I write poetry for the soul of the poet and the scientist. I also read many books and paint many things.

Photographer: Paige Six

*a poem I fashioned after a particularly poetic comment I’d read on YouTube:

This beat takes me straight
to another time and space,

hiking high through
the north of Norway.

Over jagged mountains
across the strange valley,

where trees were twisting
aspiring ballerinas dancing,

held still by cement
of frozen ground.

There’d been a fire here years ago,
however we’d have never known

had we not felt its heat,
a tangle of limbs contorting,

hot breath whispering in
willow circles escaping.

We spent three nights hunkered
down in a hut tucked between

the heartbeat beneath a clavicle
and a cascade of icicles,

surrounded by silence and snow,
it felt like finally reaching my home.

-six pm (and Kris Wagner)

In case you’re interested, this is the video to the song that inspired the note where the comment was found:

Aladdin 1992

i
am a
sentimental
physicist.
observing
the gravity
of emotion.
noting the
subtle lensing
of light,
as it
filters
passed you
and
distorts my
star weary
eyes.
i must
crunch the
equations &
check them
twice
before
i don
aluminum,
endure
your
endless
cold,
& shoot
for your
moon.•
○.

⁂⁖
.
the
mass
effect
of you
consumes.
hypothesis:
your
spirit’s
path is
visible
light,
racing
towards
a cosmic
wall; to
decorate
galactic sky
as microwave
impressionism.
•°.


.
to
make
sense of
your dark,
i spend
my nights
measuring
boundless
black
matter that
surrounds us.
enraptured
by the
scented skyline
prophesying:
jet propulsion,
serenaded, and
lemonade rainfall;
Armageddon
upon another
acid planet.
your pain
upon the
reaches
still unpinned
by travelled
telescopes;
dying
technologies
making me
jealous of
all the
places where
the universe
sees the
parts
of you
i am
physically
incapable
of being. °
•.

⁖⁕
.
as love
moves
in ellipticals
it eclipses
my heart,
eventually.
always,
the awe
never ceases
to inspire me.
invokes my
muse.
devote my
life to
translating
the beauty of
its euphoria
into the
English
vernacular.
ceaselessly.
to release
the burden of
it’s memory
like the sun
burned into
my retinas.
i compose &
compute each
intangible
equation.
nuance
comprises
itself onto
endless notations.
converting numbers,
filtered through
my limbic system,
into colloquial
prose.
closest words
to illustration,
as my
cerebellum
can
surmise. •
. •°.

.
code the
sentences
unto
my poems;
my theories
of everything.
presenting
my poetry
to everyone
as my
thesis.
phantoms
obsessing
my mind
my only
tangible
evidence.
am i
still the
only
person
who can
see
how
perfect
we
are?
the
only
person
who
sees
our
future
written
in the
stars?

-six pm |* sentimental physics

Aladdin 1992

*

*

*

[ I don’t believe in magic ]

but I do believe in

magnetism

and

*

the

direction of our stars

so don’t call this intuition

[ when all sign say you’re *my north. ]

*

-six pm | *my north

*

*

for fifty days i fasted,

knowing no-thing,

save the retching of my own flesh,

save the pit of my own stomach.

*

for your arrival safely we sold

our cattle, fashioned a festival

our first kiss –a first sip of wine

on the day break of Pentecost,

at last my fast was over.

*

we fashioned circles of precious metals

and strung them around each other’s

vena amori, declared forever in a vacuum

proclaimed endurance upon the coming

event horizon of time itself.

*

space swells with the ancient ruins

of men and women who shed tears

tracing the constellation trails

from one end of an ocean to another

filling the void of voiceless oceans

with metaphoric rapture and appetite

for adventure.

*

*darling, the smell of desert sand swims

firmly between your pores,

your body warm as the land

cut like mountains

between your biceps

where my head lays

basking in the moments

you are here. 

*

how i adore you so.

*

proclaim eternity

enter matrimony – eyes wide open

place his heart upon a pedestal

let no slanderous word nor malicious canticle

seduce his woefully mortal heart.

*

roots and petals of calendula

poultice to quell the spasms

you take me in my blood 

and i take you in my arms 

when the nightmares hurt 

worse than the back pain.

