To bring the chain of being back
and to quell the plant kingdom,
rebel angels soaring over fields
to fructify or ionize in haze,
so that spores and mites
wouldn't rise from basements
with the ease of migratory birds,
that their mandibles and spurs
wouldn’t be so transparent,
as glass-bits, glassine sand-fleas.
To summon the allergens,
and herd them back to Pandora's box,
and to deport them.
*******
Floating dead homunculi,
pollen who seek the proper host,
sprinkled on the candied surfaces of vehicles,
gold alluvium channeling through curb-drains,
thick and crowded as the silt of deltas
with wing-bursts and the bellow of oxen
and from the runoff, a fetid, vegetal smell --
and though I know you are without malice,
nonetheless I was much luckier with water.
******
I watch for their mirages.
My arms thrash the shoreline,
silt scooped by dairy farmers
before they sold the land to Brahmins.
That I leave before the Caterpillars
fill the hole whose side I try to find is urgent.
A hole the size of a pin-head
in airways enlarges for legions
to trespass, by means of this elixir--
microcrystalline, in aerosol, suspended
the label’s print in emergency blurred--
I think of water-agitated friends
who stand around or dare another to jump
while aqua vita soothes the airways
or think about the bronchioles replaced
by poplars crowding human figures out
with the groping histrionics of dancers.
How pitiless the thickening of the trunk,
soft conifers sucking rainwater up,
hardwood holding water life-times.
Had you time to open your eyes
the human figures would have been gilded.
Wave to the dresser mirror while there's time.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
11/11/07 (Words for Richard Cohen)
11/11/07
When it couldn’t be more self-evident except to fools or Frenchmen, when a monkey could have painted it, when a monkey painted it but the art dealers swindled us, when there were no longer lies upon which to base one’s heaping calumny upon the numerous actors who it can be granted had not mastered the details although they had grasped the whole vision and its urgency as well, when they don’t deserve the abuse of the rabble, the abuse of habitual complainers and whiners and naysayers who are contesting that all’s right with the world just as the public intellectual crippled in his perch will never fail to do. Because the adversary will never cease, never will the adversarial cease his complaining that no one listens to him, never will no one listening to him cease to be adversarial from a deeply felt need, never in a million years in which time hominids could speak well-rounded and balanced silver sentences and dress in periwigs whereas at the beginning of that time-span they could bash the skulls of the macroceros with large rocks the stonemasons call dog-killers and grunt in monosyllables or make with their narrower mouths the onomatopoiea of babies about when they struggle upward from the crib, never since a visiting alien civilization explored the cooling globe before it congealed into gas and liquid and cells of heat within globes within whirlwinds, never since extraterrestrial storms on the calmer waters, never since the emergence of amphibious species resembling catfish or mud-skippers crawled upon a slime composed of algae and unspecified unicellular creatures possessed with the uncanny ability of inhabiting frozen wastelands of karst and glaciers or tropical swamps crowded with the sword-like blades of primitive sedges rooting far beneath the carboniferous tars upon which the wings of dragonflies struggle to no avail, never since the hardwood forests, uncut and crowded and the tops of trees cloud-like, but green not white clouds, with billows bunched like broccoli, a man-made hybrid of rabe and cauliflower courtesy of Mr. Broccoli who sired the producer of James Bonds films, but who sure wasn’t a member of the new adversarial class who grouse about their lack of power from their academic perches but who fail to breathe in the air of the hoi polloi, only for them the atmospheric nectar of those higher ivory tower attitudes: how powerless, complaining, like baboons from tree-tops, like hominids alienated from monkeys yapping from vines, exposing their big teeth from the tree-tops to ward off a defter adversary, the golden-crested monkeys happy with their continual and unspoiled prospects of cracking nuts and shellfish open, sometimes suspended from branches with their stave-shaped tails—what defter, more masterful instrument, whereas the hominids still struggle with the very digits of their hands, their slender, hairless, double-jointed hands: look, the hominids are complaining in the trees again. It rankles, the proportionality.
