the oldest house hangs at the mind's edge where we imagine prototypes the fractal roofs extending piling up rooms like foam and we walk in dreams through cold hallways tasting dust breathing sighs
– a nonnet
Category: Nonnet
Caveat: Poem #1104 “Forever”
Dawn: brighter, in small steps, black to grayish, then changing to blue, out over the water, among the trees' silhouettes, the hills waiting like broken clocks, their feet stuck in the sea forever.
– a reverse nonnet
Caveat: Poem #1099 “Spoken”
there's an overcast fog covering the hillside across the water the cobalt-dark sea, they say bears the marks of the boats that pass here, they say scarring the world seeking fish they have said
– a nonnet
Caveat: Poem #1091 “Misunderstandings”
When Arthur is talking to others, he likes to joke about my books, complains there are too many, cluttering his attic. The message I get from these warm words: "you are not welcome here."
– a nonnet
Caveat: Poem #1089 “Redirection”
Completely remove pain from discourse. Don't lean on it as an excuse It hijacks our monologues. Don't pay it attention. Unavoidable. Don't dwell on it. Look instead at the trees.
– a nonnet
Caveat: Poem #1081 “Unpleasant excursion”
It's not easy, with the rain and wind: The boat's propeller was tangled by badly aimed fishing line. I thought we would hit rocks. "Use the small motor!" he was yelling. We went east, rocking, slow.
– a nonnet
Caveat: Poem #1079 “Perelandra”
the sea opens out beyond the point, and it thrusts its wide swells at you, devouring time with glintings that jump off the rumples scarring the edges and white-capped tips of the round surging waves.
– a nonnet
Caveat: Poem #892 “The default mode of textual production”
ㅁ prose becomes difficult so poetry becomes the default manner of expression engendering ideas and capturing the images that a glance outside will give to me
– a reverse nonnet.
Caveat: Poem #888 “Gnostic manifestations”
ㅁ dreams unfold and present improbable strange scenarios in which intimate friends and famous public figures (epistemological hints) become ghost-like beings with secrets
– a reverse nonnet.
Caveat: Poem #887 “Hay”
ㅁ I took a long walk up to the east: a gradual hill past old farms, the snow-covered, sun-drenched road saw new subdivisions branching left and right but at the end was a pile of stored hay.
– a nonnet.
Caveat: Poem #886 “Confession”
ㅁ day follows on the night unburdening its chill reflections across outstretched mountains among rose-stained frozen fields touching the steam-breathing horses fingering the snow-gloved, clutching trees
– a reverse nonnet.
Caveat: Poem #881 “Orange Grove Boulevard at Los Robles Avenue”
ㅁ See, I went to bed rather early. So I woke up at five thirty. My dad has only decaf. I stepped outside and walked. There's a donut store. I got coffee. The sky: clear. Crows talked. Dawn.
– a nonnet.
Caveat: Poem #877 “A summary for non-believers”
ㅁ The story is a fairly good one - although somewhat implausible, since supposedly the guy was some god made human, with dad and son mixed; anyway, the tale makes wild claims about grace.
– a pseudo-haiku.
Caveat: Poem #866 “Social creatures”
ㅁ food and talk; gathering for discourses and storytelling, the speakers taking turns, among reliable friends and their inquisitive children; outside, the cold night lays down hoarfrost.
– a reverse nonnet.
Caveat: Poem #860 “Make it count for something”
ㅁ ice blue light fallen leaves chilling breezes paths made through fresh snow the frozen surfaces the tortured shapes of bare trees exuberances of night air enumerations of winter's wants
– a reverse nonnet.
Caveat: Poem #852 “Anxiety”
ㅁ anxiety is nefarious creeping by secret passages asserting unlikely things discoursing about doubts taking possession so maybe just take a breath inhale sigh
– a nonnet.
Caveat: Poem #851 “The writing in the world”
ㅁ Fog and trees up the hill below the sky, which is well hidden, but peeks through, pink and gold; the trees' branches like brush strokes, uninvented ideographs, abstract characters drawn against white.
– a reverse nonnet.
