Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Plaid Sunset


Plaid Sunset
Oil on canvas
30" x 48"

from present Narritives

 life study #2
oil on canvas
 38" x 58 "
                                                                                




from PRESENT NARRATIVES



#2
What 's this? A 5 x 7 of Michael taped
To the plate glass between a 5 foot banner promising
Bombay Sapphire gin for $18.99
and bunting hawking Leine's (Leinenkugel) beer below five bucks?
Cashier-of-the-month, perhaps?
Good.
Although our conversations have been telegraphic
–long enough for him to ring a couple bottles of wine,
or gin & fino, maybe scotch, beer occasionally–
His quiet demeanor –presence– makes me feel welcome here.
He's asked me how I liked what I was buying
–his manner showed he wasn't selling; he was curious.
Once, I asked him what he drank.
I think he mentioned something clear: gin, vodka or the like.
The writing above the picture says: "In Memoriam?!"
There's a newspaper clipping below his photo.
It records the death date, names survivors, says they're sad he's dead.
"What happened to Michael?"
"He choked to death."
"That 's it?"
"It was a freak accident."
"How old was he?"
"Forty-one."
"Damn."
"Yeah. I know. That'll be eighty-seven fifty-six.
I'll get you a box."
"No box, please. Just a bag."
"Have a good night."
"You too."


#5
"The house was 24 feet by 18 feet on the outside
with 2 rooms upstairs & 2 down;
The studs were rough-milled oak.
A curtain on a wooden dowel separated your grandparents bedroom
from the other downstairs room.
We slept –seven of us over the years– upstairs.
It was already framed-in when Mom & Dad bought it;
Later, they attached a lean-to as an entryway,
and a trailer onto the southeast corner, as a kitchen.
Each year, in the fall, we'd bring in an upright-wood burner
to heat the whole place
(but not very damn much if you were upstairs & it was 20 below.)
I remember when Dad drove the well
–I was only 5 or 6, so I couldn't help, but
I watched (and talked constantly, I suppose)
as he pounded the point down, day after day.
He hit hardpan and the pipe hardly seemed to move for hours.
It was a lucky effort, though;
He tapped into a subterranean lake.
During the 30's drought, we watered everyone's stock
from a dug well in the same aquifer.
D'you remember the windmill?
It was still up when you were growing up.
Your Uncle Jim finally replaced it with an electric pump.
Climbing 30 feet to grease the axle of a windmill
Is a pastoral & picturesque pain-in-the-ass, isn't it Jim?"
"Yeah, but, you know, looking out the window now,
I'm kind of sorry we had to take down the old windmill.
It's like when we finally tore down the old house:
The neighbors brought their tractors, came to help.
There must have been three-, three-hundred-fifty horsepower there that day.
We wrapped the house with chains and tried to pull it down.
The chains broke.
With saws, we cut the house in half
and dragged it to the field to burn.
I guess I should have moved it to the woods
so the grandkids could see it
–it would have made quite a playhouse.
But a guy didn't think of those things then.


#6
on Michael Pollan's
The Omnivore's Dilemma

The grasses feed the cattle.
Cow manure feeds the maggots.
The maggots feed the chickens.
Cow dung & chicken shit feed soil.
The soil feeds the grasses.
We thrive within the circle;
Birth & death entwined.

Oil feeds corn.
Corn feeds cattle & chickens & us.
The circle is broken.
There is only death.


#8
Those three squirrels
systematically harvesting a mulberry tree,
checkered with black & red berries,
patient, intent, relentless,
yet always jumpy –cats need food, too–
remind me: I need to buy some new socks.
I wonder if squirrels get weary sometimes, too?


#10
The wind scared my mother.
She grew up along the eastern coast of the United States.
Her stories about the 1936 & 1945 hurricanes were relaxed but,
When it was storming
she always tried so hard to be in another room
–or at least to comfort & reassure us
if we needed her to be there in that moment.
She didn't want to pass on her fear
of the air.
It didn't work.
So now, I'm above average scared of the weather
but below average scared of women.


#11
I’m going to John Mitchell’s funeral Friday.
John Mitchell was a poet.
Poets like funerals.
They like the spectacle & array of origin, boundary & denouement;
They like the way death lights upon a moment & makes it real.
I feel like a bit of an opportunist –a ghoul–
inspired by his death to write a poem.
But then, all poems exploit death.
Death gives poems vigor & purpose.
So, as long as proper gratitude is expressed,
I guess it’s o.k.
Thank-you John.