*

you remind me that even in the winter

the carmine-colored cardinal coos

and whistles, awakens the trees and fills

the cold world with sweet song.

*

i’m unraveled in your high collar,

blue and burned in a freak fire,

raptured by the desert

nothing is forever, we know,

yet everything is possible.

*

there is no going back.

*

on this river of time

except maybe we’ll escape 

the event horizon burn 

as radiation about 

the black hole’s radio halo.

*

dying light is a subjective notion

when you limit every poetic persuasion

to the limits of the human eye.

*

we weave honey, orange citrus, & marmalade

into spacetime tapestry,

 devote each second

as the present is our own reward

the art of being in love,

the pleasure of being alive.

*

the future is a metaphor –

as in calling the ocean endless

naming riptides undertow

we: new and other molecules

blur into water, two bodies

one brackish soul.

*

-six pm | *after easter

*

*
April Egg Moon | Photographer: Paige Six, 2020

*

i.

I am a golden dawn and this is my orchestra. There are cracks in my soul glow, carry like broken notes, but as the light breaks the horizon I carry them well. I carry the heavy load, the low tones, the vibration pitter pattern wringing out the old rag and make streams from the runnels. They called it nesting but I called it cleaning the walls and floors to no avail because I was the only one who cared about the child growing inside of me in the whole circle.

*

ii.

Time is a wrinkled fold in the corner of her eyes. I press them out with the girth of my thumb and hope the world learns to embrace change. Her skin stretches as my heart sinks. Cut the baby curls and let them populate the linoleum. I find comfort in the signs of aging, in the middle of the folds that foreshadow the way my child’s face will soften as the years callous her soft hands. Look to the mirror to see her in 30 years because I may not be; and she looks so much like me when I was younger.

*

The moon has a navel, I gaze up its intricate craters and see the umbilical cord, a tell-tale cluster of  constellations, cut from Mother. Earth can only watch as space smacks her first child; mars her daughter’s glowing smile with imperfections; carving holes into her powder surface. I can only relate in the most holy helpless manner

*

iii.

A brain fold beneath a miracle, a raven crown of perfect follicles dry of melanin dripping silver everywhere. A surgical procedure carved of sawdust, and she a comet spilling stardust. If I was a dawn then she is a choir. I a setting sun and her new day a chorus. This is my orchestra but the music is for my daughter, my golden dawn but a fleeting moment and her life an endless sea of sparkle. An oasis where only time bends to the gravity, a notebook, a sonnet, a melody.

– six pm |*the moon has a navel; we all gaze upon her

Aladdin 1992

i believe up until

God cracked Adam’s rib,

that man had not yet

considered he was breathing.

*

i believe some would call this a gift.

*

we are not born beautifully…

everyone must blossom and bud.

i am a natural mother,

i understand the price paid for life with blood.

*

*

if there were an element

that we should base life upon:

it would be carbon, i assume.

so why do i base

the life i have been gifted

on the likes of you?

*

is it because you are a kiss;

a cellular conception

multiplied by folds of four

balanced betwixt my hips?

*

a perfect prophecy

of proud ancestry

proclaimed from the mouth

of the royal He …

*

is it how now

is an infinity;

now is when He speaks.

now is where we meet;

black, dull, and ungleaming

life without you.

*

blackness of bare earth

at the tale end of winter.

no promise of green

except for the old knowledge:

knowing storms always

run dry of rain;

*

knowing cold months of winter

bring forth warm nights

of summer and spring.

*

*

understanding pain

forecasts growth;

and love

foreshadows pain.

*

how men and women

were never made the same.

*

my memories look like

the red glow in the rearview mirror,

if you and i were a one way street.

red light in the dead of night

dimming every imperfection.

these brightest spots

are all we can still see,

fading into the black like dusk.

*

i believe in black holes.

black eyes big as pansies,

so big they could swallow me up.

bold and italicized by

ethnic ambiguity.

dense in gravity.

*

behold: you are so ambitious,

and we felt so endless;

infinity masquerading as security.

i found myself staring intent

while you flew west,

watching your eyes offset

the sunset

until they were just

two specks of dust.

