Jessica Frohling blog #1

Poetry can deny or exalt one’s nature,
But even the clouds can be kindly or cruel.
With one day a pleasant cloud could block the harsh sun,
The next it could create a tempest so horrible as to destroy life.
The duel nature of life
Cycles, motion, spinning, opposing, counteracting, unifying.
The contrast,
So much contrast.
Contrast is beautiful,
And yet how do we know it?
It is as we live,
And as the poets describe.
They melt the essential components,
Presenting their astute findings to the world.
If I am the poet,
What do I see?
I see irony,
It sneaks towards us, infesting our lives, our thoughts.
We laugh,
Otherwise we would cry when all goes wrong.
Irony mocks us as it entreats us,
Making our failures seem less blight.
A man buys a new car that he has been dreaming of,
Only to have it smashed as he pulls out of the parking lot.
The is irony woven into our fate,
Or is fate just cruel?
I see beauty,
It is everywhere the mind or eye would seek it, if only one had the heart to look.
We stand in awe at the things we find beautiful,
While the rest of the world walks by.
We are creating the tip of the funnel cloud,
As we pause while others do not.
Beauty of aesthetic quality,
Or beauty of the unseen?
One must ponder the differences,
Especially a poet.
The development is as a scale,
the more one has of one, the less they have of the other.
Some scales are more broken than others,
Or perhaps just in the process of tipping.
I see color,
It is more rich when in contrast and yet stands independent.
It surrounds us,
Nourishes our senses while sometimes overwhelming them.
We see and feel color,
And it exists without us, we are but a part of its magnificence.
Color bleeds, like people,
It feels, has a pulse.
Red, like blood makes us feel our own demise.
Color dripping like blood from the walls,
And yet we purposely paint them as such.
Blue drip,
Like rain or sky,
Why is it to represent sadness?
What does that say that we dress boys in it?
Green drip,
Like plants or illness,
Why is it said to represent envy?
Is envy an illness?
Can it be cured with other plants?
Yellow drip,
Like the sun or flowers,
Why is it said to represent happiness?
Can’t the sun burn one into a state of cancer?
Plaid: too many drips.
The very rainbow dripping from the paintbrush into our lives,
Watch out for the green.
It may look like money but be an illusion of the will.
The rainbow of color,
The many associations are the playground of the poet.

As I stare out the window,
there is green everywhere,
but never more beautiful than in contrast with white.
Outside there is a flowering bush,
The leaves are plush,
As though the very heart of the plant were worn on its branches.
The delicate white petals of its flowers so sweet,
And yet so strong.
Alone this bush stands,
But for the white columns of the house it decorates,
And trees whose shadow it still shines underneath.
True nature has no straight lines,
All are curves, ridges, or hills,
Even the horizon only appears flat.
Man has made the world flat,
Our homes,
The very pinnacle of our worlds,
Have flat walls,
Flat windows,
Flat floors,
Flat,
Flat
Flat.
Even the art we place on the wall is contained,
Framed,
Stuck on the flat wall.
It’s beauty is constrained,
Except for the vase.
All hail the vase whose form has survived.
How many homes have vases?
Not enough,
Only decorative, symmetrical frames.
Does a frame label art?
Does that it contains get more appreciation?
A picture,
A photograph,
Individually still beautiful,
Even for flat objects,
But stuck in frames,
Like we are stuck in our flat houses.
All hail the igloo,
The castle with it’s curved towers,
The Tag Mahal,
The tepee,
The ant hill.
The ants have the right idea.
They work in harmony and use resources in a non-harmful way.
We work in discontentedness and build flat homes.
We landscape our lawns to cover the mess we call a home, a lawn.
And yet where there is nature, there is not symmetry.
Why do we seek symmetry when nature is so calming?
People end up in retreats to escape symmetry and flatness, and yet it continues.
Boulevards,
The perfect example,
They make the prettiest of streets as nature prevails.

Ode to the apple in the cup:
Mostly devoured,
You sit in your splendor.
My teeth marks upon you,
You stand still.
Your perfect red remains in arc missing patterns,
Your ivory center exposed,
But you care not.
Your stem remains,
A sign of the mighty tree from which you came.
It goes to your core,
Which haughtily you declare yours,
As I will not eat it.
Individually shaped,
And yet similar to your counterparts,
Your identity remains.
No matter how much of you I devour,
Your seeds remain.
The possibility of life remains.
Like the seeds of the womb,
They can create more like you,
Even though they are small and hidden within.
The seeds form a pentacle,
A star,
What some might call a sign of the grand design of nature,
Thus the more of you disappears,
The more that is revealed.
While my body is nourished by you,
Your nutrients to flow through my veins,
I know your secret;
You do not mind being eaten because you then flow through me,
As does the essence of the tree you come from,
The sunlight that gave life to the seed that formed the tree,
The dirt and water that nourished the tree,
The worms that tilled the soil,
The very base of the earth that supported the tree,
The space that held the earth,
The pull of the sun,
The moon,
The stars,
The planets,
The universe,
Flows through my veins as you do.
Be one with me little apple,
And I will be one with everything.

Two hundred and twenty five words to spend, like money.
Shall I spend you on describing the heart of the one I love?
Shall I look the heavens and contemplate the purpose of life?
Shall I feel with all intensity every word I type?
Shall I attempt to let the world know me?
Shall I attempt to emulate the grace of a feather with delivery so soft, yet strong enough to carry the birds that I envy?
No for today, I shall spend my words on the openness of poetry,
The myriad topics that could be presented and extracted.
I shall enjoy the word of possibility.
I shall both bow to the many options,
While tilting my head as to not miss a thing.
Yet while I look left,
To my right is the unknown,
My perception so limited as to make me wish to look all ways at once,
While still enjoying the focus that life is encountered within.
The more that I look,
The more it is unclear whether focusing or looking at the wider perspective is more grand.
Forty five words to spend and my time is almost up.
I leave you with only a promise that I will never stop looking,
Never stop contemplating,
Appreciating,
Investigating.
I leave you with the promise that you can and do the same,
Purposefully or not.