Green stone fruit

If you eat an avocado in Italy,
genetically
it is a relative of a Calvino.

Italo's father brought the stone fruit
to the region first.

I have driven the California coastline
more times than I have had birthdays

and often I like to pretend I am somewhere else
among the rolling vineyards, to pasture with the

grazing livestock, and edged in by jagged cliffs that
plummet into the cold sea,

like somewhere in Italy,
right now I know

it could even be me,
eating avocados off the tree.




Image credit by Googsey at English Wikipedia (Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons.) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Agendas

It was never about the invention and the potential

Lives it would save,

It was about who would be written into History as the Hero.

Humphry Davey tried to hide his poetry but stole the lamp.

All for naught, while I sat in the reader's circle, stitching

around Cat’s Cradle-the Dissertation,

and  getting into mining

text instead of ice-nine, we found something like 

fire-ten

and it is spreading.

They were all over the place, Vietnam, Silicon Valley,

East and west coasts, away from the story 

and as Vonnegut said,

Disappearing up its own-

Never-mine-

The kids are still mining for cobalt in the Congo.

No, no, no better. In any language

even with repetition. When does practice make

better-off schadenfreude

Karma is driven toward the one who hit my car 

and drove away.

The grandma laughs at the puke from her grandson.

That makes her son puke too,

and she gets her just desserts 

in between the seats.

We both like the smell of horse manure. 

Italo is easily distracted at first, every day, I should stop 

feeling “death hath undone so many”*.

“In headaches and in worry, 

Vaguely life leaks away

And Time will have his fancy

To-morrow or to-day”**, as Auden would say.

Of course, the dryer refused to spin,

the bills keep pouring in, and there are two-thousand

nine-hundred synonyms for drunk, but sober I remain

loaded on the sole adjective, waiting on the verb

of Time. 

Meanwhile, inspiration is found in flying buttresses, 

among the changing sky, ribbed vaults and pointed arches 

that withstood thirty percent more stress.

Oh yes, it was time again

to act as if one never knows

how things come together.

*T.S. Eliot and **W.H. Auden

Painting by Frank Dobson, 1944 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Cosmicomics mesostics

                                     

                                        he with the papers blaCk and white

            way space was when the galaxies were fOrmed and

                                                                           Space was then through the point Space

         undeniable in the glow whereas events coMe

                                                                    flowIng down without

                                                                          Cement

                                                               being pOured 

                                                                    coluMn next to the other

                                                                     withIn

                                   the other seperated by blaCk

                                                    and incogruouS headlines

                                                                          ☼

                                                                unconscIous is

                                                                            The

                                                                       oceAn

                                                      of the unsayabLe

                                                                            Of what

        land of language removed as a result of anCient prohibitions

                                                                   he wAs carried away by that mania

                                                      of the storytelLer

                                                               who neVer

                                                            knows whIch stories are more beautiful the

                                                                         oNes thay really 

                                           happened and the evOcation of which recalls a whole flow of past

                                                                              ☼

                    the pages of the space was wen galaxIes were being formed 

                                                             space was Then with 

                                 corpuscles by emptiness contAining no

             destination or meaning and how beautifuL

                                                                 then thrOugh that to

                     draw lines parabolas pick out the preCise point the intersection

                                                                            spAce and

                                      time where the event wouLd spring

    undeniable the prominenence of whereas now eVents

                                                                    come wIthout

                                                                 like cemeNt being

                                                                              pOured column next to other one within other

                                                                            ☼

                                                                            seCond 

                                                          industrial revOlution

                                                          unlike the firSt does not present us

                                              with such crushing iMages as

                                                                          rollIng mills and molten steel but with bits

              in a flow of information traveling along Circuits

                                                            in the form Of

                                                             electronic iMpulses the

                                                                                Iron

                                                                          maChines

                                                                                Still exist but they obey the order of bits.

                                                                               ♦

The stanzas above were created using the Mesostic Poem Generator and quotes by Italo Calvino who adamatly denied being a any sort of a poet. For formatting alignment this poem is best read on full screen.

Image by Frank R. Paul, A jagged beam of flame (1932) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Collecting words from the bone pile

The Three Oddest Words

By Wislawa Szymborska

When I pronounce the word Future,
the first syllable already belongs to the past.

When I pronounce the word Silence,
I destroy it.

When I pronounce the word Nothing,
I make something no non-being can hold.

Translated by S. Baranczak & C. Cavanagh
Copyright © Wislawa Szymborska, S. Baranczak & C. Cavanagh,

The Nobel Prize in Literature 1996

__________________________________________________________________________________

 Italo Calvino on Quickness-

"Words, words that make me think. Because I am not devoted to aimless wandering, I'd rather say that I prefer to entrust myself to the straight line, in the hope that the line will continue into infinity, making me unreachable. I prefer to calculate at length the trajectory of my flight, expecting that I will be able to launch myself like an arrow and disappear over the horizon. Or else, if too many obstacles bar my way, to calculate the series of rectilinear segments that will lead me out of the labyrinth as quickly as possible."

From Six Memos for the Next Six Memos for the next Millennium

 

Imagine words being 

disembodied

from their inky chambers

in confinement

of a stroke on whim

Words set free from

the constriction

of definition

trapped 

by convictions

Language as folk lore

posing as apparitions

opaque and outside

ourselves

a resemblance

While we wrestle with gravity

Here

Words are grappling with reality

Now

Set against 

the woven fabric canvas

of our chance encounters

in perpetuity

strokes on a whim

I get the impression

of vibrant color on a white day

either way

A container to store ecstasy

dripping down

and running

to meaning 

we para phrase

artfully appraise

Concentrate as you read

these words you may need

inside your head

with your minds i

while standing beside

ourselves

in

nirvana

projecting 

maniacal mana

Leaning on clouds

we rely

on coming to a compromise

in order to see 

shapes as symbols, like these

metaphors

thirsty for more

than thin air

An impression

a sense 

of being

with words

we try to share

interchangeable

synonyms

thereby

invoking and provoking

a sense of continuity

An encyclopedic

orthopedic

selfsame essence

Words are the

people pith

that make-up

our masterful myth.

Image by Gerard de Lairesse, 1690 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.