I’m a journalist maybe, but a sinner? I hate the sin but not the sinner, but for some, that’s not enough, and for far too long for my taste, I’ve shuttled between the cooling globe and the brooding upon the waters and the creatures isolated among their trees or their towers, but even the arthropod can complain about the sinuous appearance of the mollusc, or the baby bear about the kangaroo rat, and the latter about his truly marsupial counterpart the rat kangaroo, and how symmetrical the ecological niches producing such anomalies that must be stomped out with bovver boots.
When it couldn’t be more self-evident except to fools or Frenchmen, when a monkey could have painted it, when a monkey painted it but the art dealers swindled us, when there were no longer lies upon which to base one’s heaping calumny upon the numerous actors who it can be granted had not mastered the details although they had grasped the whole vision and its urgency as well, when they don’t deserve the abuse of the rabble, the abuse of habitual complainers and whiners and naysayers who are contesting that all’s right with the world just as the public intellectual crippled in his perch will never fail to do. Because the adversary will never cease, never will the adversarial cease his complaining that no one listens to him, never will no one listening to him cease to be adversarial from a deeply felt need, never in a million years in which time hominids could speak well-rounded and balanced silver sentences and dress in periwigs whereas at the beginning of that time-span they could bash the skulls of the macroceros with large rocks the stonemasons call dog-killers and grunt in monosyllables or make with their narrower mouths the onomatopoiea of babies about when they struggle upward from the crib, never since a visiting alien civilization explored the cooling globe before it congealed into gas and liquid and cells of heat within globes within whirlwinds, never since extraterrestrial storms on the calmer waters, never since the emergence of amphibious species resembling catfish or mud-skippers crawled upon a slime composed of algae and unspecified unicellular creatures possessed with the uncanny ability of inhabiting frozen wastelands of karst and glaciers or tropical swamps crowded with the sword-like blades of primitive sedges rooting far beneath the carboniferous tars upon which the wings of dragonflies struggle to no avail, never since the hardwood forests, uncut and crowded and the tops of trees cloud-like, but green not white clouds, with billows bunched like broccoli, a man-made hybrid of rabe and cauliflower courtesy of Mr. Broccoli who sired the producer of James Bonds films, but who sure wasn’t a member of the new adversarial class who grouse about their lack of power from their academic perches but who fail to breathe in the air of the hoi polloi, only for them the atmospheric nectar of those higher ivory tower attitudes: how powerless, complaining, like baboons from tree-tops, like hominids alienated from monkeys yapping from vines, exposing their big teeth from the tree-tops to ward off a defter adversary, the golden-crested monkeys happy with their continual and unspoiled prospects of cracking nuts and shellfish open, sometimes suspended from branches with their stave-shaped tails—what defter, more masterful instrument, whereas the hominids still struggle with the very digits of their hands, their slender, hairless, double-jointed hands: look, the hominids are complaining in the trees again. It rankles, the proportionality.
I’m a journalist maybe, but a sinner? I hate the sin but not the sinner, but for some, that’s not enough, and for far too long for my taste, I’ve shuttled between the cooling globe and the brooding upon the waters and the creatures isolated among their trees or their towers, but even the arthropod can complain about the sinuous appearance of the mollusc, or the baby bear about the kangaroo rat, and the latter about his truly marsupial counterpart the rat kangaroo, and how symmetrical the ecological niches producing such anomalies that must be stomped out with bovver boots.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
5/14/07
Certain tropes or descriptions you don't repeat
because they do not contribute to the meaning,
along with images extraneous and unsurpassing.
There are similes that are dead ends. And metonyms
that are fenceposts without palings to be fences.
And there are lines in print that I refuse to scold.
As if these lines were offspring with a shorter life-span.
Going nowhere, already buried in paper and ink.
Hear whose name who lies in water written.
Here whose water lies his name. Whose name lies.
Here lies one whose name was writ in water.
Here lies water, whose name was writ.
