Digital Rabbit Hole

"...some swept away, some carried down the drainpipe..."

” Drain”
inspired by the painting FL-Art-(10×6.25)-016 panel by Fiona Leitner

music: “Fields of Coral” ~Vangelis
\”Fields of Coral\”~ Vangelis
(please open music link in another tab to enjoy while reading the poem)

Dripping doubts in splashes fall to gutter littered streams,
some swept away, some carried down the drainpipe.
Doors and windows chalk- marked on the boards of homeless dreams
shaded shadow -pipes now clogged, metallic grease fed tripe.

Chaos paints no patterns while breaking everything below,
the steam -release, a holiday for frigid huddle squatters.
Murder, lies and blood still seeps, red droplets mixed aglow
all gets trapped obsessed inside a thought flow undertow,
and sly envy is the beggar watching others eat inside a warm cafe.

Sinister,
the urban skyline floating in a purple fog naked and unclad,
while order is a cold wrought iron fence trying to hold it in.
Down in the bowels, stained train benches await the weary and the mad
churning under street signs, garbaged walls, cold- stoned graffiti bins.

Walking late at night is like a nightmare. It yanks you out the door.
Everything is ominous, kindness retreats in faded vapor threats.
Always underneath, the bubbling of conspiracy, a gurgling form its’ core,
slick tongues massage the ear, while a dagger slips in dry and comes out wet .
Nothing is as it was before the drain caved in and opened, freeing a dangerous suspect.

Wandering doubts, are plastered into building bricks of direful foundations.
Locked and keyed, never to see the light of surface, hazed in thickening mist,
They build a fortress to protect the city and its decaying system of filtration,
All that slips into the drain, stays on the bottom, thought of never more…
and never missed.

Karima Hoisan
Jan. 12,2011
Virtual Gallery, Linc Island SL
©2011 Karima Hoisan all rights reserved

"...so pens wobbled and fell off their desk..."

music: Unicornio Azul Silvio Rodriguez El Unicornio Azul ( please open music link in a new tab to listen to while you read the poem)

“In Pain Burlesque”
For D.R.

The saddest poem I ever tried to write
sucked all the strength from my fingers
each and every night,
so pens wobbled and fell off their desk
and keypads waved under water
everything was sinking, swaying, and stuttering
in pain burlesque.

Oh I had a few words put away just in case
you couldn’t say” I thank you too”
or  remember my name or face,
when you passed me on the street
like someone you once  knew
limping her way back home
on bleeding shoes.

The road ahead unpaved but laid in stone,
we were but a sack of unwanted kittens
on your bridge to  be thrown,
into oblivion all we might have known,
no tears for what was lost
no recognition for what was given.

The saddest poem I ever tried to write
sucked all the strength from my fingers
each and every night,
so pens wobbled and fell off their desk
and keypads waved under water
everything was sinking, swaying, and stuttering
in pain burlesque.

Karima Hoisan
April 8, 2009
Finca La Generosa

“Whiter, than marble’s light, oh skin so pale…”

music: “I Envy The Wind” by Lucinda Williams \”I Envy The Wind\”

(please open music link in new tab to enjoy while you read

“Minted Breath”
for U.

Whiter, than marble’s light, oh skin so pale,
Red, thy lips more scarlet after kissing
Silver minted breath, on chilled night’s trail
Black shone hair, moonless embrace, now missing.
Touch my heart, invite me in your veil.
Walk with me once more, in dreams of wishing.
Stop now, I press my cheek to your exhale.
Look, thine eyes betray my reminiscing.
But why? What turned this vibrancy to death?
Your life force ambles lost, unknown to me.
Because we dared to share even our breath,
Cruel offense, the eyes of jealous envy!

Torn apart, oh world, with your leave taking,
Blessed rest escapes this soul now breaking.

Karima Hoisan
Jan. 6th 2005
Jordan

"...All I did see was this small envelope..."

music:Harpsichord Concerto in F Minor ~ Bach ~ Masques

(please open music link in a new tab to listen while you read)

Poem Left At My Door
for S.

Just then the front door bell rang one more time,
but there was no one standing at the door.
All I did see was this small envelope
laid out,  abandoned on the snow washed floor.

Now opened in my hands it took new shape,
the paper stained with water, blurred and wet,
like  notes one pulls from bottles in the sea,
that float on typhoon’s waves and reach our net.

The ink and sentiment was rather dark
upon this curling  paper I could see,
yet when I stretched it out full length to read
‘Twas like one puzzle piece left here for me.

The chill of winter wind was laced in words,
of solitude, and depth with pieces missing,
the feeling was of loneliness and frost,
of shuttered rooms and painful reminiscing.

Spring returns after a bitter winter,
I saved the note not knowing now the reason
and tucked it in my box of mysteries
fragile poem birthed in blizzard’s season.

Karima Hoisan
Jan. 2. 2011
Cloud Forest Linc Island SL

"The Grinning" by fiona Leitner

music: Aeternal by Clint Mansell Aeternal by Clint Mansell

(please open music link in another tab to listen as you read)

“See Frog Run”
for the artist  Fiona Leitner

The frog ran away from the insanity.
He clenched his hands tight as he leaped over
wheat-fields and  freeways,
like a dog running off with a leg of lamb.
We are what we eat ,
so he grew lamb-shanks for limbs,
which really was not so surprising…
Ahh, but that he made his escape from calamity,
was in the end what did surprise him.

