Somewhere in northern Indiana, you can outrun radio stations and city lights. And if you take the right back roads, you can find little diamonds tucked into the folds of night. Since there is no soap left in my soapbox at the moment, I decided to post a few old poem fragments. They're hidden, so you decide...
There is no stillness
SPOILERS! (Click to view)like sadness in his eyes--
the quieting of a song
in the songbird's throat.
It is the setting down
of some tremendous stone,
enough to stall the earth
on its self-digesting path.
Atoms fall to fragments,
and in the confines of eternity,
the greatest chase reveals
all the ambition of a circle.
Beware of Open Manhole Covers
SPOILERS! (Click to view)There is only phosphorescent gas
glowing pockets of green
in the swamps of my self-loathing,
and they've warned you
about alligators in the sewers of New York,
but you've never seen vermin
like the kind I can grow.
You're a tough man
with your pocket-knife and rifles,
but where I'm taking you--
you won't know if you're shooting
at a human-sized rat
or a reflection of yourself
in the backwash of this bog.
Revelation
SPOILERS! (Click to view)Watching shreds of onion paper
flutter from my hands
into a wreck on the floor,
like the wreck of a bird
and a rogue orange cat.
Feathers and bits of flesh,
whole chunks of spine
still binding Exodus.
Red ink like blood,
the words running dry,
coming apart,
the way one life passes
into another
from confetti to fire to dissipating smoke.
still not given the mojave 3 a proper go yet - got loads of real CDs lately and trying to absorb them
I finally picked up Bukowski's poetry after reading his prose for years. Then I discovered Paul Repps "Telegrams"? and Japanese Zen naturalist works...
I've found that as I write bits and pieces of poetry, I appreciate other people's more. The second piece sorta mixes humor with self-loathing, which works infinitely better than simply the latter. The first is a little nebulous, but has this beautiful big/little images time/space:
"stall the earth
on its self-digesting path.
Atoms fall to fragments,"
My favorite is the last, though. It really gets me. It's almost all image, and yet there's a net of references that arise from within the visceral...