Bludgeon, blunt axe. Eric Bloodaxe--stand up, please!
So all can see you. Your mother would like you to call.
And your papa wishes you well.
He was, however, impaled on a stake,
still sending best wishes from over the Carpathians.
He continually complains of discomfort,
and we're looking for a homeopathic therapist or acupuncturist.
Who that is however should be beside the point
(no pun intended, but what is the point?)
By the time you land a deal, the songs are stale,
as ossified water, if that makes any sense.
Stale as water in which particles of half-digested bone meal
float in ethereal gestures.
We hear he was impaled on a stake
so we are sending our condolences.
We'll be enrolling our grandson in pre-school.
Band practice will not be cancelled.
because they do not contribute to the meaning,
along with images extraneous and unsurpassing.
There are similes that are dead ends. And metonyms
that are fenceposts without palings to be fences.
And there are lines in print that I refuse to scold.
As if these lines were offspring with a shorter life-span.
Going nowhere, already buried in paper and ink.
Hear whose name who lies in water written.
Here whose water lies his name. Whose name lies.
Here lies one whose name was writ in water.
Here lies water, whose name was writ.
Bludgeon, blunt axe. Eric Bloodaxe--stand up, please!
So all can see you. Your mother would like you to call.
And your papa wishes you well.
He was, however, impaled on a stake,
still sending best wishes from over the Carpathians.
He continually complains of discomfort,
and we're looking for a homeopathic therapist or acupuncturist.
Who that is however should be beside the point
(no pun intended, but what is the point?)
By the time you land a deal, the songs are stale,
as ossified water, if that makes any sense.
Stale as water in which particles of half-digested bone meal
float in ethereal gestures.
We hear he was impaled on a stake
so we are sending our condolences.
We'll be enrolling our grandson in pre-school.
Band practice will not be cancelled.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Stones Are Lightning, Gold the Sweat
Are there no stones in heaven
But what serves for the thunder? Othello 5.2, 242-3
Lightning’s the line-graph on the spreadsheet
of the clouds that, down-trending, strikes home
like cannon-shot or stones. It’s a spasm
man tries to anticipate with artillery –
Franklin’s lightning-rod, however, was pre-emptive,
the cheapskate. Secretly he thought
thunderbolts could alchemize the stones,
give each corpse-cold* Puritan his gold-hoard.
Lightning wrecked the house of false composure
descendants built, their daughter’s singsong
shattered as she retracted hands from any metal thing.
Lightning taught the fatality of the touch.
And as he mopeds to the brothel for children,
a tourist judges Ankgor Wat a load of stones.**
Unbeknownst to him are golden thrones and turrets
the Khmer Rouge sought to overturn with thunder,
since gold that neither greased the wheels of trade
nor alchemized the stones beneath could only char.
Gold, thought certain cultures, was the sun’s tears.
Other cultures, wiser, thought it was the sweat.
* Emerson on the Congregational Church, heir to the Puritans
**details digested from an article on child prostitution in Cambodia in The London Independent (on-line)
But what serves for the thunder? Othello 5.2, 242-3
Lightning’s the line-graph on the spreadsheet
of the clouds that, down-trending, strikes home
like cannon-shot or stones. It’s a spasm
man tries to anticipate with artillery –
Franklin’s lightning-rod, however, was pre-emptive,
the cheapskate. Secretly he thought
thunderbolts could alchemize the stones,
give each corpse-cold* Puritan his gold-hoard.
Lightning wrecked the house of false composure
descendants built, their daughter’s singsong
shattered as she retracted hands from any metal thing.
Lightning taught the fatality of the touch.
And as he mopeds to the brothel for children,
a tourist judges Ankgor Wat a load of stones.**
Unbeknownst to him are golden thrones and turrets
the Khmer Rouge sought to overturn with thunder,
since gold that neither greased the wheels of trade
nor alchemized the stones beneath could only char.
Gold, thought certain cultures, was the sun’s tears.
Other cultures, wiser, thought it was the sweat.