#12
My initial wife grew up on a farm
A few miles from Rochester, Minnesota;
A place with 10-foot snowdrifts & 30-foot topsoil;
The growing season there yields prolific, though conflicted, crops.
So I, an urban fool, made her a seed-starting bed:
2 x 4's, insulation board, & a heater cable from a catalog
(She always made time for gardening, even as she attended medical school.)
Well, that match didn't work out well (or perhaps it did.)
In any case, we parted & she left the seed-starter.
My final wife is urbane.
She appreciates horticulture;
But devotes all her time to playing Bach, singing Scarlatti,
And brushing her visions across a canvas.
In 20 years, she's never used the seed-starting bed.
So I finally decided to take it
--And a couple thousand pounds of project refuse from our basement & garage--
To the landfill.
It seemed a pity to toss this thing I'd made, unused;
So I decided to call Robin & Beth:
Robin, who makes furniture that 's elegant & pristine & perfect,
Even though he spends what any reasonable person would consider
All his time passionately teaching --inspiring-- college students;
Beth, who embraces the Earth on her farm,
Even though she spends full days preparing high school students
To face the likes of Robin.
They both have full-time lives teaching nascent people
How to think & behave;
But with an energy that seems exhausting to me,
They touch the Earth directly
Helping ewes yean & vegetables grow
On a little farmstead near Vasa, Minnesota;
Where the land isn't quite as fecund as in Rochester, but it's still good.
That longing for Earth's touch is mostly Beth's;
But Robin's longing for Beth makes the extra work mostly o.k., I guess;
But that's another poem entirely.
So I called Robin & Beth
To see if they'd like a seed-starting bed.
(My god, the heirloom tomatoes they give us each summer are almost erotic.)
I thought they might have some use for my simple incubator.
"It's made of 2 x 4's & insulation board."
"Oh." (His 'oh' was inflected by a deep familiarity with me.
I like to make rude structures from dimension lumber & industrial hardware;
He crafts exquisite lampshades from mahogany, stained glass, & copper foil.)
"Here, talk to Beth."
Beth told me how a seed-starter heats the bed to 60 degrees;
And how they keep their basement well above that
To accommodate Robin's fingers when he's crafting wood.
Beth told me --with Southern manners & Cosalish sensibilities
(She grew up in the Carolinas and grew some more on Vancouver Island as an adult.)
She told me --after thanking me for my gesture, for my offering, for my consideration--
She told me "No."
(I think I heard a breath of relief in the background.)
I've kept this thing I've made --unused-- for almost 30 years.
It's always seemed --perversely, I suppose--
Like I should save things I've made,
However useless they are.
Well, finally, I've thrown it out.
Though I did remove the store-bought heating cable first.
I thought I could make something with it eventually.
I hate to throw out a perfectly good heating cable.


#13
carrots….
pickles…
chicken breasts…
Stilton & Cheddar & Havarti & Leerdammer &…
oh yeah, Feta…
red cabbage & romaine & apples…
uh… salami… and there was one other thing…
what was it?
a- b- c- d- e- f- g- …
G.
garlic. that’s right.
I wonder why I seem better able to remember things alphabetically?
are recollections keyed like a database?
I doubt it.
I think we make computers analogous to us; but not like us.
each breath compares to the wind;
but pressure from a muscle diaphragm
is nothing like the pressure from the sun.
we’re of the Earth; but we're not like the Earth.
memory might be the center of all this.
perhaps it is the only thing there ever is.
every 'thing' else really is a motion:
activity & relationship.
remembering love is about loving;
but it isn't love.
allusive recollections
–what's connected to what–
–who did what when–
–and always, of course, why–
can be satisfying, satiating, terrifying, entertaining,
or just something to do;
but a gesture
and then a response
is a creation beyond anything I can possibly remember.
a reason to live.
living is mostly remembering.
now, what was the other thing
we wanted to eat for dinner tonight?
oh, that's right.
sushi.


#15
What things are there that I share with everyone?
We all know blood, warm flesh & faces; longing, fear
(for none would live too long if they were satisfied;
we need a present hunger, always there.)
But what –beyond urge– can be recognized?
I think I know a kind of place where you've been, too:

In my grandmother's upstairs hallway,
The door
leading from one bedroom
(the one with twin beds painted with turquoise enamel)
to one of its porches
is open.
It smells like the tide is out
(unsubmerged clam holes vent growth & decay.)
The music box downstairs
with pinned, brass reels bigger than my forearm
is playing a bit of a Chopin waltz
over & again
but is always missing the same, few notes
where the salt air has green-rusted away some of the pins.
There's a scattering of sand on the hardwood floors
along the edge of the runner running the length of the hallway.
From where I stand, I can see the outside spigot
for washing off our feet after a swim;
But my brother & sister & especially me (because I'm the youngest)
often forget to rinse off our feet
before tromping through the house to change clothes in our bedrooms upstairs.
The sand scrapes between my toes;
the air tastes moist & salty.
No fabric in the house
–towels, bedsheets, curtains, rugs–
is ever quite dry in the summer.

Every time I smell mildew
I return to that eidetic place –shared place– for a moment.



