Poem-A-Day #252 : Vision vs. Sight

Vision vs. Sight

Tesla stands at the edge of the canyon - a glacial scar -
                              he imagines a hollow earth - he imagines taking the stones and setting them upright in a circle - he imagines mining his own salt - he imagines breeding pigeons - he imagines the lizards standing on their hind legs and talking to him -

You island you - Tesla finds a smooth stone and tosses it into the space between edges - a gulf of air that swallows endlessly and never exhales -

The stone skips across the surface - it does - seven times -

And it ripples the sunset just so - the colors merging into a matte brown - an orange cat sits at Tesla's feet - there is a breeze -

Poem-A-Day #250 : Re-See

Re-See

Above - the moon - endlessly talked photographed landed upon - known to the point of boredom - even its rabbit has cleaned itself from the discussion

How does the change occur - the sudden shift in views - the magic of fire leading to space travel - how does the child mind say 'FUCK THAT'S AMAZING' in its current mood

It hovers - like a balloon - jaundiced and slow to blink - it mythologizes itself - collects the news clipping and will have to go to therapy to get its hoarding under control - the dark side of the moon is covered in cats and abandoned satellites

How does one re-see for the first time - the things in your hand - in a changing light they may become strangers - your own fingers are sausages in an overcast moment

One of the first photographs of the moon
Taken by John William Draper in 1840

Poem-A-Day #249 : Nearku

I've invented a new poetry form. The Nearku. It's basically a very close haiku. So close you could mistake it.

There are no rules other than the second line must be longer in syllables than the first and last and the lines must come very close to the 5-7-5 form of a haiku.

The idea is that in nearing the old form, it reaches for perfection that can never be achieved.


Nearku

The umbrella is spinning

In loose moorings - a rainbow movement

The world around us grays

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 #195 : Before You

Before You

It's light in the room or dark in the room
either way she's knitting in the corner

There are cobwebs or everything is hospital
rooms collapse together and furniture assembles
into small murders of turned legs and flat expanse

Imagine the room before you
there were probably others who entered but maybe not

For a moment pretend you are the first here
before your eyes were here in their skull the room was not

The threads of it were busy of course
pulling themselves together for the eventual seeing
but otherwise there was only the void of not

She was here knitting though
blind to the concept of seeing

There is a tingle at the back of the skull
that is the signal that things aren't all right
that it is perhaps time to run for it

You should always embrace that feeling it is
the feeling of saving your ever-loving flesh

It's a trap
the thinking of yourself as the first
it's a kind of magic and a kind of narcissism

To look away would be to erase yourself
the room will unmake walls will not hold each other up

She will pick her thread though
will measure it against the length of her arm
will place the heavy shears to the length

There is the option to not look into the room
to not allow it to exist at all

Though no one has ever not looked

Poem-A-Day #191 : The In-Itself

Have I mentioned that I'm reading a lot of Existential writings lately?


The In-Itself

The paper that once was a tree and before that a seed and before that another tree has been printed on with a language that becomes indistinguishable from air the more it is looked at

The words slide into lines and the lines match the lines that are signs of life in the wood that is now a table that the paper and words sit themselves upon

Signs of a life passed, the lines, they are signs of years and time that occurred that cannot occur again and they echo that sign and beep like Morse Code with the thinking of that time

Time is a construct and that construct has experienced the tree and the pre-tree and the words flowing backwards into ink and the ink seeping into the lines like the dead sap of life

The table is on a floor that has probably been stood upon before this table placed its legs here or before the words spilled over the edge of the table and stained the floor black

Black is not a color it is the absence of color of light it is refraction negated and the eye tricked into seeing nothing

The eye is also tricking it doesn't actually see it only reflects and that reflection is tainted by the bent of its lenses and the brain attached to those lenses

Lenses smooth and polis into an arc of seeing they break up the world into upside-down universes and then into right-side up ones they are the roots of the tree reaching into the sky

The sky isn't here there is a room around it and the table in its deadness is unable to breathe but the lungs the lines the ink itself is still thinking about it endlessly thinking about it

The thinking makes it real the pulsing ink makes it possible the floor makes it a pool to sink in to the paper itself tells the story of it and the words the language manages somehow to exist

Poem-A-Day #183 : Zeus in New Mexico

Zeus in New Mexico

The lid of the sky
and the lid of the ground

A half-open eye

The copper stream of tears
reverses itself

The day is a statue unearthed
in a field after millennia

It is missing its body

Its hand is missing fingers

In the cataract
milky self-rorschach of shadows

This thing sees you
and now seen you exist

The view from my patio