Endophytic Incursions (click to hear this poem read)
Synchronicity ensconced reveals nugatory variables
apophenia of writer invariant: subversive hallucinatory crippled vessels
their mesostic corrugated tentacles of substantive poetic egests
may mask irreplaceable profundities
pinned in unpersecuted opposition they create borderline synaesthesia
presenting artists as warped furled fecund hosts
suffering endophytic incursions
jostled oubliettes of bulbous traipsing ladders connecting
twining implosions arch upon the oeuvre and ignite nesting charges
of gravitas and blather a mulled kinship born perniciously or merely neurologically
they may illuminate or obscure, form a gestalt or dissociate
matters of quiddity hoisted upon ontological backtracking
accelerating dilatory insights
atomic breakdowns, each quark mensurated
in reductionist monochromatic gatherings
stultify creative impulses
dense joyous words weighted with luscious delectable gustation
visual fields dripping with chords of music inviting
xenologic etiquette of intertwining nebulae
lilting effluvia
Chromapoetica 
I commented on this on my blog, too, Anna. This is full of fun words and images. I wish blogs were like my Kindle where the dictionary function is right there…all you have to do is take the cursor to the word and the definition pops up at the bottom of the page. I love it!
Thanks Victoria, per your blog comment, I’m glad you found some words (new friends) to play with! That tool on Kindle sounds wonderful.
Oh Anna–i don’t have the time to dictionary this tonight so I know I’m missing things, but I just wanted to say–bonus points for oubliette and quiddity!! The language here is like being let loose in a designer chocolate stall–I want more of all of it. I will be back to do some re-reading tomorrow when I can savor these “…dense joyous words weighted with luscious delectable gustation…”
Joy, don’t read this until after you’ve formed your impressions through the rereading.
Here’s where I was going with this and remember that part of using this form is not to laser meaning from my brain to yours but to guide the reader on a journey of exploration where the filters, experiences, and knowledge of the reader create a richer experience than I could ever provide alone. That said I was spiraling into the parallels between apophenia (seeing connections in places they don’t exist some argue this as pathology and others see it as other side of the coin bearing creativity) and synaesthesia (a multisensory experience, true synaesthetes experience color when they look at a word or smell vanilla when they hear a specific sound, things like that).
Artists have long imitated synaesthetes or been the genuine article. This can be viewed as pathology or advantageous to creating profound works of art. Kandinsky saw colors when he heard music. I, like Georgia O’Keefe, am not a synaesthete but am using it artistically as an intellectual idea. Many artists have tried to induce synaesthesia in their viewers or readers. I used the concept of writer invariant because I think of it as an artist’s fingerprint. Imagine the effects if the fingerprint is also colored or when viewed plays music, the gestalt would be marvelous.
I posit artists as ‘warped furled fecund hosts suffering endophytic incursions’ as a metaphor. The invasion of a person by foreign but largely benign organisms (really endophytes are found in plants) is akin to this extrasensory perception that can be neurological or induced by another. The maze of resulting synaptic connections provides a whole new way of seeing.
These afflictions or creative gifts can touch upon and unleash other ‘explosive’ charges within the life’s work of an artist. However, they can also be, as Brendan pointed out, meaningless blather. Some synaesthetes can’t see outside their viewpoint to communicate this to others, severe cases of apophenia would lead to paranoia or utter confusion. I am both discussing and trying to walk this fine line in the poem. As I discuss in the end of verse three this type of multisensory experience through art can hasten slow to come insights, provide epiphanies.
In the final verse I revisit one of my favorite themes: the joy in the gestalt verses the dearth of reductionism. Ultimately it is the creative impulse, the willingness to engage the unknown that gives us the gifts of words capable of endowing gustatory sensations, visual input that sings with choruses. It is an exercise in xenology (the study of alien life) where galaxies collide, intermingle, and leave behind glorious emanations whether we can see them or not (effluvia is invisible) or mistake them for trash (the second meaning of effluvia). For me, the language of poetry allows the discernment and creating of these opportunities in a way that the logical, sequential march of everyday language does not.
