• Home
• RSS

Chromapoetica

Latest Entries »

Nebulous

Filed under: Art, Metamodern, Mythology, Philosophy, Science — 8 Comments

January 19, 2024

Blue nuance in her sun-kissed reflection
she burns a new day like flash paper
searing and scrying to find depth
in the liminal space between light
and dark matter, her velocity unmatchable

Peach phases of structure limn the periphery
hints of warmth and intent, hearth fires from
distant galaxies, promises of unending value
far from the forces of entropy and decay
where creation is blessedly less exorbitant

Than destruction, where infinite nothingness
has no pull, robbed of the weight of gravity
an astronomy expanding her vision beyond limits
celestial bodies of lilac nebulas, luminescent
markers of all that came before

In an era of expansion, millennia recorded
by a quantum chronometer, lost chapters in
Hypatia’s novel, in which no one speaks,
her elegant proofs, sites of profundity
circumscribing existence in an aureate light

Any state is possible as she feasts on shadows
ataraxia’s liberating bliss an all-encompassing reality
birthing an infinite peace, an everlasting prismatic
paradox where all is known and unknowable
both beholden to precise motions and endlessly mystery

A mythic science, fractured metaphysics simultaneously whole
an observable miracle that can never be revealed, Hypatia’s
greatest riddle, wrapped in enigma, hidden in an oubliette
within a multiverse never intended but inevitable, she invites a
stochastic intimacy, a net of interwoven meaning, connecting it all

This poem is shared to the international poetry website dVerse Poets Pub for the 355th Open Link Night.

OpenLinkNight #355

Comment

Epitaph for the Vainglorious

Filed under: Metamodern — 9 Comments

January 15, 2024

Cryptoglyphs of abandoned meaning
floating like lotus blooms
on a eutrophic pond

an elegy of decay
pirouetting rot dancing
atop an unsung grave

drowned miracles of renewal
leaves no breath of hope
only the necrotic beauty of hypoxic terror

dirge of slow water
spiral sink of suffocation
solipsistic swan song
          on repeat

still life fruits of Maximalist riches
hoarded, set afloat
on a reflective surface

distorted abundance
specious luxury atop
a glamorous avarice

landscapes of the apocalypse
portraits of pollution
framed by golden augers
grim in their attention
          to detail

Comment

Denouement

Filed under: History, Mathematics, Philosophy, Science — 4 Comments

October 6, 2022

Here is the record of the last puff of air 
released hot in the icy atmosphere 
denouement of the last sentient being  
cradled in the nook of Orion’s Arm 
Milky Way wasteland at the end of everything 
as the galaxy dissolves, denatures into elements 
 

Collapsing 113.61 billion years from the beginning 
bearing witness to cycles of life and death 
seedlings’ searching for light and warmth in the dark 
recoiling to the soil as the sun fades 
hearth fires extinguished as the universe  
accelerated expanding and abandoning life  
as every moment became the past 
 
We were left behind in the aging light 
the dimming before, burnt to an ember 
Can it know this is the last thought? 
Will it conceive of the almost infinite 
thoughts that came before or mourn
that no thought will ever follow?  
 
Perhaps it will be seized with  
existential dread at the horror 
or be rapturous with numinous delight,  
assured that in any number of  
infinite, finite universes, it is reborn 
or seek succor in the infinite continuity,  
 
A mathematical elegance that lives on 
infinite paradoxes ensconced in a perfect sphere 
transfinite numbers where the cardinality 
of the subset equals the cardinality of the set, 
enabling what is otherwise impossible 
 
Light will never be fast enough to save us 
from this dark fate, its tendrils too weak  
its reach falls short, its existence finite

Comment

Endure O Heart

Filed under: Art, Epic, Love, Mythology, Personal, Philosophy — 5 Comments

June 15, 2022

Doubt creeps into his heart
writhing like the snakes of
Medusa’s stone gaze
caging him in no man’s land
far from hearth and home
a prison of his prescient
choice to be parted
from his beloved bride
endure, o heart

Bound to the mast
a cut above the company
he surrenders to sirens’ call
his heart howls from within
to hear paeans of his heroic deeds
falling in love with distorted
reflections of his weary visage
a soul-song lashing
willing there be meaning
glory traded for trauma

Driven aground by foul winds
his heart snarls within him
in the land of the lotus eaters
false prophets of bliss
lost in the breach of time
mouths gushing specious
promises of luxury and ease
far from the mourning
and vagaries of wars
in an endless silent peace

Lost in nightmare
indoctrinated in the tunnel
vision of cyclop’s bounty
hiding his true self, a
false abundance leading only
to a dark grave of pride
he upbraids his heart,
reflecting that he must
find passage home
a fiery hearth and
way to his beloved
endure, o heart

He wades through 
tall grass prairie 
dreaming of her silken hair
chestnut mane like 
the wild horses chasing 
the transcendent horizon
glimpsing her reclining figure
in mountainous skyline
she lights the sage smoke
swirling from the red dirt
to blue heavens she sings
songs sirens’ covet
endure, o heart

As her bride’s heart
a fidelity unmatched
dancing to the unwavering
music of devotion and beauty
that first bound them
in an unbreakable bond
eschewing the doubts
mending the wounds
weaving their future
a rich tapestry
tale of resilience,
redemption, and love
that endures forever

Posted for d’Verse Poets Pub‘s Meeting the Bar: Fall seven times, stand up eight where we explore aphorisms, myth, and fables by writing our own gnomic poetry. Please join us!

