying must,

I belatedly perceive,

Be approached with caution.

Powers fade and disappear

In minute secret phases,

Like coins percolating

Through a pocket hole.

Distant objects blur.

The spines of books

No longer shout

What lies within.

Their colors smear

As by a moistened thumb

Into colored cacophones.

Sounds struggle through

A buzz and whistle static.

Anesthetic numbness

Gloves my fingertips.

A ghostly dental shot

Has thickened up my mouth and tongue.

Soon I must be enwrapped

In white sterility

Within a chrome corral

Where hungry tubes

Will suck my openings

And pump intrusive stews

Bestowing to my life

A marginal extension.

Steaming from my center,

Like a lump of melting CO two,

Cold fear billows out

White clouds to lift me up

And off to nothingness.

BETWEEN THE FIRST AND FINAL SCREAM

Out of time into space

We enter this peculiar place

Full of interaction, contradiction,

Strange attraction, ‘til eviction

Snaps us back from where we came

Straight into the nothing game.

All our parts strictly composed,

We are fingered, nicely toed

Toothed and mouthed and eyed and nosed,

Armed and handed as commanded

By our genes when we landed.

What we do with all those parts

Depends upon where we starts

To place the horse before the carts

With our brains or our hearts.

Life inbetween is this or that.

Staying thin, getting fat,

Receiving what one expects

In economics or in sex,

Not to deny fascination

With wealth or health or procreation

With, perhaps, some contemplation

Of why to be even concerned

How time is lit, or nicely burned.

What life should be,

Perhaps, is fun

In thunderstorm or in sun,

Since time not spent

With good intent

Is wasted time to relent.

So, upright or supine in bed

Life’s not given, merely lent

And in the end, we’re all dead.

EPITAPH

Here I lie,

All my bones

And my head.

Under these stones,

Hopefully,

Dead.