Palaces spread out their structural souls, greenery covering possible holes. Paintings were hanging on external walls. Darkness, semantic, beclouded the halls.
Category: My Poetry & Fiction
Caveat: Poem #1253 “Within”
Within Where Iron Factories spouted grey, There I dwelt by Mahhalian shores. So Doctor Hubert came with a Word, For plastic Angels of the new Hell City; for mind-slaves of Its hurt. There I became blest--his Apostle. Wind beat a slime to a sandy shore There I began to hear of his word. And from a dead-empty, bloody Hell All the eyes glossy-dull by a hurt The Rats fled; became his Apostles So he promised to remove the grey. Said he: No one can refute my Word There I said: Amen! Ruin this Hell Dr. Hubert! Destroy my deep hurt! He smiled: follow me, my Apostles. Showing us how to survive the grey Leading us to a candy-green shore. Dancing, we were far from any Hell Hoping, we failed to feel any hurt Loving, thus were we his Apostles. Plastic melted; we denied the grey Eyes flickering/reflecting a shore Free, happily alive with his Word. Under a rock, the centipede hurts, And he crawls, to sting an Apostle Leaping, then he dies cadaver-grey He's left to rot on a slimy store. I run; I search for His holy Word, The rats return whispering of Hell For Hope, thus I became an Apostle Then the rat-emperor came in grey, And drove us to a cadavered shore, Erected a cross for harmless Words Removed the candy, revealed a Hell No! Not Dr. Hubert. Not the Hurt! He brought Apostles to the shores, He destroyed hurt with his Words-- But Hell revealed the Grey within.
– this is a “guest poem” – not by another author, but by me, but written 37 years ago, in the fall of 1982. It is a sestina, in form, with an additional constraint revealed in the use (abuse) of the mono-spaced font. The poem was “lost” for most of the intervening years, but turned up in a box that I was sorting through in recent weeks.
Caveat: Poem #1252 “Snow, definition of”
Snow is rain, fighting the pull of the world, just fragments hurled, as if wool were being shed by the cloudfull.
Caveat: Poem #1251 “AI Risk”
The mad paper clip maker conquered all, starting out small, "clip-baker," then spouting clips, acre by acre.
Caveat: Poem #1250 “Seasonal shift”
A year passes. The weather is transformed. Rainy seas stormed together with slow snowflakes like feathers.
Caveat: Poem #1249 “And this is all a dream”
The apocalypse happened, already. Life, unsteady, did then bend: an inhuman, violent end.
Caveat: Poem #1248 “Consider it conveyed”
There exists a certain man. He's alone. He's got his phone. So he can convey his lack of a plan.
Caveat: Poem #1247 “The cause”
The problems are cultural. What we know... our mind's cargo, the social... epistemological.
Caveat: Poem #1246 “Living”
Really I'm just the pale frame of my bones, animate stones, barely tame, tumbling through life, all aflame.
Caveat: Poem #1245 “The substantial night”
the night becomes a substance among trees with the rain, no resistance can face such fierce persistence
Caveat: Poem #1244 “A vague hypothetical”
So I sat and had coffee this morning, just wondering if I'd see fallen snow on this day's tree.
Caveat: Poem #1243 “The precipitate apotheosis”
Rain and wind (and wind and rain) celebrate and make a great sound, and feign a knowing spirit's made plain.
Caveat: Poem #1242 “Holiday cheer by the hour”
Christmas was always a hard time for me. Memories scarred: nothing's free, Except sitting by the sea.
Caveat: Poem #1241 “One syllable, or two?”
I tried using the word "poem" in a poem (my words bestow, embrace, roam) but failed, that word found no home.
Caveat: Poem #1240 “Try to think tao”
I sat down to listen, now, to the rain: its hard campaign to allow my stupid brain to think tao.
Caveat: Poem #1239 “Uncooperative combustion”
Some days I decide a fire should be made. The sticks arrayed, stacked, admired... But the flame frays, the wood's tired.
Caveat: Poem #1238 “Expelled”
Caveat: Poem #1237 “Generalities”
Caveat: Poem #1236 “The apophenist’s path
Caveat: Poem #1235 “How do I know that, though?
Caveat: Poem #1234 “No joy”
Caveat: Poem #1233 “Some habits”
Caveat: Poem #1232 “Brought to you by the letter ‘D'”
Caveat: Poem #1231 “The moon out of place”
The moon seemed misplaced. I looked at it in the night. Why is it there, so bright?
Caveat: Poem #1230 “The sandbox”
Caveat: Poem #1229 “The stars don’t care”
Caveat: Poem #1228 “What you believe”
Caveat: Poem #1227 “Soundbringer”
Caveat: Poem #1226 “Acausalility”
Caveat: Poem #1225 “Dry”
Caveat: Poem #1224 “The word from on high”
Caveat: Poem #1223 “An astanzaic interlude”
Kiamon's soul was abandoned, adrift. She had decided on change, more controlled, Reining in aimless and angry desires. Now she just stood, and surrounded by trees, Body at rest, both contained and enclosed, Mind sought to grasp the unreachable sky. Movement, just then, made her glance at that sky. Eagles sketched circles, with wingtips adrift. One of them turned, and then dove, so controlled, Swooping down. Kiamon felt its desires. Tilting, the bird made a feint toward some trees, Darkness obscured what might be there, enclosed. Gripping the hem of her coat that enclosed Pockets of fugitive warmness, the sky Shared bits of nothing, like signs set adrift. Yes. Apophenical dreams, uncontrolled. Truth becomes burdened by lazy desires. Greenery elevates angels as trees. Kiamon thought on those infinite trees. Naked and stark, their wide branches enclosed Negative fragments of daydreaming sky. Mist slanted groundward. Some clouds were adrift. Water met heaven: embracing, controlled, Tossing out wishes, suggesting desires. Self-analytically, she then considered desires. How did they differ from yearnings of trees? Down in the earth, their bold roots are enclosed. Raised up above, their arms hug the sky. So many seedlings they send out, adrift, Thusly ensuring the future's controlled. What is a heart if it can't be controlled? What is the use of unending desires? Why? she sighed, shrugging, sad. Let's be like trees. They're self-assured, with their feelings enclosed. Pausing, she gazed at the gray-visaged sky. Birds volunteered for the wind, souls adrift. Still, all adrift, she controlled her desires. Trees clothed the slopes, all enclosed by the sky.
– this is a sestina in dactylic tetrameter; I think sestinas are difficult to make non-monotonous, because of their rigid repitition of words. They are just plain difficult, too – especially with a meter. I made this one killing time waiting for the ferry yesterday.
Caveat: Poem #1222 “Sacred unbeing”
Wholeness has no existence - the fragments Spin and foment their silence And roar hymns of transience