Double entendre: 4'33

Your Royal Madame,
Touche
I am a must be madman-I mean mad I am.
This incidence rather a coincidence,
                                           I think not.

It seems to me, it seems to be, and it just seems
an ironic twist of fate-wait-
                                     do I believe in that? Irony? Fate?

This is Shirley Sacrilegious? I’ve said that first name before-

No this is timing. Counting the time with you.
Not in a cage. Not a Cage. Nor Cagian but Timean era,
ergo, time and time again
-reduce-reuse-recycle-
wherein the cycle, rinse, sit and spin.

I met a girl, I met a poem, I meta read a poem
and know-know, know 'em-by heart, by shape,
by sound and better by sin tax, i-ambroken.

It was the eye. The i. Thy.
Universe. No place-like home. 

Always. Life imitates Art. Art imitates Life.
This goes there and that here and this fits and that works
and this is temporary.

And I culled, if that’s the word, took my due 

they said it was-but it sounds so sharp

and severe-the paper reaper is Here!

It is better when the cage is left open,
the books laid down comfortably,
the poems lined up and put to the side,
away, in the marginalia, as if part of the conversation
as if welcome in side,
where silverfish swim
and humans have traveled by sand
in glass hours of solitude.

Well, I just had to tell you-

I had to move the bookshelf in the bedroom.

Not the good one, the one opposite the bathroom.

To access the little door in the wall-not for me-

I think the wall was listening,
Modern Poetry, like water in the walls
falls through the pipes and vocal chords
like metronomes kept me calm.

Scaring sensitive books brittle by neglect,
oh I stirred it up all right! 

Two to six boxes stacked by the front door-

No need to be sad-it means room for more
not so delicious to corrosion.

No, I do not feel the need

to fingerprint them? Plate them. Serve or share them. 
Take something else, copied T's.  

The tribute Retallack retold, paginated for posterity.

The Others-Hah!
Obtuse out of context objects-

subjective-as though there was any other way

but to give those ones away.

The silence set in. Water absorbed. Cage closes in
the dust bunnies-butterflies-not yet-worms with wings.

Yeah, it is poetry answering life, the birds speak

the questions

that Timing is everything,
Those boxed up books are all Free!
Is this irony? Or just population control, Fate of the paper,
vaporous dates with destiny,
I see this not lasting, Dear John.

Art by Charles Emmanuel Biset, Still life with books, letter and tulip (1633–after 1693) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Hear me, here me

It is in the way one focuses in with their entire skin

to yammering Twains and muted Cages,

I have been listening, intent on comprehending

which requires presence of mind-a-ware-ness-or

No-thing from me.

I have filled my creased palms gathering

dust others have lain out for me,

 they say, fit me,

Fine.
So it may be.

The young lady with the feather in her hat-

the old lady with a crooked nose

saving face, the youth refuses to come out
behind memory

which is why mirrors won’t work in-side,

over-time.
They have me pegged,

and while wedged, with my arms tucked,

I have taken a moment to look around

and recognize my proximity 
to the precipice,

                                                to others on this plane

as day.

Painting by Winslow Homer, The Red Feather (1864) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Recipe for Primordial Soup

Words

We know

Hold something

Greater than tangibility.

There is no weight, but we feel them

Waiting in us. It is mysterious how they

Manifest themselves as thought

Lines, directions, and energies by focus

And I have tried to gather these threads,

To tread lightly, lilting to myself trying to hear what Paulo Coelho

Whispered once, 'The universe conspires for you', for me,

Then Elliot interrupts and challenges these universal disturbances-i.e.

SILENCE! Shouts Cage with his plump lips, holding full notes In,

And Stein, and Stein, and Stein, and Stein evokes our inner Einstein-Aha! Pre-cisely-
The math of the matter, the matter of math, math matter, the matterless
mathless matter, massless matter, the antimatter-as a mass of totality, see-

Too literal to be unilaterally likable-repetitive is as are (un)retractable. Stet.

Do You-without question-understand the definition? Who knew-

Which one of many contradictory theories 

to listen-too much advice causes root entanglement 

and naturally, chaos unravela such intricate complexities, all

Gathered. Feel! Knots. Grasping for straws and strings 

to locate the (in)tangibility further up the line, at a beginning, 

where it went wrong, where A is for Adam was crossed out, gasp,

the people knelt, Adamant this evening without repast

famished for

an other.


Photo credit:  Archives, Argentina, children eating soup 1938 in [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.