Poem-A-Day #197 : Folie à deux

Folie à deux
1

The field of vision is a narrow band

at the edges it curves into blur - there is a sense of awe

in this unseeing part of the universe

This is where magics occur

Where one hides themselves - from selves

and the gaze of perpetual life

This unseeing is an upside down - it is

a brokered space where anything goes

Unleash


2
Tilt your fovea towards me

I need focus before I can begin

An accident rarely comes alone

But quickly in pairs or more

My pixels - yours - they are held
on a thumb drive that will not lock into its port

We are untraceable - saved read-only

Destiny will permit an edit or comment to possibly edit later

But our outlines will not become permanence

Our systems will corrupt


3
There is the solution - endless backups
my mind in yours and your in mine
and then added on to every surface
like moss growing in the cracks of stones

Our lives must be the quiet unseen
must ready in the interim of vision
prepare for being caught in the fovean glare
and ready the poker for them


4
The magic in the unseen
the known and unknown

Here the unfocus allows us to imagine

It brings about a universe that does not exist

Wolves at the door - for instance
wolves in the cupboards - on the internet

Howling in their ability to never be seen from head on

1% of our vision is fully in focus
and 99.99% of the world is unattainable

I understand the family who get in their car and drive into nonexistence
only to realize out there in the bush that they can still see each other

And unless we're going to poke our own eyes out -

Poem-A-Day #160 : Wood (Part 7 : Focus)

Long poem. You can read Part One HERE.


Wood (Part 7 : Focus)

I drove up the mountain once in 2004 and I cried into the trees : I parked my car along the side of the road and I climbed an embankment and I got covered in mud and then I walked until I got to a fallen tree and I collapsed on the ground and screamed : I screamed until I was hoarse and my eyes were red with tears and I couldn't make any noise :

It was this place that we are now in : the fallen place : the tree was large and ashen its roots shot into the air twice my height clinging to dirt and rock : I wanted to touch them but like the fear of a dead body felt I must stand a distance and stare into them : they spiraled like mandala and nebulae they were fingers reaching for nothing they were dead relatives :

And I wanted to put it back up : I stood in the hole where it did the earth had already closed behind rejected it like a foreign body like the cat claw in my shoulder when I was twelve like the dirt in your eye after a dust storm : what happens to a body re-stood : there are the people of Sulawesi who bring out their dead clean them reclothe them take them for walks to meet their relatives and friends :

Manhattanhenge 2001

Neil deGrasse Tyson

And I hold the picture frame and I want to re-glass it to find a way to put the pictures right within its hold and I am imagining myself raising the dead like some wizard in Dungeons and Dragons and I am afraid of this idea : I use the broom with the wood handle to sweep debris into a dustpan made of clear plastic the trash can takes these tokens willingly :

I dream about peeling back the colonization of America : taking it all down to bedrock before allowing the earth to re-soil anything : a sort of sowing the land with salt and demanding none will live here : imagine every place bare of people of buildings of anything : nihilism was never my strength and I am sure we can agree that soilless land is dangerous :

But think of the re-growth that could happen : here is a seedpod from a tree you can decide what kind it is : imagine it going into untouched soil : imagine the pristine new forest that would erupt from the earth so violently : this is as close to hippy bull shit I am going to get so eat it up because I am about to contradict myself :

Buildings are a sort of forest aren't they : suppose that what we plant only begets glass and metal : is this place the forest that we planted already showing itself in fruit : hold my hand I don't like the idea of cities being the end game of nature but it's hard to refute the present it is all we have : I wanted to clean this up a bit focus etc. but maybe sloppy is ok :

Poem-A-Day #90 : Five Ages of Parmigiano Reggiano (after Massimo Bottura)

Five Ages of Parmigiano Reggiano (after Massimo Bottura)

     1
Here some cheese
in a shaker - or plastic container - feeling
for all the world
like sawdust

Put it on your pizza - on your pasta
it will taste like something full
will soak the grease

Pull itself from within and without

     2
When you make tortellini for the first time
you must sing a song

     3
Some vehicle-less wheels
sever themselves form shelving - they will go off to find horses to pull them

This will never be smooth - press your fingernail into the rind
it is like a candle or the skin of a pumpkin

Inside it is the color of squash - it looks like a tree chopped down
splinters itself and peels itself

     4
The milk is pure
it is a bucket a cloth wrapped around itself
a scarf a turban a broken promise of new life

It rests until it doesn't
until it forms itself around a center
the tiniest bacteria itching until a pearl coalesces into curd

Have you watched someone churn butter ?
how it's just liquid until it suddenly isn't
have you kissed that moment ?

     5
What knife
in the heart

When you need that spread
it will come

Paolo Terzi for The Talks