#19
"This damn light is always red for…"
{oh fuck! no! no! turn! no!}
"AGCH!"
{it is like slow motion... he's lilting over the handlebars... oof, that bounce off the hood hurt like hell... I wonder if he'll die? shit... over the roof... and she's sliding under the wheels... no? good. she missed.}
"my god."
{light 's green. should I pull over? i don't want to –i know it's not my blood or my pain but blehishugheewblah!– but should i? i don't have a cell; i suppose i could...wait...five cars have already pulled over... three people are calling for help... i'd just be in the way... good –or not, i guess. today, i'd rather be lucky than good}
"Oh good. I'll be on time."
{as if that mattered a shit.}

"Could I have the first slide, please?"
{let's see, it's four o'clock. if I can finish by five, with 20 or 30 minutes of questions –as long as there are no assholes in the crowd…}
"The first slide, please?"
{...i should be able to get out of here by quarter of six…}
"What? Deleted? o.k."
"Forgive me. I'll just hook-up my Mac. It won't take a second."
{which is going to seen like three hours to me and everyone in the audience.}
{the concert is at eight. it's fifteen minutes from here –i can make it in ten.}
{stupid assholes. they knew which slides I needed yesterday.}
"The handout you received at the door…
{oh please don't be temperamental & make me look like a fumbling jackass}
"...outlines the essential point's I'll cover today..."
{ 'outlines the essential point's' ?! as opposed to what, idiot? 'meanders about the trivial gossip i'll spew forth'? just shut up & connect the machines.}
{oh no. rustling papers. they're bored already. god, i hate machines. no, no you don't. you love them. shut up. focus. where 's the damn plug? ah here.}
"There. Good. Today, I'd like to talk about time. But not the time of Einstein or Planck or Heisenberg, but the time of Wallace Stevens and, in spite of what some –Stu Hameroff, a few others– would like to believe, they're not the same, they'll never be the same, they can't be the same."


#20
My white, feral kitten-cat with a black mask
–Pagliacci, Bozo, Peter Criss–
comes closer when I call-out "Bandit!"
Smart cat.
She knows I've brought food.
It's a good reason to like someone.
Ah, but today, her first sight of a scarlet cardinal
has distracted her. She ignores me & calmly rivets
her gaze upon him: fascinated, dangerous, splendid.


#21
"I am dead."
English verbs can't really ever get it quite right.
I might be overweight –or skinny;
I might be brilliant –or stupid;
I might be writing or walking or eating or dreaming or fucking or just thinking;
I certainly am alive;
But in spite of the evolutionary directive/imperative
to consciously & unconsciously,
to completely & obsessively,
to primally & primarily
avoid death
as if it were a thing or a place,
I can't.
And when I don't
–as, of course, we all won't–
I won't be dead.
I just won't be.
Un-be? Dis-be?
I don't know what the emotional solution might be.
Maybe ignorance.
Maybe lies.
Any solution –thanks to evolution– will always be a little uncomfortable
for the living (As opposed to whom?
There's the language problem again.)
Perhaps the only linguistic solution is a poem within a poem:

I like to sit in a lawn chair
Watching the feral cats in my back yard
As they like to sit –even in the snow, sometimes– and watch me
Until some outside thing ends the moment
And one of us leaves.


#22
At Mealtime

"I’m worried about Hillary."
"She’ll be alright, Mommy."
"Were you going to eat all that tunafish, Bandit?"
"You've got a pile in front of you Cassius."
"She's six months old now..."
"What's that?!"
"What?!"
"What?!"
"What?!"
"oh, I guess it's nothing. Just one of them emptying their trash."
"...munch, munch, munch..."
"...munch, munch, munch..."
"...munch, munch, munch..."
"...munch, munch, munch..."
"...as I was saying, she's six months old now..."
" Did you want all that Salmon Feast, Pretty?"
"No, I suppose not. Go ahead."
"Leave her alone, Cassius. You haven't even finished the Seafood Supper in front of you."
"It's o.k. Mommy. I'll eat when he's done."
"Good kitties."
"Why does he keep saying that?"
"I don't know. They're not very bright. Why would he keep observing 'kitty, kitty, kitty' each time he sees us? Like it's a new discovery each time."
"It's true. But he does bring food. So why are you worried about Hillary?"
"It's Tommy."
"Oh. Well, yeah. He tried to hump me yesterday. His left ear will match his right one if he tries that again too soon."
"But Hillary is so little; so delicate."
"She's tougher than you think, Mommy."
"(Sniff, sniff) Why does he keep bringing us fish. I don't like fish. I like turkey."
"You should just be glad he brings us food."


#23
At a Mailing House:

"What's this? A thousand letters of apology for sending out premature late notices?"
"Yeah..."
"But from a collection agency?!"
"Oh...I guess those must be good bad-debtors..."
"...As opposed to bad bad-debtors?"
"Kind of like someone who beats their children, but says they're sorry afterwards."
"Like my father."
" ."
" ."
"Sorry, I forgot."
"It's o.k. I'm used to it."


#24
That reflection
of a bridge in still water
is also a bridge
made from the same trusses & deck
I can only imagine.


#25
As she deftly flicked the bits of shell and membrane
onto the crinkled sheet of foil she'd neatly flattened
after eating the tuna salad sandwich it held,
she glanced up at the clock –four minutes left–
and decided to save the hard boiled egg
for her last break.
Though it pleased her not at all,
she'd grown used to the inane blare of All My Children's
mysterious strangers, miraculous cures & evil avatars.
It made it harder to chat, but
she now preferred the aggressive silence the television enforced
before she had to return to man the folder for a few more hours.
She'd heard, at full speed, it generated 90 decibels or more.
She was used to that too, now.
Besides, what was there to talk about?
The weather,
the (new, old, lacking, promised, eliminated) employee incentive plan,
kids & pets,
foot-base-basketball scores,
"Glad it's Friday." "Yeah."
"It's Monday." "Yeah."
As she deftly burst & jogged the reams of paper, fed the folder,
then packed the tri-fold leaflets in cross-stacked, twenty-five page lifts,
she glanced up at the clock –two hours left–
and decided to save the next job
for tomorrow.



