Half Closed Eye Witness: by Eric Stachowiak (phonics readers txt) 📕

Fell to the Ground
A Ghazal

Outside, the last sycamore leaf fell to the ground,
and winds stirred what has fell to the ground.

When she arrived at her parent’s home,
nervous hands dropped keys that fell to the ground.

Here she told her family who she was;
to disparate places, her heart fell to the ground.

Here she told her family who she was;
truth broke her life, Mother fell to the ground.

She cried, her family offering no tissues, sleeves;
sympathy's net gone, her tears fell to the ground.

The flight back home, a grey film veiled her eyes, she wished the plane fell to the ground.

Because I am I cannot be; identity now abomination; Fight back! Do not be fell to the ground!

Repeating, 'I love women', hollow words to Mother’s face, Father’s tears; she fell to the ground.

A white blanket of disconect, snowfall of isolation,
bitter cold; her spirit fell to the ground.

No spring for her, for seasons cease
when buried is a body that has fell to the ground.


Signed, Delicately
A Haiku

Fragility is
not the mark of great weakness,
but Love's signature.


Sommelier

Whisper

Travel
my thigh's length,
down
to the depths of my being,
come
bubbling to the surface,
rising
like champagne.

The best flavors
in this world
must be savored;
the grape distilled on my tongue,
head reeling
in impassioned clouds.


Lore of the Frogs

Folk Tale

The lake held the reflection,
trapped in its watery basin:
Cassandra's Bakery's

illuminated sign.

The Frogs,
by far the smartest animals in the lake,
had a language amongst themselves
but had not yet learned English.

They were a race of slimy, gluttonous amphibian,
but they lacked any malevolence to living creatures;
for them, the excess of the bakery provided all sustenance.

As time passed,
the Frog's folk lore grew,
but the lake front dissolved.

At last, only a quaint pond,
the Frog's home,
was saved by the bakery's success -and need-
for extra space to fit all of its expanding patronage.

The eldest Frog would croak some nights,
relaying the collected wisdom of generations
to newborn tadpoles.

Two eyes lolling about his head,
roaming over the faces of eager children,
he explained of whence came the waters they drank
and the rich mud they soaked in to keep out the sun.
Of the Great Gods who blessed them so,
as they passed by in baggy skins and colorful hides-
so great were they,
that their front legs never touched the ground.

Looking up,
a young Tadpole once asked;
where comes the food we eat?

Blinking myopically,
the Oldest answered the question:
'Look up tonight and see the
Lights of Powdered Sugar.'
He paused to wet his drying eyes
with his lengthy tongue,
'These are the infinite sources that the Gods
in their mighty steel birds fly to,
in order to steal the sweet sustenance of our lives;
they so charitably share that with us each night
on the Walkway to the City of the Gods.'

The children then went to bed.
Each ruminating on their learning,
and each enjoyed their treat of a night time snack;
a crumbling snowman sugared cookie.


If I Could Be

(When Lover's Pine in the Night)

The ink on your fingers, fresh from new newspaper,
The candied juice of an apple that grips, fleetingly, to your hands,
The brief static charge that rises in your hair before a sudden summer storm,
The fleeting caress on your cheek in the wind's passing.



Those Amazonian Ones

A Snapshot

There is a dolphin that lives in freshwater,
I know this because
my hair clung together
from rain drops.

Drenched eyelashes,
you separated each follicle
cheeks aglow from the porch lamp light.

There were moths,
dripping into the house's wooden siding.

You held a lash on your fingertip,
smiling: make a wish.

'Let it rain,
so much. We’ll swim with dolphins.'

Into my forehead you pressed words;
‘like those Amazonian ones?’

Your lips make my dreams live.


Specks of Dust on the Brow of the Boy Who Runs
Vignettica

I
There was a time when so many souls
were awakened from peaceful slumber,
and all were guided by myriad pipers
to fulfill naught but their highest orders.

Like fevers of the past
that have afflicted these lands usurped,
little were spared, none were saved,
immunity was found in death.

These were times
when the white collars of sugar tongued Shepherds
sweated holy waters to nourish their flocks.

How the tongue tires of lifting such heavy words.

II
As a child,
to see the sun blotted by bloated figures
of leering faces and vitriol-

the deer gazes up at fanged and clawed leaves,
the fish swims in sulfuric flame,
the bird is buried midflight,
the infant sucks sand, and learns it as milk.

III
There is a boy with sandy feet,
whose steps tread upon empty streets;
he runs in haste, hoping not to be caught outside
when the windows of Heaven let loose their waters.


Tree of Birds

Family Tale

The Boy’s Father
cradled the Child on his shoulder.

A whisper tickled pinkish, gnomish ears,
grizzly chin rasping smooth cheek:
“Here is where Birds grow."

