Project-ile

The poet sits with intention.
Knitted brow and with a scrap of
paper, a sharp implement and a
momentary departure, a faraway gaze,

the poet observes the words taking their own
positions simply as
falling
into place.

The poet lines up the marks and cross-
hatches, rounds up loops and keeps it all
justified, inside the margin(al) notes,
deducing answers by guess and check.

With so many alternates and messy remainders
that carry over into the wrong
problem,
we are easily led astray with too many steps
to count.

The poet prefers no word to another,
making it impossible to say anything
of value about luck or music, or talent,
or art or war or philanthropy or money.

In shorthand scrawls,
the poet draws out
the sharpest tips acquired and
compares this craft to the fine work
such as that of the carpenter or accountant,
or tailor or assassin,
whom measure thrice before a cut is made.

The poet shook his wrist.
The poet knew there were solutions inside
so he sought and tried
to say the one thing that would change
something.
The poet goes with the flow of ink
and arrives quickly
in a foreign tundra
where the virgin snow melts
around slated and craggy ideals.

The poet watches the footfalls
disappear,
grateful to have never been
Here.


Advertising illustration credited by 'Bookseller & Stationer', The Sawn Pen, 1919 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.