likeness

The colors blended
one moment, one thing divides
a-similitude



Painting by Albert Bierstadt, Yosemite, Twin peaks, c.1859 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

5:59

Four minutes ago
it was  -My Time-  to shine, rise
above dark valleys



Painting by Claude Monet, 'Haystacks at Chailly at Sunrise', 1865 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Sunrise

And then it sprinkled

not enough to wake any

momentary bliss

You're glowing

Bright burning Aura, Aura!

Night inside of the forest;

Eye or hand, what immortal

fearful symmetry could frame thee?

Skies what in distant deeps

eyes thine of fire burnt

on wings, aspire he dares

Fire what hand the hand dare seize?

Art what, and what art on shoulder

sinews of the heart twist and thy could

beat and beat when thy heart

dread feet, dread hand and what

What chain the-what hammer the-

brain, a furnace twas thy

grasp the dread and what the anvil?

Clasp and dare deadly terrors!

Spears threw down stars

tears water’d with heaven

See him smile at his work?

Thee make the Lamb smile, at making me

maybe?

O Bright burning Aura, Or a

Night inside the forest again:

Nor eye or hand, what mortal

fearful of symmetry would frame thee?

This was an experiment with one of Bernadette Mayer’s Writing ideas (http://www.writing.upenn.edu/library/Mayer-Bernadette_Experiments.html) on mirroring an existing poem, which I did hear (sort of) with Tyger, Tger by William Blake (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43687/the-tyger)

Image By Fritz Erler, 1897 (Deutsche Kunst und Dekoration) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Angel and...

Clean sheets

The poem stared back
at the two pleading eyes

saying nothing
about white or black

nor was any indication given
as to where a poet

should set up thoughts
for the night

with rigging and taut lines
for a reader to traverse across

in high winds
and find their own

-balance-

if the stanza is strong enough
to support mass tourism

and photography.

If you look long enough
or blur your eyes

an Image develops,
what comes through

was over-exposed, covered
with a starch of pareidolia

it was still safe enough
to be considered
shelter.






Painting by Désiré François Laugée [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.

Sans compunction

No point. No point at the end.

How do you know you are there-

Where?

At the end, I don’t.

(In)³-8

And is it Close or Close? Close.

As meta for unraveling also ravels.

Breathe. I forgot what inspired me.

If used, it still possesses zero dimensions:

Does it matter if there

Or here, or Not? I appreciate the white

                                               Space(s) left by you...

As in, moving targets that spin

seem still, hazy-but fuzzy was her favorite.

How do you know when it is done,

Or the piece is a settled preposition?

Just to suppose, juxtapose those positions,

what if feathers deny making a Pound

is the Emperor Penguin still Dressed (Up)?

They were all thought experiments. I thought they were poems.

A poet cannot leave re-normalization-alone.

I came pre-traumatized, I sat subserviently

and listened for the equi-valence on this side,

punctuated by give and take.

The man said most don't know. As a physicist, he fishes.

His curiosity overflowing banks and boxed cats

and asks the layman to believe in nothing proven safe for consumption.

The stomach still drops in

conceptual elevators

labeled Science and Art

                                   "Going Down"

                                    (rabbit holes).

This poem was composed of notes I took while at an event hosted by the Arthur C. Clark Center for Imagination featuring Rae Armantrout and her condensed chapbook titled "Entanglements" (pub.d by Wesleyan) on April 13th, 2017 (also her birthday).