Someone with no humor set him on fire
but the flames did become him
and melted to mold him
Now he was a gold medal Olympic runner,
an ultra- marathon stunner
a broadband broad- jumper.
the frog who changed his destiny .
He threw off those tired horses in midstream
then turned a nightmare into a dream,
agile, and fleet in grace and  esteem
because everyone who knew him rejoiced he got away.

There were flares and night terrors and blood soaked mud layers
he leaped lakes, full of poisonous snakes
he never stopped running and still is to this date
tears trickle down the cheeks of his face
just remembering…just remembering…
the wind fanning so many burning memories.

The frog made a leap back to life and he knew
he could never stop running jet -propelled now
streaking high in the air like a burning comet he flew
over cities and patchworks of farmlands,
the wind whistling deep in his ears.
His body changing from raw meat into particles
he flew over  the earth he once hopped.
Was he still really a frog after so many changes
after a lifetime of fleeing with no stop?

His mutton legged nightcap whipping him on
The rain clouds grew comforting, as he was reborn
Like Lola he ran through the eye of the storm
a dark ember remained glowing inside him.
No hurdle too high now, no pain was too raw,
no crazy thought  path was left  to experiment
He sailed over and out of the comfort of atmosphere
He went to the void and reached towards the stars
He needed no gulp- breaths, no frog pond, no love- mate
spiraling, he ran in circles going faster and faster.
Is he now that red star that circles the heavens?
Is he the meteorite we watch fall on horizons?
Did he expand into his own  fiery galaxy?
Really It doesn’t matter at all.
What will stay in the history books of future days
will only be that
everyone who knew this frog from before
all rejoiced that he got away.

Karima Hoisan
Dec. 29,2010
Virtual Art Gallery LINC Island SL

"Curve" by Chrome Underwood "...Now where did you think you were going?"

“Curve”
for Chrome Underwood the artist
music:  “Pretty 50S” by David Lynch & John Neff

Time can curve back around on itself like a mountain highway,
the daylight is not a guarantee that everything will turn out all right.
Blind curves surprise as much as the lottery they say,
sometimes a blinding flash of intersection
turns noon into eternal night.
Where did you think you were going?

Does it all flash by you as you sail off from asphalt into air?
Do you think of those you are leaving behind?
If there are witnesses.. do you really care?
Are those last memories, the last visions you see?
Prom night and contraband, sleeping in the backseat,
wanting and feeling the need,
the windows rolled down on your father’s borrowed car,
while you both pay worship to the speed.
Now..
Where did you think you were going?

What are the last sounds you hear as the grill breaks through the rail,
a bull moaning in a pasture for a love cow along the trail,
the chopper’s  down shifting of gears coming up on your tail,
or a cartoon -red truck climbing up the next grade,
sitting on his horn waking you up,
just in time to see his bumper, and hear yourself wail?
Now..
Where did you think you were going?

Karima Hoisan
Dec. 29, 2010
Virtual Gallery Linc Island SL

*Please read my comment about the painting and artist

“The Family Tomb”

“…lumbering painted carts from the past…”

“Christmas Tomb”

(tomb engraving)
“Bells tolled a mourning
Angels on high
Heads in their hands
Last Christmas morning”

I find comfort in the tomb
that holds the virtual focus point of you.
I can lay the roses here that you did love.
In some ways, in the back yard of my second life,
I am one step closer. It does feel that way.
You passed away on Christmas Day
and even though it was that special holiday
now it means more to me these memories
on such a happy day to be remembering.

Thinking of the night the oropopo owls hooting from highest trees,
moon bright night of  pale blue distant lightning,
the three of us hearing the ghosts parading down the hill.
You hold our hands, and we are children captivated by spirits,
protected by you,
wagon wheels bumping over  rocks,
bells on oxen tinkling,
supernatural invisible wind-chimes.
You tell us how lucky we are,
to bear witness to this unexplained phenomena of our superstitious town,
the caravan of carts and men
traveling down our muddy roads at midnight once again,
never to be seen but so clearly heard,
the footsteps, the calling out to their teams
the grinding of the wheels,
lumbering painted carts from the past.
We, your small children, wild-haired, in our night gowns
keeping silent our mouths open in awe,
holding each one, a side of you
connected like three shimmering spirits ,
we watch with only our ears, ancient brethren,
neighbors from beyond still en route to some unknown destination
eternally in motion, ghosts from our collective past, the drivers and ox- carts.
I’m not sure why this is the memory of you,
that today I hold most dear,
but I do know so much has changed since that distant apparition.
I call to  you on the anniversary of yet another year,
grateful to all my written history that for a wonderful yet short time,
I knew you, loved you, was with you by your side
as your daughter and you… my magic mother.
Maybe it’s that I hope, in the back of my mind,
some day to hear,
like the haunted  ghost carts of yesteryear.,
your laugh.
Oh please if it be only your life -filled laugh,
just one more time,
that could break through death’s festive veil
and reach my ear.

Karima Hoisan
Dec.25th, 2010
The Cloud Forest Misty Shores SL

*footnote: a picture of two oropopo owls. Aren’t they wonderful?