Sheep blindly pursuing
the vacant salvation of
wealth and conformity
who sacrifice intuition
for the sake of
synthetic dreams
don’t make it far
in the darkness
of natural night
with nothing more
than polymer dogs
for protection.
Renee Novosel
All Rights Reserved
Copyright 2015
I.
When I looked
at her
how often
I saw the coffin,
how often
she lay
with a stillness
so lovely
I knew her fate
as clearly as
the sun and moon’s.
With a stillness
so lovely as
she lay in satin,
her youth
suspended the
time all around us.
How often
I’d rehearsed
her funeral
when flowers
willfully planted
and sweetly tended
were ripped
from young roots,
left to wither on
hardening ground
in the place
where mirrors
see out
and rain boils
to steam in
blue-hot starlight
before reaching
a thirsty earth.
Her flowers withered
and grew,
withered and grew,
comforting lies
convinced the
dedicated that
she’d always
grow back.
She’d always be there
somewhere,
withering and growing,
smiling a kind of smile
that gives you
something to
believe in,
dancing a dance
that makes you
feel free
just watching,
singing a song
without words
in perfect harmony
with the universal
cerebral hum,
always a step ahead,
just outwitting
the death
of that place.
(Infinite rehearsals
don’t numb the
cutting buzz
of a phone
in the quiet night
heralding the ache
of expectation
and emptiness
of a barren garden.)
II.
Hot stars
burn brightly
and die young,
showering
their beloved
neighbors
with gifts
more precious
than time –
igniting new
stars into being,
seeding their
worlds with
silver and gold,
seeding their
worlds with the
stuff of gardens.
“Pain is a flower. Pain is flowers
blooming all the time.” – Bukowski
Renee Novosel
All Rights Reserved
Copyright 2015
Brittle paper skin
crackles beneath
shaking fingers,
exposing the
glossy globe
of ivory white
with its longitudinal
striations of
spring bud green.
It is beautiful
and you are young,
unaware of what
lies beneath.
Smooth in
your palms
and heavy
for its size,
fair onion
has gravity
hiding beneath
this elastic layer.
Then comes
the knife.
Then comes
the truth.
Life is an onion,
each delicious layer
promising the
painful sting of tears.
Renee Novosel
Copyright 2015
All Rights Reserved
Maybe I was there.
Maybe you were there.
Maybe you and I
looked up at the stars
as the eyes
of infinite gods,
or the infinite eyes
of one god –
and we imagined
the possibilities.
Maybe we stood
at the feet of
rhythmic waves
as their rumbling
voices hinted
of secrets beneath
the arc of deep blue,
and we imagined
the possibilities.
Maybe there was
a time between lives,
before and after
everything was named,
when we witnessed
the ground beneath
our feet
and skies above
our eyes
without condition.
This meaning
without name,
value
without cost,
reverence
without judgement
is lost
when human eyes
are closed
and the blind
pursuit begins.
As if life’s beauty
itself isn’t enough
to satisfy
the reason
for being,
we shamefully define
that which
defies definition,
breeding foolish pride
with each steadfast
proclamation,
widening the rift
between man and nature.
Greed and power
construct the
revolving doors
of perceived reality,
keeping our
eyes on what
everyone else has
and our minds on
how badly we
want it,
but the universe
with its endless eyes
doesn’t blink
a single one
when we’ve
earned or
lost a million.
Our tiny order
doesn’t mean
a thing
when galaxies
collide.
Renee Novosel
All Right Reserved
Copyright 2014
One.
“You are the house,”
she explained
while discussing
the somnambular wanderings,
dreamscape happenings,
inside of the childhood home.
Home.
I live seven walking minutes away
and never pass it.
Some say they
miss home.
I avoid it.
“You are the house,”
said Therapist in
a freezing January room,
magnified white-hot
winter rays
penetrating the lace
curtains veiling
modest sacred pulp.
(When dreaming
of wandering
through houses,
we wander
through ourselves) –
and in the house
wallpaper was
thirty layers thick,
dead aunts
sat in familiar
wingback chairs,
parents were lost
like children,
and trash piled
to the ceilings.
“You are the house”
with the dark curtains
and basement shower.
“You are the house”
with the onion layers
and fruit cellar.
“You are the house”
with the yellow bricks
and chalky mortar.
“You are the house”
with the frantic eyes
and ambiguous borders.
Five.
They always made me uneasy,
but not this one.
This time,
the house
was as it was.