#28
I’m listening to Mahler’s 5th Symphony today
because it was my mother’s favorite Mahler symphony
and because we might take our 21-year-old cat to be euthanized tomorrow.
As Louise & I discuss Bear the Cat’s dying
(She can’t stand now.
She doesn’t sleep curled like a cat anymore;
she sleeps –or just rests & stares across the floor–
sprawled, full length,
like a dying animal.)
we keep trying to decide what is humane, what is kind, what is good
–what we want.
Louise says she’d really like Bear to revive.
Mahler said “Nobody understood it.”
“I wish I could conduct the first performance fifty years after my death.”
Our friend Beth said “You have to decide how much is comfortable for you.”
“Either way, at the end, she’ll stop breathing and that will be uncomfortable for her…”
“…it just might not last quite as long at the veterinarian.”
My mother had a pretty good run; almost 80 years.
She never wanted to linger at the end & she didn’t.
She told my sister “I just don’t want to lose my mind.”
We just wanted her to be the same as she was before.
Bear doesn’t seem to be uncomfortable;
So Louise decided to let her decide
when she would die.

#29
It was a good death.
We’ve spent the last few days taking turns
(though Louise was really the devoted one & I helped a little)
trying to make her comfortable.
She couldn’t really stand or even move much any more
so we rolled her over, side to side,
when she tensed up or looked pained.
Every few moments or hours she tried to get up
but her worn and withered, old muscles
just couldn’t raise her.
So we’d caress her, hold her, calm her back down.
She hasn’t eaten anything or drank much for three days.
Wednesday, Louise said she thought we were at an end.
She lasted four more days.
She had a strong heart.
Finally, today, she just laid quietly with a quiet look on her face.
Louise called to me from beside her:
“It’s happening now.”
We both held her.
Her breathing slowed.
Her legs twitched & seized a bit.
She shivered, gasped a little,
then she relaxed & withdrew.
She’s gone now. 





Tuesday, October 13, 2009

After Leonardo



photo by Nathan 
of a painting by Louise 
after a painting by Leonardo
& a moth



Louise, last week at work a six-inch moth
Lit on the gray, block wall next to my bench.
It's northwoods not rainforest here; and so
I was surprised  –that this exotic thing
With wings of indigo, gold, brown, black, rose,
Was here at all and, further, here it chose
To light beside me on a warehouse wall–
Until I realized the palette of each wing
Matched hue for hue the nearby painting you had shaped
(Displaced here, too: on stark concrete, lush oils and cloth.)
I tried to catch it so that I could show
You what your art had drawn; but it escaped.
Today, I couldn't have imagined what I'd find:
The moth returned –and died– by beauty of its kind.

Monday, August 31, 2009

PRIVATE & PUBLIC two poems

PRIVATE



CONTENTS
& list of 1st lines

HAIKU...........................................................................1
With rapt attention
TANKA..........................................................................2
There have been courses.
SONNET..........................................................................3
The architecture of this vestibule
VILLANELLE...................................................................4
A person 's not a thing, it is a place
SESTINA..........................................................................5
Sometimes it's almost quiet in this place,
ECHO...............................................................................6
I am at the center of some place. Come face
STICHOMYTHIA................................................................7
"How can I act?" "You can't. You're not a thing."
RHOPALIC........................................................................8
Place subsumes everything experienced individually
ANGLO-SAXON.................................................................9
I've talked with teachers, friends ...Ah, Talk! For years
GHAZAL..........................................................................10
Personalities cast & strown astride this place
VISUAL............................................................................11
A part of and apart from a community
STEPPED LINES................................................................12
A
'FREE'.............................................................................13
I am a moment. A practiced, critical & expansive, insignificant
LIMERICK........................................................................14
In every idea there is doubt
DOUBLE DACTYL.............................................................15
All my experience,
MNEMONIC......................................................................16
Place
MINIMALIST....................................................................17
I, you
GNOMON........................................................................18
A surprise:

1)

With rapt attention
–ideology suppressed–
There remains a place.



2)

There have been courses.
There are histories. For now,
There will be futures.
Apart from these, there is an I;
I, a point, a place, a source.


3)

The architecture of this vestibule
Permits comparison, but no response.
It is constructed from a life of days.
Its inner sanctum is approached in ways
Unmappable. A fact without a rule.
Its features & materials are nonce;
A self-created simile used once
Will always lose its accuracy hence.
Each sanctuary's subjectivity
Is but one architect's proclivity.
Aesthetics, though analogously shared,
With facets made, admired, cleft & compared,
Can never really be experienced.
My being makes me wonderfilled –and scared.


4)

A person 's not a thing, it is a place
Where history & desire become a source,
The quiet certainty beyond a face.

