Monday, April 20, 2015
Finding the Words (a work long and still in progress)
I am no poet, no singer
inked blank pages,
stacked bound tomes,
convince no one
that I in singing, scribbling
make my mark.
reified, the metaphor's
a joke—the mark a mar,
in margins full of papyrus,
a muddy flow, a stain
that blacks the whole.
a silent dark.
emptiness roars
through an exhausted skull
white bone caverns—
the supple, writhing Nile
Sheba for Solomon—
“Cerulean”
Euterpe's ghost intones
invoking sacred flow and holy Sky:
voiceless, unspeakable
infinite and
Blue.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Haiku 2 and 3
OR
Some poets write great
verse. Some can't or don't. I eat
sweet plums. I read po'ms.
OR
Some poets write great
verse. Some can't. Some don't. I read
sweet plums. I write po'ms.
Some poets write great
verse. Some can't or don't. I eat
sweet plums. I read po'ms.
OR
Some poets write great
verse. Some can't. Some don't. I read
sweet plums. I write po'ms.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
7 a.m. I'm thinking
of language--how with consciousness
or as incipient consciousness or as
a consequence of that consciousness
(which came first? . . . ) language
is present in creation--with rocks
& frogs & glow sticks & microwaves
it exists
potentially
from the beginning
of language--how with consciousness
or as incipient consciousness or as
a consequence of that consciousness
(which came first? . . . ) language
is present in creation--with rocks
& frogs & glow sticks & microwaves
it exists
potentially
from the beginning
In the Beginning was
and wasn't, of course
I think of how we think: subject / verb / object knowing
these are believed to be brain-wired categories, boxes like Kant's ten
from the back of the book--or the front. How language centers in one cortex or another, pre-
determine all of this, including our discernment of the categories themselves.
And the brain itself, developing according to codes: whose codes?
Whose message do biologists presume? From life to life, chain letter,
telephone game.
I think of how we think: subject / verb / object knowing
these are believed to be brain-wired categories, boxes like Kant's ten
from the back of the book--or the front. How language centers in one cortex or another, pre-
determine all of this, including our discernment of the categories themselves.
And the brain itself, developing according to codes: whose codes?
Whose message do biologists presume? From life to life, chain letter,
telephone game.
Potent presence potentially present
Calvino knew about this. Calvino with his Cosmicomics, his deconstructed universe, his sense of how myth and logic vie--of (ov, ovum, oval, oeuf) the validly invalid constructs potential in our converging and colliding systems of meaning.
And here it occurs to me is the black hole beginning and ending:
A woman before breakfast
scribbles in a notebook
that will never see the light
words froth irresistibly
& pour with no potency
out of her
phantom structures
that imitate more public
more completed
edifice
phantoms of thought
shriveled between black wings
& smothered there
What purpose does it serve?
Will anyone want to read?
She doubts it
but the force
the potent potency
drives words forth
her six white horses
& she combs the manes
like sea froth
or the scum on broth
& the departure
excrescence, expulsion
pulsing creation
may flail in fading potency
on the dock
the horses hooves
no longer pounding
only the back and forth
of the endless sources
urging up
across the otherwise deserted sand
ready, she is ready
ready, ready & empty
wondering on this cusp
this verge, this boundaryland:
Does the world explode
from a bottomless dissatisfaction
with non-entity?
Calvino knew about this. Calvino with his Cosmicomics, his deconstructed universe, his sense of how myth and logic vie--of (ov, ovum, oval, oeuf) the validly invalid constructs potential in our converging and colliding systems of meaning.
And here it occurs to me is the black hole beginning and ending:
A woman before breakfast
scribbles in a notebook
that will never see the light
words froth irresistibly
& pour with no potency
out of her
phantom structures
that imitate more public
more completed
edifice
phantoms of thought
shriveled between black wings
& smothered there
What purpose does it serve?
Will anyone want to read?
She doubts it
but the force
the potent potency
drives words forth
her six white horses
& she combs the manes
like sea froth
or the scum on broth
& the departure
excrescence, expulsion
pulsing creation
may flail in fading potency
on the dock
the horses hooves
no longer pounding
only the back and forth
of the endless sources
urging up
across the otherwise deserted sand
ready, she is ready
ready, ready & empty
wondering on this cusp
this verge, this boundaryland:
Does the world explode
from a bottomless dissatisfaction
with non-entity?
Friday, November 13, 2009
Unblock
If you can’t write . . .
read.
Chewed sound
congeals as mark
laced ink dissolves
in silent speech
mind to body
body to print
lifeless black
on white unties
the prisoned word
pours forth
what matter
If the mouth . . .
is yours?
read.
Chewed sound
congeals as mark
laced ink dissolves
in silent speech
mind to body
body to print
lifeless black
on white unties
the prisoned word
pours forth
what matter
If the mouth . . .
is yours?
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Legacy
By the time I finish, you'll be on the moon.
It takes so long and I begin again
day, night, again, always the new thought.
Once or twice I found an end before a blur
of non-sequitur. Then I knew closure.
Mostly the strands diverge then clot outside
the known circumference of familiar things.
By the time I finish, Jupiter will be
home to your monuments The songs will rise
of your doings and beings, your makings, your feats.
I will be tracing a convoluted thread
a foot or two outside my door,
the yard tangled, the car on blocks.
Stagnation has its own aesthetic.
Renown is not its consequence.
By the time I finish you will not know my name.
I have known only the untuned note,
cracked torso of elegant thought—
what hints of riches, deep within the dig
what whole parts, what stories unresolved,
what bursts of pods and galaxies, what arrows
shot into vapor—their targets misaligned and understood.
As you begin, I will be mingled in
the soil of possibility, mired with damp
and the urgent expulsion of humus that rounds the worm,
still in pursuit of its mouth.
Salvation waits in that tunnel. It cannot be far.
When I find the end of my arm and sip the cup
you will be there, again, again, again.
It takes so long and I begin again
day, night, again, always the new thought.
Once or twice I found an end before a blur
of non-sequitur. Then I knew closure.
Mostly the strands diverge then clot outside
the known circumference of familiar things.
By the time I finish, Jupiter will be
home to your monuments The songs will rise
of your doings and beings, your makings, your feats.
I will be tracing a convoluted thread
a foot or two outside my door,
the yard tangled, the car on blocks.
Stagnation has its own aesthetic.
Renown is not its consequence.
By the time I finish you will not know my name.
I have known only the untuned note,
cracked torso of elegant thought—
what hints of riches, deep within the dig
what whole parts, what stories unresolved,
what bursts of pods and galaxies, what arrows
shot into vapor—their targets misaligned and understood.
As you begin, I will be mingled in
the soil of possibility, mired with damp
and the urgent expulsion of humus that rounds the worm,
still in pursuit of its mouth.
Salvation waits in that tunnel. It cannot be far.
When I find the end of my arm and sip the cup
you will be there, again, again, again.
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