No strange rooms,
no unfamiliar decor,
no temporal trash,
no cerebral symbolism,
no shaking shell of a mother –
the house
was as it was –
plus something
filtered,
something refined,
plus something
pure and peaceful,
and it was mine.
Renee Novosel
All Rights Reserved
Copyright 2014
Each morning
neighborhood crows
fly toward
a gently
rising sun,
hundreds landing
softly on the
highest hilltop
as our golden orb
slides into
watercolor skies.
Chattering of
breaking avian
news beneath
trees undressing,
they welcome together
daylight in
funeral attire and
with shrill songs,
doing a thing
that the human
in me can’t
help but join
in doing –
we marvel
in the sunrise
together.
Never minding
my presence
or admiration,
never minding
their bad reputation
for doing
dirty jobs,
never minding
their tenuous
flightpath
between
death and life,
they do their
crow thing
each day
and fly each
evening back
toward the sun
as it slips
into a fiery
goodnight.
Inhabiting the boundary
between heightened
existence and
ambivalence,
they’ve little
concern for where
November winds
blow decaying things
during the cold night,
rather they
sleep soundly
amongst the dead
before gathering
for tomorrow’s sun,
rising once again
upon a world alive
with morbid
avian purpose.
Renee Novosel
All Rights Reserved
Copyright 2014
What does
it mean to let
come what may?
Formless words
dense with
abstraction
dripping with
the tart juices
of something
less than love
and greater
than reason
shock a tongue
expecting
the tickle
of sweet
fruits and
nothings
tasted and
whispered
after the
world was
asleep
and only
the stars
were
watching.
Bitter fruits
growing from
the soft petals
of decadent words
(with vibrant hues
and sweet aromas
that trick the bees
into yielding
poisonous honey)
are innocent
carriers of the
impolite pain
of sacred words
lightly thrown
into the face
of a one who
craves them
like breadcrumbs
toward the
eager beak of
a starving pigeon.
Renee Novosel
All Rights Reserved
Copyright 2014
The carbon of my body
recalls the best of it all:
the time before
worry and loss,
the time before
hunger and pain,
the time before
good and evil.
The time when
atomic collision
was the long
and short of it.
When molecules
that would travel
far and wide
before becoming
you and I
and the skies
and the trees
buddied up
in the belly of an
elemental bakery.
A super-massive
pulsating, churning,
bubbling womb.
A hostile incubator.
Our celestial mother
martyred by iron
so that we
might live as
rearrangements
of her labors,
her reflection
eternally trapped
in the eyes of
those who
know her best,
reminding us
to never ignore
that we are
all born
together.
Renee Novosel
All Rights Reserved
Copyright 2014
Head throbbing with
an inner knocking
and coffee sliding
down like
someone’s died,
the sunflowers
dance around me
in strangely cool
winds of a steady
summer rain
as I try desperately
to define the
abstract sadness
hanging heavily
around.
Willing this
intrusive pain
to dissolve in the
static of emotional
white noise
fails me,
as some emotions
aren’t soluble in the
deepest reaches
of mindscape.
They take root,
growing limbs and
creeping tendrils –
I navigate
around them
denying their
existence even
while they
break through
the meniscus
of thought,
blanketing the
waking world with
the leaves of
formless sadness.
Everything
everywhere
reminds me of
who and why it is,
the persistent ghost
of disappointing times
unlikely to leave
until it’s given
a proper burial
and paid its
proper respects –
because life
and people
and places
are never perfect
but everything dead
deserves a funeral.
Renee Novosel
All Rights Reserved
Copyright 2014
Riding memories
on salted ocean air
thick with loves
and pains of a
preternatural past,
the temporal space
is filled with
monsters and men,
perfumed nights,
sun-kissed cheeks,
and tired red eyes
hidden beneath
borrowed shade
as I move
through it.
With aching legs
and a soaring heart,
the prophecy
of pivotal change
moves with me
through humidity
and time,
proving itself right
despite jealous visions
and skeptical longings:
change happened
because I willed it,
accepted it,
embraced it,
nurtured it,
and because
it was time.
Here and now
the ghosts
of these nights
remain mournfully
hopeful sentinels
as I return
to remember,
and shall return
until the day
they are no longer
shadows of lives lost,
rather visions
of life gained –
the champions
of here and now
fighting for meaning
and honor
in a place filled
with senseless pain
and profound beauty,
eternally armed
with just enough fight
and more than
enough love
to get by.
Renee Novosel
All Rights Reserved
Copyright 2014
Wallflower Whimsy 