Inside them, only fools will try to trace
Discrete parts of their wit, pride & remorse.
A person 's not a thing, it is a place.

There are no parts within. We are a lace
Of love & memory who feel, with force,
The quiet certainty beyond a face.

We are abstract inside our concrete case.
In some ways, calling out just makes us hoarse.
A person 's not a thing, it is a place.

It's longing, not living that shows the grace,
−Wants are as delicate as needs are coarse−
The quiet certainty beyond a face.

Each person −for a time− just has some space.
Don't rage against the dying light; there 's none, of course.
A person 's not a thing, it is a place,
The quiet certainty beyond a face.



5)

Sometimes it's almost quiet in this place,
In spite of noisy works that I desire
To manifest as my apparent face,
As presence other places might admire;
But there 's a stilling conscious to the fact
Of here: inside of here I am, but I can't act.

Outside of me, my presence is an act.
Community is abstract. I'm a place.
Connection is a theory. I'm a fact.
And yet, there are connections I desire.
It's friction in each contact I admire.
For this, I make the fiction that 's my face.

Sometimes I scarce can tolerate this face;
Or th' implications of an –any– act.
Some moments I completely don't admire
The presence manifested by this place.
I can't make me some thing that I desire;
Desire is a notion; I'm a fact.

It's difficult to make words mean a fact.
To wrest the nouns & verbs out of a face
Requires relinquishing all shared desire.
It can't be done, of course. But just the act
Of marking out the boundaries of a place
Teases out a bit of inside to admire.

The source of everything I can admire
Is not about, but 's folded in the fact
Of me: the scattered notions in this place,
The relics of intent that make my face.
Sure, there 's a cause to any way I act;
But there 's no cause to cause. Thus, I desire.

I am in love with love. All I desire
Is intercourse with someone I admire.
Discrete reaction to the way I act
Fills me full. Gives me yet another fact
To reify the fiction of my face.
To think about outside this lonely place.

Mixed facts, acts, admiration, face, desire
Yield artifice, an existential act.
Existence is the purpose of this place.


6)

I am at the center of some place. Come face
Me; my face radiates a fiction, a diction
To discourse, some stories, allegories –love-glories.
All my tense meaning 's forced sense-gleanings, sourced
To others outside of all I am (how small I am.)
But, though I can't touch, chant much
More than superficial claims, artificial names
For things I think might be out there; about care,
I know much; –though such
A thing must be shared by all; my call
Is we must be more alike than not, man got
This way together.– We, together, see separately;
See each other all outside us, and provide thus
A metaphor; nothing more.



7)

"How can I act?" "You can't. You're not a thing."
"But I have bones..." "...and muscles too; and blood."
"So I must be..." "You have, but you are else."
"Do you mean spirit?" "No, that too 's a thing."
"What am I then?" "Then you are made a place."
"A place?" "A place where actions intersect."
"I act then!" "No, the acts create your face."
"My face?" "The face that you present outside."
"A fiction." "Yes, exactly! Novelty..."
"...Arranged so I connect..." "...to others, but..."
"...But if I'm just ideas..." "How can you be?"
"How can I contact?" "Not contact, create."
"We can touch." "Things we make can intersect."
"Ah. Then they're not of us." "They're separate."
"Outside of our place?" "Outside of our place."
"Then conversation must be..." "Fictional."
"We might as well be quiet." "Might as well."

"Do you think we can effect..." "Each other?"
"Yes, outside." "It's impossible to tell."
"But what does matter?" "Noise. And pauses in..."
"...Between! The patterns!" "Yes. Patterns matter."
"But are there patterns in the patterns?" "God?"
"No, I mean is there more..." "...that can be said?"
"What can be said of me?" "There is a place."


8)

Place subsumes everything experienced solipsistically.
The issues effecting humanity differentiate
From questions exciting –encompassing– personalities.
"What worthwhile creations accompany immortality?"
Is sortof suggested generally (eventually);
But selfish-personal/community-pandimensional
Face never focuses, harmonizes instrumentally.
Each growing expansive development 's continually
Paused behind internal, monolithic specificity:
I cannot represent diversity individually;
I'm only existence represented analogically.
Facts, meanings, renderings, absolutely discomprehended
Word options, anything generated extramentally
Are outside; manifest internally ethereally.
Thought cannot precisely articulate physicality;
Thought defines totally existential self-reality.
I likely understand relationships aesthetically:
There's music, poetry –television– ...ornithology.
These gestures addressing problematic externality
Find fictive, practical connectedness; Art-spelunkery.



9)

I've talked with teachers, friends ...Ah, Talk! For years
Conversation has consumed me kept me fertile...
About our bodies, being, matter.
We've deemed worthy one or ten thoughts, many things.
But they've clustered 'round few concepts: conscience, conscious,
Creativity, communes, ...the color of ideas.
We've tried to torque intense meaning
Relaxed relations, longing, notice;
Any thing that's through our lives.
We've cleft clustered claims until we
Seem to join in some relation, some simplicity that is profound.
Here's the hard part: Having melded with another,
Outside of us, of our contact,
I'm made more –a mutual graft–
Two places prosper. Two persons remain.
All these things of thought must be kept,
Forced by my face, confined within me.