* Emerson on the Congregational Church, heir to the Puritans
**details digested from an article on child prostitution in Cambodia in The London Independent (on-line)
To You (03)
It was meant to be tiny,
Which means convenient
And to fit the schedule
For which it was apportioned.
It was meant to be compact
To fit into a space
Smaller than the one required
by the brain to count to four.
It was meant to be didactic
With easily traceable parallels
Hard-wired in its verbal system
So that meaning didn’t overflow
Into uninvited areas
Where there might be problems
Where there might not be tools
or special “plugs” to fix it.
Which means convenient
And to fit the schedule
For which it was apportioned.
It was meant to be compact
To fit into a space
Smaller than the one required
by the brain to count to four.
It was meant to be didactic
With easily traceable parallels
Hard-wired in its verbal system
So that meaning didn’t overflow
Into uninvited areas
Where there might be problems
Where there might not be tools
or special “plugs” to fix it.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Diagnosis: Retinoschesis
In one photograph, they wear sweaters,
and in another, pointy Santa hats.
Poor vision doesn’t make me see them.
Truly doubles, they are reassuring,
on the wall, the twins of the optometrist.
He fires air-jets in my eyes, and spins
sets of lenses while I read the alphabet,
which, he echoes, make vision better.
The tiniest row of letters seem Cyrillic.
Where does the other language start?
Soon the consonants become vowels
then a numerology too remote to count,
except one character, hooked like chaos,
symbol for Saturn, presiding over lead.
He asks me: circle, counter-clockwise, east
to west -- to my right the twins are happy.
They lean in an identical direction.
Wearing matching sweaters and caps,
they’re nested in another like dolls
or cosmonauts packed in a Soyuz.
He diagnoses blisters under my eyes.
They lie beneath each one like chaos
cradles a planet -- a chaos that pools
to sea or teary source or Murine deluge,
space without circumference, a mess.
If the blisters grow, I will see shadows
or blinding white flashes of epiphany
but neither walk nor drive--that’s why
when things are black, the squiggles
reassure me: blood vessels, he urges,
gelatinous, packed, outracing thought
or UFOs in grainy 16 millimeters.
But when I rub eyes, I see sunspots
that augur heat-blasts. And do not look
at sunlight say voices. The flash itself
will float on water -- as creation floats
on a ridge of bone or razor-back of giant,
or a flood of tears, the final source
for this anointment dilating my pupils.
How appealing the steel-rimmed glasses
as walls within the eye-store wobble.
They will hold my head like barrel-hoops.
The assistant reminds me don’t drive,
advice I disregard in open country,
the constellations undisturbed by traffic,
where twins are archetypes, not twins
of the optometrist. I fail to see things
but as dotted lines, suggestive, bare --
too remote to scrutinize, unlike sunspots
my fingers press on this wrinkled microcosm.
The sky suggests a bow, an arrow-shaft,
or limb attached to torso nebulae barely clothe,
or things I can turn off, blanks refuse to fill
like metaphysical things, or like chaos,
which beneath appearance, isn’t really true,
because what’s underneath is really ordered
on a microscopic level -- those squiggles
for which lenses or tea-leaves are needless
make sense, being neither magic, nor UFOs
nor private, like palm-lines, birthmarks or scars.
They’ve been allotted to others as eyes have
or identical twins, those circling peas in pods.
If vision gets too terrible, can’t he lance them
with those ruby lasers used for rifle scopes?
and in another, pointy Santa hats.
Poor vision doesn’t make me see them.
Truly doubles, they are reassuring,
on the wall, the twins of the optometrist.
He fires air-jets in my eyes, and spins
sets of lenses while I read the alphabet,
which, he echoes, make vision better.
The tiniest row of letters seem Cyrillic.
Where does the other language start?
Soon the consonants become vowels
then a numerology too remote to count,
except one character, hooked like chaos,
symbol for Saturn, presiding over lead.
He asks me: circle, counter-clockwise, east
to west -- to my right the twins are happy.