The Boy nodded slowly;
the hike had been tiring.

The Father plucks a blossom,
places the frail creature
into the Boy’s gently retracting hands.


We Just Love Moon So Much, We Give Sun the Snub Eye

Modern Folk Lore, Vignettica

I.

It was a night in autumn.

There were leaves flying around a darkened path;
the night and concrete path blend well together.
Leaves of crinkled yellow and
burnt out reds and slightly spotish greens,
they tumbled around like fliers in a town
full of information that no one cared to pursue.

I had my green hoodie on.
It was the one that looked torn apart,
as if I was a priest of nightly doings and goings on,
like I was all about, practicing at places
that all parents dread to know of as 'out'.

Outside, it was wall-less, unsupervised.
My vestment for this sacred nocturnal journey
was, as I stated earlier, my jaded green hoody;
and it resembled to me and my still summer-saturated mind
the deep and sensual memories of bleeding grass.
If grass bleeds, as it has to be,
a kind of dark spinachly parsley that sinks into the skin
but smells more like sickly, oily sweat
and the belches of lawnmowers that protest at every tug to their motors.

II

So on that autumn night,
I guess there was a slippery tree branch,
or a very brave opossum. Or a very clumsy possum, as these things happen.
I'm not sure if you can have all three.

Anyway, it, the possum, fell into my hood,
and I, being the *sensible* person I am,
asked it why it was in my hood;
but I didn't ask it in a way that would make it seem like I didn't want him there,
I'm not a bad person, I just feel like,
well it is /my/ hoodie after all...

But I digress, for pleasantries of this type
are more often assumed in the background of conversation, even with animals.

II.

The Opossum responded,
not really to my surprise.
I was tired and high and well,
in my neck of the woods things like this happen.
All the time, without anyone blinking twice,
not even that girl with the set of double eyelids like a shark,
although, she did have those removed.

It was a girl possum.
I wasn't interested,
so there was less pressure between us,
without the sexual tension I mean.

III
She was all like,
'yea, I didn't really mean to fall in your hood dude.'
I believed her. Then I asked how it happened.
'Was too busy admiring Moon.'

The Moon?

She then starts spinning this story
about owls and gods and shit she heard as a kid,
or a cub or something? I don't know, a baby possum, whatever fits the term.

It was a story about how the Moon, back in the day,
was prettier than the Sun, and the Sun hated her for it.

In my head, I was on Moon's side.
Sun seems selfish, doesn't let just anyone see her without being a pain.
Classist that is. Elitism.
Moon though, she's all about free-sourcing
and whoever wants a peek is entitled to have it,
as long and as hard as they want;
that's beauty of policy at least.

IV
The marsupial continued her tale;
so Moon comes to Earth and the animals are all going gaga
and she struts about and everyone applauds.

This is in the times before there was a night and a day;
and the two heavenly lights roamed about together
but most people liked Moon more (she was easier on the eyes),
but they couldn't tell Sun that.


For Sun wasn't just highly intelligent, bright-like,
but she was a vindinctive Lady,
insecure, she needed everyone's attention.
You think about that kid who tried to get closer to her, Icarus, and you can see what I mean about her and relationships.

So Sun gets jealous or mad or whatever
and she sets about laying a trap for Moon,
scare her away so that she can have the spotlight to herself.
Under the threat of fire, her intense heated stare,
she coerces all the plants and animals
to bark and bay and crow at her inferno when it approaches.

V
Moon, she's really laid back, doesn't like noise or commotion;
and soon enough the clatterings and clammerings Sun causes drive Moon away.

Now, before this, everybody was real relaxed when Sun or Moon came by,
a little nod of respect to the Divine Graces and then its back to business;
but Sun had to go about changing things,
and as an animal you don't have a say in the higher up workings of the World.

But animals are not without morals, or a sense of right or wrong.

Here, the opossum sighed, then smiled,
a toothy grin that slightly scared, before ending.

So, when Sun went away the animals would quiet down
to see Moon again, to say a 'hi' of respect.
However,
some animals, just like us Oppossums she said,
we just love Moon so much, we just give Sun the old snub eye.


An Ancient Lesson

Senryu

When narcissism
grows wings, only hubris may
err and fly higher.



In Line After Midnight

Half Closed Eyes Witness

There’s a police officer, just standing there,
and a line of drunken people
next to abstract art in panels of
tarnished brass at McDonald’s.

If I push one of the late night patrons,
it's dominoes!
Rude Goldberg, eat your heart out.

Penetrating my bubble of reality is
my friend, who started this night,
and his complaints
of a relationship.

He throws out words like love and care,
dog and vomit, grades and escalators.
Everything has dissolved by the time
that I realize nothing has survived
the osmosis of the night.

The badge of a police officer
reflects the tinted nightlife
that we’ve left behind in limes