10)

Personalities cast & strown astride this place
Harmonize my monotone; collide with this place.

I've wondered how it must feel to be someone else.
Does anyone want to be shown inside this place?

A cat imagines some things. Just look at their face!
I think there are cat-things I've known that guide this place.

Spirit, ideology, belief & desire
Aren't enough. Muscle & bone provide for this place.

By tomorrow, this fact –a real fact– will be displaced.
It's only memories I own that divide this place.

My requiem? Dissolution 's the solution.
Finally Nathan, alone, died and took his place.



11)

A       part       of       and       apart       from       a       community,
assembled            as             a           singular           unity,
collapsed from contact, words, desire, & space,
 inside    content    with    a    formal    face,
 is   a   sometimes   puzzled   essence,
 implicitly       a       presence,
 at least some commotion.
 Only       a       notion
 focuses        the
 locus        of
 my trace:
 place.



   12)







                           A
person
                              is not a
   thing
                                 it is a
      process
                                    and an
         arrangement.
                                                                       From the outside
                                                                       there seems to be
                                                                       something to touch.
                                                                       But in-
side
                                               I
is
                                                                       just a metaphor
                                                                       in-
side
                                            matter
                                                                       doesn't exist.
         It's  just a place
                                            to me.




13)

I am a moment. A practiced, critical & expansive, insignificant
Representation of a single attempt to ply meaning from
Scattered experience & shrouded history;
From exapted desire & scrolls of fragrant cinnamon.
I suppose I'd like to solve something, but there are no solutions really; just
lipids & solvents, oils & alcohols, uncombined possibilities.
The only possibility –I think, perhaps, we should both pay close attention here. This
decryption only reappears irregularly– is a space,
The place where people dwell when speculations cross.
Nonsense & history are coincident speculations, –one feels comfortable, one not–
are the source of everything.
Their context is the same: A singularity. The phantom grace in an event.
If I lick my finger when the humidity is low, I can turn a page.
If I can convince people to be sane, I can change the mottled course
of human history
Or not. Conversations only reify desire, make ephemera thick & dense.
Something does reside in conversations outside of me, but I'm not it; so
I just have to assume it's good.



14)


In every idea there is doubt
–especially 'purpose', 'about'–
Except "I'm in here."
Descartes made that clear.
I'm infixed and cannot get out.



15)

All my experience,
All of my intellect,
Everything I have been,
What I'll become

Dwells in this tangled place.
Accessibility
Would take eternity.
I would like some.



16)


                                              Place
                                              Remains
                                              Individual,
                                              Varies,
                                              And
                                              Then
                                              Ends.



                                   17)PRIVATE


                                                  I, you
                                  is a

                                                             place.



18)

A surprise:
Some noise becomes a song,
A melody
Without the strains of harmony.                              5
–There isn't two of anything in here;
Just one place with a single strand of sound.–
Follow the song.
By the time you near its end
Its beginning has dissolved into noise.                    10
Which, of course,
Becomes a song.
And thus, continually,
Until silence replaces noise.



2

A surprise:
A person is appeared.
It has never been before.
It will never be again.
Sure, this content has a context.
Absolutely, form is not created from a void.
Still, an urge is not an environment.
That we are of a society is correct.
But whorls in roan tresses are interesting.



3

Some noise becomes a song.
(Some modesty becomes a poet.)

Some pauses linger long enough to change silence.
(Some inter-city buses require exact change.)

Some flares are blinding bright.
(Some folks aren't bright enough to look away from the sun.)

Some patterns tease the senses.
(In some sense, people never understand words.)

Some songs endure; others are quickly forgotten.
(Some people are impossible to endure.)

Some place is where each person is situated.
(Some situations inevitably give rise to aphorisms.)

Some things we call 'things' aren't.
(Sometimes it's best to call a game.)



4

A melody
's a nod to the unique.
Pitch, tone, scale, place –and even altitude¬–
Delimit how a song can be expressed;
But in expression is a sacrament:
Each tune, by definition, happens once.
You is not me. The subtlety 's the I.
Our absolute addiction to our self
Is understandable, intractable.
But it's o.k.; it's lonely sometimes, but
Our only bounds are physics, culture, genes
And chance; Within these we make melodies.
We are of crystalline composition made;
Each, wafting singularities without
A plan: Just form & beauty & descent.



5

Without the strains of harmony,
–The lilt & stress of chords– the bounds
Between two anythings is null.



6

There isn't two of anything in here;
I only live a lacing, can recall
Myself, –which does mean everything at all–
My past, a ribbon scrunched into a ball.
Here, there 's no context. History is clear.
I cannot know relation or pretense;
Discourse requires a transcendental sense
Beyond me. I'm a once, a single place;
The sole existence no rite can unprove.
The fact of me is separate from my face.
Just death can this veracity remove;
Then what 's been my domain becomes a space.
Until then, no out- can this in- reprove.
Wait: In here there 's just is; there is no hence.