They lean in an identical direction.
Wearing matching sweaters and caps,
they’re nested in another like dolls
or cosmonauts packed in a Soyuz.
He diagnoses blisters under my eyes.
They lie beneath each one like chaos
cradles a planet -- a chaos that pools
to sea or teary source or Murine deluge,
space without circumference, a mess.
If the blisters grow, I will see shadows
or blinding white flashes of epiphany
but neither walk nor drive--that’s why
when things are black, the squiggles
reassure me: blood vessels, he urges,
gelatinous, packed, outracing thought
or UFOs in grainy 16 millimeters.
But when I rub eyes, I see sunspots
that augur heat-blasts. And do not look
at sunlight say voices. The flash itself
will float on water -- as creation floats
on a ridge of bone or razor-back of giant,
or a flood of tears, the final source
for this anointment dilating my pupils.
How appealing the steel-rimmed glasses
as walls within the eye-store wobble.
They will hold my head like barrel-hoops.
The assistant reminds me don’t drive,
advice I disregard in open country,
the constellations undisturbed by traffic,
where twins are archetypes, not twins
of the optometrist. I fail to see things
but as dotted lines, suggestive, bare --
too remote to scrutinize, unlike sunspots
my fingers press on this wrinkled microcosm.
The sky suggests a bow, an arrow-shaft,
or limb attached to torso nebulae barely clothe,
or things I can turn off, blanks refuse to fill
like metaphysical things, or like chaos,
which beneath appearance, isn’t really true,
because what’s underneath is really ordered
on a microscopic level -- those squiggles
for which lenses or tea-leaves are needless
make sense, being neither magic, nor UFOs
nor private, like palm-lines, birthmarks or scars.
They’ve been allotted to others as eyes have
or identical twins, those circling peas in pods.
If vision gets too terrible, can’t he lance them
with those ruby lasers used for rifle scopes?
Amorphous (9/15/03) (revv. Jan 09)
The clouds have accumulated for a storm, as if the sky
Were loaded with potential electricity, with banks
Of storm-clouds and air-currents, wending above and below
One another in ribbons, which the meteorologist’s arrows
Seek to clarify or pass through, but can only confuse.
They are convoluted as brains, have minds of their own,
The cumulus, the cumulonimbus, the thermals, the spaces between them.
How sticky clothes can change one’s mindset overnight,
Continual discomfort breeding the urge to transcendence,
A thought of non-attachment the thought of cool antipodes,
Underground groves, walls of water from a waterfall,
But were you about to freeze to death on the tundra,
You’d curl around hearths, fireplaces would feel huge as cathedrals,
Which are forests you’ve never seen, every column a tree-trunk.
Piss off you declare to the crow who caws on the power-line
The elaborate patrols and surveillance for roadside carrion.
The owls perched on buoys looking for river-rats that joggers
Choose to ignore closing in on their requisite mileage
As men would a hole-in-one on the golf course, a game in which
they are, to say the least, covertly competitive.
Were loaded with potential electricity, with banks
Of storm-clouds and air-currents, wending above and below
One another in ribbons, which the meteorologist’s arrows
Seek to clarify or pass through, but can only confuse.
They are convoluted as brains, have minds of their own,
The cumulus, the cumulonimbus, the thermals, the spaces between them.
How sticky clothes can change one’s mindset overnight,
Continual discomfort breeding the urge to transcendence,
A thought of non-attachment the thought of cool antipodes,
Underground groves, walls of water from a waterfall,
But were you about to freeze to death on the tundra,
You’d curl around hearths, fireplaces would feel huge as cathedrals,
Which are forests you’ve never seen, every column a tree-trunk.
Piss off you declare to the crow who caws on the power-line
The elaborate patrols and surveillance for roadside carrion.
The owls perched on buoys looking for river-rats that joggers
Choose to ignore closing in on their requisite mileage
As men would a hole-in-one on the golf course, a game in which
they are, to say the least, covertly competitive.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