Thanks so much for explaining the nuts and bolts, and you’ll be happy to know that before reading the explanation, when I sat down with a fresh mind and began to open every word box and examine the contents, I got to much the same general place and understanding, without perhaps, the most literal of the psychological aspects, but with all of the gist intact. I have only the dimmest of psychological reference points, so your explanation of those in detail did add, but even without I did get your sense of trying to induce / enhance/interpret an altered state through art which leads somewhere beyond mere sensations to realizations and even actual experiential changes and events, of the parasitic that has to be transcended or utilized, of the invisible that shows us so much trash and treasure. And, like Brendan, i also enjoyed just letting the sensual roll call of words and language bath me in a chocolate fountain. ;_) No limburger for me, though.
Mmmmm, chocolate. Thank you for the reread. While my internet connection is humming along Hotmail has collapsed. I sent a reply to you and hope you got it. If not, this time I was clever enough to save it in Word so I wouldn’t have to regurgitate it like last time. No one wants ick in their inbox :).
I’ll say yeah to Hedgewitch — It’s almost glossalalia, this bare nekkid polymorphose perverse dip in the sea of language, a sort of defense of poetry rolling out every polysyllabic cannon in the arsenal. It’s fun for the sure hell of its dense halibut — something akin to drinking straight scotch & smoking cigars while eating crackers stacked with onion, sardines and limburger cheese. My cogitation burps. I’m not sure meaning is advanced through such obfuscation – much less clarity — but it is a poetic and it does cleans the palate. A mouthful of nooshpere spat in a spray all over what Rilke called the odiousness of “narrow rooms and heated similes.” By poem’s end I was like a bedmate whose lover says she’s ready for Round Six — my command of the language by then had been drained dry. Your well seems inexhaustible. Like Billy Blake sd., “the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.” A palace in Hell, Lucifer’s B-Q joint of Eternal Delight. — B
My reply to Joy above may illuminate some things if you’re interested. Thanks again for reading and I apologize for the indigestion. Sometimes I’m insatiable when it comes to language and don’t know when to stop. The difficulty with experimental forms is that I don’t have a road map and sometimes I fall off a cliff or cause the reader to do so.
awesome read… and your vocab is simply mind blowing.
Loved it.
Thank you for your continued readership! I’m glad you enjoyed our journey through the wilderness of artistic creation and interpretation.
this is excellent. Very excellent.
Thanks Jesse! I did check out the blog you recommended and encourage your friend to submit if he’s interested. I’d be especially intrigued to read about his process or what he’s trying to accomplish through the poetry. I’ll visit Modern Rage today and see what you’ve been writing.
I have to shamefully admit that poems that use a lot of complex words tend to intimidate me, and I have given up on many, simply deciding that the poet used “big words” only for sake of doing so. When I first looked at this poem I was intrigued. Then I thought, well, it’s been a while since I’ve read anything like this where I was required to use a dictionary. And it delighted me, as unlocking (learning) the meaning of these words which are new to me caused an explosion of wonderful images and color. Artists as carriers of ideas, ideas moving forth, and their effects. I still have to probably read it a few more times before I fully get it all and ‘see’ the poem for myself as the words are still new to me. (Your detailed reply to Hedgewitch is also very helpful to me.)
Thanks for your poem.
Thank you for taking the time to engage the poem. I’m super excited that it sparked thoughts, images, and colors for you! Also, you’ve hit the nail on the head with stating you need to ‘see’ the poem for yourself, you have a vital role in creating meaning and dialogue as the reader.
Endophytes are a very cool type of plant; they always remind me of tropical rain forests. I loved the images the poem created, and it’s great to hear.
Thanks, I’m beginning to enjoy recording the poems and I think it helps with the experimental pieces. Endophytes are bacteria or fungus that invade the roots of plants, epiphytes are those awesome plants that grow in rain forests with their roots dangling in the air (sorry, science brain kicked in temporarily :). Always glad to see you here, please come again!