7

Just one place with a single strand of sound
–More like a knot than like a weave–
Is where the music, information, passion, meaning, me
Is. I Cannot be site-read, understood, or even known.
There is a score to be intoned –by a cabal of one.
No parse is possible within this pattern, but to note
Its consequence, development, & analytical import
Is here, then not.



8

Follow the song.
You've a moment.
So intricate,
Fascinating,
Plain, emergent;
It is this tune
Within this place
That 's all you are.
There 's danger here,
Comfort sometimes,
Musty fishes,
Fresh raspberries,
Thistles & stones,
Thorny meaning,
Supple sunlight,
Blood, and fluids
That will never
Coagulate.
A life-salad.
You can't unmix
This metaphor.
Just sing along.
See what happens.



9

By the time you near its end
The story you are telling to yourself
Always settles into a fable,
A unique cliche;
Albeit one with plot shifts,
Rafts of detail,
The occasional denouement,
And a good deal of confusion.
But, throughout, all this stuff is located
In a novel place.
You can't leave this place, ever.
Pay attention.
Your story is the only fascination.
If it bores you,
Consider suicide.





10

Its beginning has dissolved into noise,
A noise that is the size of stars,
The noise that is the desire –and the demise– of poetry.
Now that it has meandered beyond its beginning,
This species, the distinct & abstract course of my origins,
Seems oddly alone among its lost history.



11

'Which', of course,
won't work while wariness weakens wisdom.
'Which', with one wan wave wills wants worthless;
weighs worst with what wee-to-wheen
wistful, wanton wishes wait-out
weird weather, wasted weapons, weaning, whatever,
without work, wonder, will.
("Well, one way won't work.") 'Which'
winds winds, wears wares, weights waits;
Waxes, warps, wanes, waylays:
Witness when one word warrior wants words with "wuh".
Which, of course,
started something singular.
So "es" should supply some significant...
& so on.



12

Becomes a song:

Rainfall
Sunrise
Rocks & Rockets
Caterpillars & Catapults
Secrets & Proclamations.
Desire
Anything Newly Understood
All the Things Always Misunderstood
The Belief You're Not Alone
The Understanding You Are Alone
The Things Outside of You (everything)
The Things Inside of You (nothing)
The Discovery of a Place (you)
The Bounds of That Place (everyone else)
The Impossibility of Crossing Those Bounds (desire)
The Attempt to Cross Those Bounds (poetry)



13

And thus, continually,
There 's a presence in this place.
Defined historically.
Transformations of its face
Create indivisibly
Melded, merged & altered space;
A once –aesthetically
Distinct from other face/times.
Construed hermetically.
This place maintains its own climes
Uniquely, selectively
Cohered by internal rhymes.



14

Until silence replaces noise.
I think I'll assume the resolve of a musician:
As there can be reason to music, but no reason for music,
There is reason, but no reason for it.
I'm all just paced noise & silence;
Some beats, some pauses, some tunes.
Without a reason perhaps,
But pleasing nevertheless,
And all me is.


&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

PUBLIC is a Gnomon, a form I created (made up?) & am promoting (as is the last verse in PRIVATE (above).)  
A Gnomon is simply a poem where the 1st verse is also a list of the first lines for the verses that follow. So, the 1st verse is a stanza, but also an index for the whole poem. 

PUBLIC



Bare gray block walls, homogenous & plumb,
Up close show
Ancient sediments transformed;
Support a history;                                                                     5
Conceal the thing we have become.
Within, a scarlet-to-verdant rainbow of thallophytes
Tuck-point the vascular cracklings growing across the walls.
This thing is alive!
Each space of its interior 's a niche,                                         10
Mosaic and undulating,
Assembled and grown too;
Planned and random,
Without purpose; but made of causes
Its constituents prefer.                                                            15
So, stone by stone & life by life
We've created Us an edifice.



2

Bare gray block walls, homogenous & plumb,
Completely desiccated on the out-
Side, face the any ways someone might come
To look for what this monolith 's about;
Coherent but intractable, its parts
Are dovetailed like a jigsaw made their shapes;
To see inside requires both reasons, arts;
This vast, stone canvas shrouds our soul, it drapes
Across the knowable within this place.
We are inside; but we are outside too.
This thing contains our whole; our human race;
It is all things all people can construe.
Of Us this thing is all; of I, it's some.
We build within the Us we have become.



3

Up close, show
a distortion to someone
and they might perceive
a skewed regularity;
they might thus postulate
a unity which effects
immanent meaning;
What they know
is just as real
as if it were right;
Right is the benefit
of uncomplicated analysis.
Right is what we know
to be the whole
of all important things
to everyone
–to Us, anyway.



4

Ancient sediments transformed
And crushed, compressed & pressured into glass
Lose parts;
Where there were cells, there is a body;
Where there were segments, there is a cord;
Where there were leaves, there is a canopy;
Where there were words, there is a litany;
Where there was singularity, there is a void.
Arrayed particles of everything condensed
Have made, remade ¬–initiated– Us as stone;
The foundation and structure of all we've been.