*

i believe the apocalypse is

a midlife crisis,

and an untimely break-up.

i believe never ending

life is a sentence given

to those who allow a mirage

to manipulate their minds;

a viscous cycle of

if we meet again‘s’.

paranoid hallucinations

that crazy men

call heaven.

*

no. it makes no sense.

i call bullshit!

i request hard evidence.

we exist because a woman

paid her blood for it. 

*

i believe

Adam sacrificed nothing

when Eve was conceived.

i believe Adam broke

his own rib,

so Eve ‘d cave-in

and care for him

before he re-wrote history

*

oh and, yes.

i believe Lilith existed.

i believe Lilith’s burning kiss

burned because

Adam was fucking selfish.

-six pm | *this is not a love poem

Aladdin 1992


i.

I think that I knew it

the moment we kissed

I’d made a terrible mistake

Time yawned for my heart

(she stretched, pulled her own fabric)

nearly ripped herself apart

(her pity was an act of mercy)

Those few moments extended revealed

(time is a rubber band)

the whirring patterns of faery light

(gravity is a mould)

spidered, webbed, holding reality together

(These are my favorite days)

when I lay back to

let earth swallow me in her sand

(these memories will be my solace)

everyone moves on

we (I) must, anyway

our song; v. a prayer

(that you will make it home alive)

our verse; v. voodoo binding you to I

(so that you will still love me after)

ii.

Repeat.

(Repeat)

Reincarnation.

A reoccurring dream

My worst nightmare

(you – me)

I hear the skies in Iraq are a breathtaking sight

(northern hemisphere)

did you count every star?

(the fortune teller told me)

the creator mapped each constellation

(from me to you)

iii.

Welcome home brave soul

defender of the desert

keeper of her secrets

I’ll hold a ticker tape parade in your honor

10 carnations

(red + white)

wrapped in ribbons

(navy blue)

my gifts to you

I’ll provide the paper; a billion poems

that I ripped apart

trying to describe your perfect teeth

I saw your smile in the waxing gibbous

every month on quiet evenings

One year ago; it still aches

like a new wound (∞)

our relation; my yearning passion

(my poetry; n. dying art)

six pm | *ad nauseum

*

We were ready to lay dormant

until the next spring.

Rolling beneath cold clouds

waking the landscape’s frost.

When you found him in orbit about,

a nearer moon.

An unexpurgerated diary entry,

about how woman lay boiling.

A small body of water

and all of it’s creature’s within.

Brought to a stand-still

while the tide’s ripped.

Transforming the water

into a solid sculpture,

about an ever changing world,

still but alive.

To read your work is to know that

not all revolve around the sun.

As you orbit a nearer moon

upon a distant shore.

And his impact is dramatic,

as the moon rises and moon sets.

His height, his trajectory,

his monthly phases

thinning your full breasts

the scythe of a crescent.

A dizzy dissent across

the cosmos in ellipses.

Earth casts a shadow

overbears the surface

the journey that changes

us most of all.

Reveal the beginning,

at the culmination of

a tragic end.

Gravity lifts the water.

Resulting in the rise and fall

of rustic lung.

Sand stands still,

and the creatures cast,

adapt to this

intertidal wedlock

burrow along the coast

Await dual windows & feed fast.

Sheltered within

shore stone cracks.

A woman lay wasted,

you do.

Evaporation run-off warmed water.

Mist seen rising after

morning dew collapse.

Transpiration a phantom

passes through pores

in the atmosphere,

and tiny leaves.

Spring time awakens,

a nearer moon dotes

fertile, nubile,

flung off a surface

crater, cast satellite,

another coastal accumulation.

Another woman lay bare there,

you know.

Close to the warm ground the moisture

is invisible to the human eye,

such fine steam,

colliding as a nimbus cloud

above the coastal highline.

Grow heavy,

groan,

and rain

Gravity brings it

back down to Earth.

Sensitive animals dash,

flee, a marathon

You’re almost out of breath

Earth casts a shadow

overbears the surface

But it is the journey that changes us

most of all.

A bud blossoms at the beginning,

befallen your tragedy’s end

Our time passing as it elapses.

Pages yellow and your dreams

espouse their tender vulnerabilities,

forever cast infamous,

poetic masonry.

six pm | *the super slow motion of yearning

{This poem is dedicated to Anaïs Nin}