Comment

Liberating Art

Filed under: Allegory, Art, History, Tribute — 15 Comments

March 1, 2022

He stares straight through me
half-seraph, angel-dusted anointed son
haloed in the afternoon light

She is turning, as she has, toward me
time and time again, so often her expressions
are blurred, my whirlwind of love

Halcyon moments blown away by the endless
march of years, yet immortalized – in that present
I was reflecting on the sultry, seductive colors

Of Algeria, the hot breath of horses under
an eternal azure sky where we played
at soldiers because my father was at war

With his own inner drive to order, invading
my artistic sensibilities as if they were his
divine right to claim, a legacy perhaps

I went to war to defend my right to express
share impressions in paint with the larger world
to be blown by inspiration’s sweet kiss
on the breezes of an elevated life,
far from the tempests of destruction
the obliterations of time, the blustery bullies
that cannot win in the end.

A tribute to Monet linked to Dverse Poets Pub for the March Wind Ekphrastic. Monet’s father did not want him be an artist and tried to bribe him away from the profession by promising to get him out of mandatory military service. Please join us!

Comment

Flotsam of Serenity

Filed under: Metamodern — 7 Comments

February 23, 2022

for Eavan Boland

She was carried away by the sea
drawn to its abyssal depths
fire-soul’d daughter of Brigid
traveling to a lost land outside history

Carrying a sacred well of
inspiration and artistry
prophesying a feminist centering
her loss harkens to that first sorrow
Brigid keening in the surf
Exalted one’s lament invoking

The salt-stained hidden horizons
each poem ‘a figure in which
secret things confide’ – luminescent,
beached, midnight orphans of silence
humming from the cold and
their own desire to manifest,

To leave heartprints of awe
on beleaguered poets’ souls
scrying for a homeland

Shared with dVerse Poets Pub for Open Link Night.

Comment

Sandcastles

Filed under: Love, Personal — 13 Comments

February 15, 2022

Here is all that I have built 
sandcastles at dawn a 
shattering symphony of glass 
ornate melodies crashing 
jagged chords, unsung losses 
haunted chorus in a strange land
 
Take me inland 
to flowered meadows 
build me a cottage 
on a sun-soaked hill 

Did I remember you, years ago? 
a lilting whisper on the wind 
before the cycle of tides  
carried me to sea foam  
swirling in memory 
immaterial and lost 

Take me inland 
to flowered meadows 
build me a cottage 
on a sun-soaked hill 

dissonant shoreline stretches 
to a horizon out of reach 
 sunlight kisses the beach 
eroding my last attachments 
released to an undertow 
I forget every name 

Take me inland 
to flowered meadows 
build me a cottage 
on a sun-soaked hill 

burn my forsaken heart 
in your stone hearth 
let my ashes rest at home 

Comment

Inoperable Interface

Filed under: Metamodern — 7 Comments

November 16, 2020

Supercilious impulses flashing
keeps her achieving but alone
paper cut above the company

Operatic arias of accomplishments
form aureate clouds of immateriality
vaporous substances dissipate

Sesquipedalian sentences slinking
across reams of reports written
confound all but their creator

Impossibly immaculate mind
possibly perfect psychosis

Linked to dVerse Poets Pub.

Comment

Ilha de Fera (Island of Wild Creatures)

Filed under: Love, Mythology, Philosophy — 7 Comments

November 12, 2020

He was born in the salt-sting tempest
demigod son of a Celtici priestess
ravaged by a trickster god of the sea
oblivious to his origins and form
only known survivor of Carcharodon
ancient predator of the deep

Shipwrecked in the hinterlands
arriving at the end of the wilds
Portuguese, sea-faring mystic
hunting melancholic forests of kelp
prowling the labyrinth with the hunger
of an addict, driven to destroy

Grey sky pierced by the padrõe
inscribed with King’s coat of arms,
divine mark of ownership,
over Africa and her heretical heart
he mistook her saudade,
whale song of longing, for a sacrament
a carnal invitation in a strange tongue

His treacherous bite severed her soul
bleeding into the seafoam
he circles, awaiting her final heartbeat

Comment

Virtue in Eternal Nature

Filed under: Allegory, History, Love, Metamodern, Mythology, Personal, Philosophy — 5 Comments

June 23, 2020

Arkansas River Near Leadville, CO. Credit: USFWS

I am the keeper
of limbic cryptoglyphs
of all immensely fragile
and beautiful things
surreptitious traumas
salt-stained sorrows