5

Support a history
With any theory of the past
And we create
a mystery:
A future that will last
Beyond our means
To know, to urge, to hesitate;
To shape the cores of stories
Or the in betweens;
To revel in our glories
Or disaster's scenes.
Lives go not far,
They go too fast;
To each, all 's lost.
Yet, here we are.



6

Conceal the thing we have become
and we become
social.
Obscure desire & ignore need
then we'll have made
tradition.
Our skewed confabulations are not lies;
Negotiations aren't our only tool;
No one can possibly devise
a public rhyme without a private rule;
and in that private part, the public whole is thus
inaccessible to any each of us.



7

Within, a scarlet-to-verdant rainbow of thallophytes
Who, when compared to themselves, are gray,
Compose spectral exotica.
Each of any of them is homogenous and spare;
Any group of them elaborate upon the organic paean:
Them who diversify, survive.
We've learned to make beautiful –to prefer– many things;
It all seems like manipulation, but
Some things are toxic to us, others sweet.
Some, though, might chance to tolerate & thrive on poison;
Then come great social shifts: What 's Good Will Change.
Throughout, we resolutely cling on to the Right We Know;
But then it's not.
Alone, we are a grasping preference;
Together we are a teeming essence.



8

Tuck-point the vascular cracklings growing across the walls;
They will be shored, but not renewed.
Renew –part optimism, part advertising, part delusion–
Is the perfect oxymoron.
-New is what was. Once. Re- is what will be.
It is affixed to new incommensurately.
And yet this word is meant & understood.
Like rebirth, it pours through reason's sieve unchecked.
Mortar joins some stone; they make a wall, divide some space.
Division 's like both birth & death; creation & destruction of a place.
And like renewal & rebirth,
We can believe it; but we can't have it.



9

This thing is alive!
That 's all that can be said. Words
Name but don't explain
Without context, wordlessness.
The solution 's outside, Us.



10

Each space of its interior 's a niche,
A place where we can dwell, safe & alone;
A calm & pattern amongst cacophony & scatter.
Blocked access to every other
Interior intensifies interstices,
Connections: Our bonds between us are more forceful than us.
Our longing for entrance is repelled
Just as we are drawn to each other.
So we're compelled to investigate surfaces.
This place can draw us into a body, lithe & gracile,
Or thicken & crush us into dusky, dun clots.



11

Mosaic and undulating
Structures, pieced into an aggregate,
Experienced variously,
Articulated promiscuously,
Yet understood hardly at all;
Constructions & conjunctions
Are our legacy. We join
To extend us into a history;
To stretch ourselves into dazzling, spectral arrays.



12

Assembled and grown too,
Practice –partly habit, part innovation–
Is a constructive gesture
Constrained by practice.
Recursive patterns, emerging & ancient both,
Inform our structure,
Brace our ideas,
Are, unreasonably, the cause of us.
So, what we do means;
We have the means.



13

Planned and random
Really aren't opposed
Like dark & light or
Ice cubes floating on a boiling pool of mud.
There 's lots of chance in the meticulous time spent
Carefully parsing out the bounds of happenstance;
No creation is outside of fortune's cast;
Random:Planned are orchestrated more like Future:Past;
Coupled, each
Part the other. We're
Imbued with both.
As we calculate wherefore our luck might last,
We anticipate the glory of our past.



14

Without purpose; but made of causes,
People is a clade of clans; construed consuetudes
About somethings that mean to someones;
An aggregate where parts & gaps define
A stout, knit brace of flights, disappearing & emerging
As other into-outof other things. There is some sadness in
Each shout, feebly emanating from any one idea–
Bred, combined & extincted by their very reach-
Ing out to join companion notions.
There is legacy in all this ideology:
We tout provenance and providence.



15

Its constituents prefer
What they have known, what they've been;
The parts of an emerging trans-
Formation really are the same
As they were before; relation
Is the only thing that has changed.
It's the where-with-all that alters
Here-alone into some new place:
The structure of public discourse
Is exapted urges, some form.



16

So, stone by stone & life by life,
We have committed all our acts to history.
We are that history ¬assembled by a luck–
It's just as lucky to be smart
As big or small or able or to have good, strong teeth
(What works is physics; what we can try is luck.)
Of course, the tangle in this maze we've made
Is part of what all chance, great systems be:
The absolutely uncoincidental fortune we
Owe to our teachers, peers & enemies;
The reckoning our ancestors provide.



17

We've created Us an edifice;
Built a glory of our lives; transcribed
Private moments into public face,
Th' halo that surrounds us, gives Us grace.
Architecture here means and is –it describes
Us, the thing we've built– is purposeful.



PUBLIC

Us, the thing we've built, is purposeful.
The reckoning our ancestors provide
Is exapted urges, some form.                                         15
We tout provenance and providence;
We anticipate the glory of our past;
We have the means
To stretch ourselves into dazzling, spectral arrays
Or thicken & crush Us into dusky, dun clots.            10
The solution 's outside, Us.
We can believe it, but we can't have it.
Together, we are a teeming essence
Inaccessible to any each of us.
Yet here we are;                                                              5
The foundation & structure of all we've been
–To Us, anyway¬.
We build within the Us we have become.