Who Am I? [riddle riff]

If you utter my name   I vanish
if you mention me not   I'm there
I'm Silencio   if you're Spanish
(or Italianized)                in air
I dangle with mystery's mist
of all that is said I'm the gist!

"Many things" [gnomic verse]

Many things show some fragility
many things suffer disorder
many things flummox gentility
many things live near the border

==========

Verse in wake of the sudden & accidental dropping
of a ceramic cup, whereby its handle was broken

Perfectly at Ease [gatha]

Being the center    he's not on edge
being the heart    he is at his ease
joyous in absolute    bliss-knowledge
being the being    who loves & frees
 

Fernando's Voyage

That Pessoa has 1,001 "fans" at GoodReads
seems a matter meriting mention in a poem
though numeric signs be principally evocative
(if the Thousand Nights & One Night of Arabia  
vaguely signify infinitude what good deeds 
get accomplished in the yammering of a yarn?)
might the writing life induce pure meditation?

or is thought forever wayward & untrained?
certain puzzles only time might deign to parse
(on the train of thought a vagabond could stow a
slender volume wherein heart is strangely brained)
you who fashion biblio-covers if you'd go a
certain ways into the utterance of Pessoa 
would you greet the cosmic bingo as did Noah? 

fashion a ship  sans need of welkin-hoisted sail
twain by twain they enter  rabbit tortoise snail

====================

for Netra Shyam

Canvassing the Silence [gnomic verses]

When the pollster meets with silence
and the poll at length collapses
can you hear the distant violins?
can you jump the short synapses?

When the pollster meets with stillness
and the poll is finally canceled
can you feel the silence fill this
open space with no mark penciled?

When the pollster hears no answer
and the poll's at last unraveled
do you glimpse the cosmic dancer
and discern how far he's travelled?
 

Cardinals Play the Mystic Card [gnomic verse]

[hypothetical riff on a New York Times headline]

Cardinals seek a Pope who has charisma and toughness
maybe it's time to nab James Dean or Henry Fonda
but if they're no longer available? we'll have to rough this
better draft a Pope who's drowning in Satchitananda!

Sound-Check in the Museum of Silence

Destroying the silent exhibition
the sound-check proceeded in the space
the music resounded with precision
the silence retreated   in its place
there blossomed a tsumami orchestrated
on a laptop   origami calibrated
might be folded in such manner as this sound
that unfolding in such silence might astound

================

For Carl Stone, who wrote (in a Facebook status update):

Soundcheck for tomorrow's concert will take place today. Why so early? Because the museum has a show in the daytime, title : "SILENCE"

via media [gnomic verse]

Pen to paper   thumb to glass   your lips to God's ears
Poetry   like leaves of grass   through the cracks appears

A Symposium

A symposium on cybernetics & soul
       at the Tokyo Palace in Paris?
an announcement seen on my laptop screen
       in a pre-dawn hour in Los Angeles
for what world is the soul preparing us
       while somewhere a bird is chirping?
been watching a Robbie Basho clip
       as seen on TV last century