Locks and mementos
burdened by history
epitaphs written in
blood of my ancestors
incorporeal touchstones
to a fateful past

Singing bowl moans,
bones refracture,
and ashen losses unveil
all these men ever want to
holdfast are fantasies,
embroidered abstractions,
questlines in unfeeling,
lifeless worlds of murder

Strategies deployed
in a game of abuse
lost in an oubliette
of broken promises
each door and
window a deception,
opening to apathy,
with illusory joy
always out of reach

He alters the earth under me
reduces me to a thing, an idea –
angel trapped in a cycle of forgetting
cyborg glitched by programming
a seeker forever searching for a path –
mirror to his vanity that cannot
reflect enough glory to be cherished

Until the day I awoke
petrichor leading me
to the hallowed river –
it was conquered,
torn asunder in war
dam near stole
its roaring fury

My peripatetic soul
nurtures its wilderness,
its forward motion
flowing into a future
heartbeats riverside
snow-packed source
from the Rockies
to its wide-mouth
confluence and,
eventually, to the sea

Linked to dVerse Poet’s Pub.

Comment

• Hypatia

  Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all.

• Follow Blog via Email

  Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

  Email Address:

  Follow

  Join 524 other subscribers

• Denise Levertov

  When words penetrate deep into us they change the chemistry of the soul, of the imagination. We have no right to do that to people if we don’t share the consequences.

• Recent Posts

  • Nebulous
  • Epitaph for the Vainglorious
  • Denouement
  • Endure O Heart
  • Liberating Art

• Plato

  Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history.

• Categories

  • Allegory (19)
  • Art (98)
  • Epic (13)
  • History (39)
  • Humor (13)
  • Love (58)
  • Mathematics (16)
  • Metamodern (16)
  • Music (21)
  • Mythology (89)
  • NaPoWriMo (4)
  • Personal (74)
  • Philosophy (117)
  • Postmodern (81)
  • Science (58)
  • Tribute (56)
  • Writing (44)

• Postmodernism

  Postmodernism is an intellectual, artistic, philosophical, and/or cultural mindset that questions institutionalism, hierarchy, power, and simple, knowable truth. Alternatively it embraces complexity, contradiction, ambiguity, fractured metaphysics, multiplicity, deconstruction, and diversity. In poetry it offers semiotic liberty.

• Robert Anton Wilson

  Semantic noise also seems to haunt every communication system. A man may sincerely say, ‘I love fish,’ and two listeners may both hear him correctly, yet the two will neurosemantically file this in their brains under opposite categories. One will think the man loves to dine on fish, and the other will think he loves to keep fish (in an aquarium).

• Witold Gombrowicz

  Here is the writer who with all his heart and soul, with his art, in anguish and travail offers nourishment – there is the reader who’ll have none of it, and if he wants, it’s only in passing, offhandedly, until the phone rings. Life’s trivia are your undoing. You are like a man who has challenged a dragon to a fight but will be yapped into a corner by a little dog. from Ferdydurke

• 

  I’m an Executive Director with a doctorate in education, a consultant, painter, photographer, composer, poet, and vocalist.

• Gustav Flaubert

  Everything one invents is true, you may be perfectly sure of that. Poetry is as precise as geometry.

• Dušan “Charles” Simić

  Poetry is an orphan of silence. The words never quite equal the experience behind them.

• Monique Wittig

  Language casts sheaves of reality upon the social body, stamping it and violently shaping it… Language as a whole gives everyone the same power of becoming an absolute subject through its exercise. But gender, an element of language, works upon this ontological fact to annul it as far as women are concerned and corresponds to a constant attempt to strip them of the most precious thing for a human being – subjectivity. Gender is an ontological impossibility because it tries to accomplish the division of Being. But Being is not divided. God or Man as being are One and whole. So what is this divided Being introduced into language through gender? It is an impossible Being, it is a Being that does not exist, an ontological joke, a conceptual maneuver to wrest from women what belongs to them by right: conceiving of oneself as a total subject through the exercise of language. The result of the imposition of gender, acting as a denial at the very moment when one speaks, is to deprive women of the authority of speech, and to force them to make their entrance in a crablike way, particularizing themselves and apologizing profusely. The result is to deny them any claim to the abstract, philosophical, political discourses that give shape to the social body. Gender then must be destroyed. The possibility of its destruction is given through the very exercise of language. For each time I say ‘I’ I reorganize the world from my point of view and through abstraction I lay claim to universality. This fact holds true for every locutor.

• W.S. Merwin

  All the things that really matter to us are impossible…Writing poetry is impossible. I don’t know how to write a poem. A poem – there has to be a part of it that is not my own will; it comes from somewhere that I don’t know. There is so much that comes out of what we don’t know and what we don’t have any control over. I think that one of the only things we can learn as we get older is a certain humility. – from Doing the Impossible

• Thomas Aquinas

  Because philosophy arises from awe, a philosopher is bound in his way to be a lover of myths and poetic fables. Poets and philosophers are alike in being big with wonder.