A-flow-T

It was up-side-down-which
is not up There
is no up-any-way
that the dhow
knew the way the wind blew
and grabbed it as the how
to get There
the Tao
and even keel held bronze pins in place
on the starboard to cease and assist
sunken ships weight and wait
with least resistance finding that
flow
feels easy like you know
down pat what is
up
either way anyway
if you don't flow
with it
you'll never know
smooth sailing up-on destiny's dhow.




Image of painting by By Maxwell, Donald [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

The writing in dust on mirrors

They lied
              all along
They think
              they were lying
(to them-selves)
               it showed through
eventually
wear and tear:
tears and wears

feeble few
who knew
               the lies were untrue
and said
(to them-selves)
                it was naturally so,
unfolding
upholding
For now
                 yet I know
the decay
                 eating away
Bones and Memories
(buried)
Stones and Sticks
(thrown)
                  shatter glass houses
and mirrors
reflecting angel dust
                                 and cobwebs
clouding what could never become
(the whole truth)
after blowing
                   living a life
being numb,
breathing evil wind
it's too late-
                   nevermind.



Image by By עירא (own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

The Creative Process by e.e. cummings 1 and 2 (plus 5)

                    

1.

Of my

Soul a street is:

Preternatural Pic-

abian tricktrickclickflidk-er

garner

of starfish Picasso

thrombosis trees

hit

my soul

repairs herself with

Prioress of Shari mind

and Matisse rhythms

to juggle Kandinsky gold-exchange-standard

away from the grind gifted

muscles of Cèzanne’s

logic

          Oho.

           A streamer

There is

where stramineous  birds     purr

2.

Picasso

you give us Things

which

bulbous: grunting lungs pumped fulgurate of Shari They mind

you make us shriek

presents always

shut in the sump screech of

simplicity

(out of the

bizarre unbolted

Something gushes vaguely a squeak of planes

or

between squeals of

Nothing grabbed with circuit breaker shrieking tiger-eye

solicitation screams whisper.)

Lumberman of the Distillation

your brain’s

axe only chops hued inherent

Trees of Ego, from

whose living and bifoliate

bodies lopped

of every

preternatural

you hew form true time

The above two poems originally composed by e.e. cummings have been given the 5 up adjective treatment whereby each original adjective is replaced by the preceding 5th word in the dictionary. Normally this is a 7-up process but I like the number 5 better. 

Image of painting by Wassily Kandinsky, Yellow-red-blue, c. 1925 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

A Poet's Advice by e.e. cummings

A poet is
somebody who feels,
& who expresses his feelings
                                                -through words.
This may sound easy. It isn't.
A lot of people think
or believe
or know
they feel-
but that is
thinking or believing or knowing;
not feeling.
And poetry is
feeling-
not knowing or believing or thinking.

Almost anybody can learn to think
or believe or know,
but not a single human being can be taught
to feel.

Why?
Because whenever you think
or you believe or you know,
you're a lot of other people:
but the moment you feel,
you're nobody-
but-yourself-
in a world which is doing its best,
night and day,
to make you everybody else-
means to fight the hardest battle,
which any human being can fight;
and never stop fighting.
As for expressing
nobody-but-yourself-
in words,
that means working just a little harder
than anybody
who isn't a poet
can possibly imagine.

Why?
Because nothing is quite as easy as using words
like somebody else.
We
      all of us
                     do exactly this
                                          nearly all of the time-
and whenever
We
      do it,
We
     are not
poets.

If,
at the end of your first ten or fifteen years
of fighting and working and feeling,
you find
you've written
                         one line
                         of one poem,
you'll be very lucky indeed.

And so my advice to all young people who wish to become poets is:
do something easy,
like learning how to blow up the world-
unless you're not only willing,
                                                 but glad,
to feel and work and fight till you die.

Does this sound dismal?
                                         It isn't.
It's the most wonderful life on earth.
Or so
I feel.


The above text has been reformatted from the original version by e.e. cummings, this passage was included in the introduction (xi-xii) for the book, "A Critical Path" by R. Buckminster Fuller.


Image of painting by Unknown Pandora's Box, via Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain. 

A-part of some-thing

As though we needed to be told
-a-gain-
As if it were common
to occur
-again-
As it had been shown, all-
ready through
peopled holes-where keys go-
-inside-
These-black holes-out of space
and time constraint, locked
in-side-eternity
carrying more nothing
than you have seen
before.

Memory serves experience,
and kneels-
As though we've demanded
reverence, deliverance, pittance, per-
chance for-getting minute (s)paces
that take Us-
off tracks, on trips and
slips through slick perception
again, inside, before,
it occurs, as though suddenly
standing still under falling stars-
as if-then
you remember
Being-There.

You are merely a part of nature;
You are not altogether
apart from nature.
Everything was bound
to occur
any-way, naturally.
As though we needed to re-
member.




Image of painting by Theodore Clement Steele, c. 1887 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Spring cleaning

It was eighty degrees in April,
calamities abounding on fractured plates,
like earthquakes
and the old lady
wearing a black tank top, her arms propped on her knees,
sits on a curb
outside the white medical office
with her frizzy white hair
clenched in her hands...
and she quakes quietly,
her skin ripples in the white noon light.
Mexican fan palms crackling in the white hot breeze
seem to say
just another day in paradise.
The pollen has fallen,
she could smell it in the air
while dripping salt water on the blacktop.




Image of painting by By Carl Heuser (1827-1892) (Bonhams) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Mining Stars (from here)

The President said
plutonium supplies
were good in the pits.
I wondered what it meant-
so I dug 963 feet
below the surface
seeking that sinking
heavy metal, heaving
twice its weight in gold,
yet primeval and silvery-
precious.

First made by supernovae,
naturally stardust,
radioactively broadcast
its position
through in the universe
-this one
time
expansion.

Discovered in Berkley,
in a February-
back then, 75 years ago, by a Glenn
Seaborg-not a Cyborg,
who then sent it to Los Alamos
in another February
for further detonation
and investigation
of astronomic instability.

With seven crystallographic phases
it elementary amazes scientists
in its fractalized dynamic destinies.
With differing densities, quite capably
able to decimate cities,
by morphing its own mass;
molten, hyper-reactive,
subject to spontaneous ignition,
irradiated with vaporous
breath, like making plus
molecules
ad-here
plutonic at the core.

Mass casualties of the atomic age
Man as kin, or mannequins staged
as markers amongst
the desert blooms
carbon footprints on the floral carpet
show we were here
in Plutonic Purgatory
hunting and gathering
wishing upon stars and
digging up disasters
in the diabolical desert
seeking forgiveness
in a cactus bloom.



Image of butterfly on desert bloom of zinnia By Mike Howard, BLM New Mexico State Office Botanist [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.