Caveat: Poem #845 “The requirements of the day”
ㅁ Thanks: for life; for weather; for happiness; for looming mountains; for the colorful leaves; for long walks in a downpour; for a moment of reflection; for pauses after conversation.
– a reverse nonnet.
Caveat: Poem #843 “Behind the wheel”
ㅁ drive off the ferry, go through customs, drive in the rain to Tim Hortons drive to a rest area drive up the river's path drive east to Prince George drive through the snow drive at night drive south drive.
– a nonnet.
Caveat: Poem #841 “Consumed”
ㅁ light comes out so slowly: gradually, it forces aside the grasping bits of dark which the trees have eaten, and finally a bold grayness suffuses reality with calm.
– a reverse nonnet.
Caveat: Poem #805 “A philosophy of perception”
ㅁ Perceptions of the natural world weave patterns through the interstices of our tightly folded brains, gathering the damp duff fallen from time's trees scattered around like a sea: broken leaves.
– a nonnet.
Caveat: Poem #804 “Intransigent vapors”
ㅁ Clouds: They drift, Dislike wind, Try to travel, Contemplate treetops, Interpolate movements... Okay, they exploit the wind, And resist enough to survive, Refusing debate, remaining clouds.
– a reverse nonnet.
Caveat: Poem #796 “What the raven said while standing on a guardrail”
ㅁ Let's look down in this river for food. The water is flowing swiftly. There are a lot of dead fish. We can speak to our friends. Tilt heads at the sun. Taste the autumn. Spread our wings. Dive down. Caw.
– a nonnet.
Caveat: Poem #795 “Incantations”
ㅁ The neighbors have chickens and roosters. It lends a domesticity to this Alaskan outpost. My uncle disapproves. They're too civilized. I don't mind them. Morning crows bring up tides.
– a nonnet.
Caveat: Poem #793 “The earth’s surface pushes back”
ㅁ I sleep on the floor, as I've always. Maybe it's camping memories? It's a strange pattern, I know. Is it simplicity? Asceticism? Connection to unyielding, spinning, earth?
– a nonnet.
Caveat: Poem #790 “Those primates”
ㅁ Tree. Raven. Looking down. There, on the road . Those primates again. So speak a word to them. Suggest a course of action. Paint a universe without signs. No? Then nevermind, I'll fly away.
– a nonnet.
Caveat: Poem #778 “Summit”
ㅁ We hiked to the top of Sunnahae, which is the mountain behind Craig. The lower slopes were all logged, but higher, old trees grow, tangled with damp bogs until the ridge - all treeless - alpine grass.
– a nonnet.
Caveat: Poem #774 “A dream’s detritus”
The dream, being a dream, unfolded,
leaving a twisted detritus
of disconnected visions
across the predawn’s glow,
until, looking up,
I blinked to see
– hovering –
a pink
cloud.
Caveat: Poem #715 “No guardrail”
ㅁ dream: driving; mountain road with no guardrail; steep cliff on one side; turn in the road ahead; the hillside drops away too; the road loses its other side; like a bridge into infinity.
– a reverse nonnet.
Caveat: Poem #712 “Chaos into coffee”
ㅁ dawn coffee typical day's beginning yet soon everything will change, routines will break I'll make chaos of my life but for now I can sit, thoughtful experience the smell of coffee
– a reverse nonnet.
Caveat: Poem #686 “Semiotic snowdrift”
ㅁ and two words came after another word until at the end there were many words there snowdrifted upon the page forming a kind of embankment holding back a flood of reflection
– a reverse nonnet.
Caveat: Poem #649 “Where the answers don’t come from”
ㅁ Often I sit, look out my window, contemplating my life's purpose, watching buildings or people. Answers don't come from the meditatively disconsolate overcast sunless sky.
– a nonnet.
Caveat: Poem #647 “Starting to letting go”
ㅁ A strong wind tugged at the leaves of trees that hung there in the spring's night air, all fresh from growing newly, clinging to their branches, not wanting to go, but the wind pulls: a leaf shakes, wavers, flies.
– a nonnet.