All this month Vince Gotera, editor of the North American Review, English Professor, and 3X Pushcart Prize nominated Poet is celebrating NaPoWriMo by posting poetry and a link to a featured blog each day. I am thrilled and honored that he chose Chromapoesy today. Please visit his blog and comment on the post here: http://vincegotera.blogspot.com/2012/04/day-15-napowrimo-poem-day.html. I would deeply appreciate your support. The picture was just to get your attention :). Also, thank you to Aprille at http://000april.blogspot.co.uk/ for recommending me to Vince!
Circumspect, I have seen through the centuries
frayed cords encapsulate the shaded tale
oracles portend my unreciprocated love
misogyny reigns in a world of grave unraveling
positing by nature I am meant to obey
Aristoclea teaches Pythagorus:
philosophy inscribed on a fine layer of dust
which cannot be remembered
Arete, the splendor of Greece
possessed of the beauty of Helen
with the soul of Socrates
and the tongue of Homer
will never bear daughters of philosophy
2300 years they will clamor
at the gates of knowledge denied keys
hidden in the cowering folds
of history’s divisive night
I am a lioness, prostasia of the Garden
presumptive former hetaera
with the effrontery to challenge Theophrastus
whirlpools of thought capture victims unsung
as long whispered fears signal
the philosophic imaginary, a wilderness
an undertow on volcanic shores
Detritivores tunnel, long spools unwinding
as gods consume the fervid masses
arguing for ataraxia
knowing what they will do to Hypatia
equality seen as democracy’s moral failure
delineating lost markers
we are denied existence
stripped of effective consciousness
Property lines drawn in space
each a bounded deontology
we are deemed natural deformities
maladapted, malevolent sisters
less than shallow, temples atop sewers
cartographic drawings without names
I refuse to build statues
to these paragons that forsake me
insatiable curiosities orbit consciousness
strung pearls of upended epiphenomena
ancient aluminum awareness permeating time
charting momentary courses through mental processes
angles of sensation and perception grinding experience
under electric hazel skies capable of impacting behavior
pouring parallelism down the steps of the prefrontal cortex
mere echoes, faint rumors upon the air of philosophy
white irises climb neurophysiological cliff faces
roaring seascapes of recurrent thalamo-cortical resonance
rational kettles steaming orange blossoms of knowledge
round numinous volumes prefiguring the world-knot
crevices, pathways, transmogrified thought patterns
fossils hounding chained gates while endless paradoxes
gleam on clay surfaces pounding immortal stardust
forming luminescent filigreed theory enhancers
that reveal ineffable intrinsic qualia unwinding
memories, emotions, and intentions disciplined
volition as apprehended conscious goal images
discerning global broadcast messages to the self:
this dominant, enduring context
She is a sojourner in virtual space
a liminal being once embodied
cultural schemas unhinged by truly novel situations
these hollow shells carry imaginary insides
figures of polygon mesh rendering reality
if viewed from different vantage points simply disappear
thwarting her cross-cultural integration
Axioms applied through hidden surface removal algorithms
memories of successful interrelationships are no longer connected
complex cognitive structures for social interaction become
bounding volume hierarchies creating invisibility/occlusion trees
if/then evaluations of nodes (and child nodes)
efficiently grading, determining what is drawn into existence
Acquisition of interpersonal relationships is vital
in this haptic interface, teleoperation robotic tools
vibrotactile effectors provide sensory feedback
lacking primary social interaction schemas
she must employ data driven processing
requiring monumental effort and attention
Divergence from the host culture becomes clear
using self-regulation to remove ambiguities
strategic maneuvers to ensure emotional survival
the intertwining of native culture and the neo-galaxies
of virtual reality requires poly-mythic invention
prototypical archetypes for avatars
Stories for a new era where touching another
requires electroactive polymers and piezoelectric surfaces
next generation actuator technology
3-D holograms creating sensory input through acoustic radiation
acculturating her senses to mechanical intermediaries
adaptations to the host-culture environment
a new language for refugees in a virtual world
This poem is linked to dVerse Poets Pub and the Poetics prompt on Nightmare Verse where Stu McPherson challenges us to dig deep into the dreamworld and reveal our hidden fears, psychological traumas, unkenned phenomena, and other fascinating aspects of our nightmares. Please join us http://dversepoets.com/2012/03/31/poetics-nightmare-verse/
Transcript from the video (please play as it is intended to be heard and viewed, thank you)
Ice Floe
Silk enrobed traces
of your artistry
float by, a music
ever passing
as your gentle voice
is lost to the wind
Adrift in this
spirit boat on Arctic seas
language unravels
drifting through niveous skies
gifts strewn
along an abandoned path
I am the vessel
travelling in the land
of midnight sun
searching for hearth fires
Ever on the wing
scrying a refuge
in an ice tomb
of necrotic hallucinations
Within this land of the dead
narwhal trill our song
wind beats, tears tree limbs senselessly
awakens me at two
progressively earlier, as if getting a head start will make it worksecret self enters a prime neologism
(double edged word)
flashes of the road to Hāna
arriving alone on the black volcanic shore
25 foot waves threaten crisis
crepuscule floats atop the violence
enantiomorphic noctilucent clouds appear as hierograms
somnifacient, auriferous divine projections
cover letters must be written
(logical/sequential marches in the margins):
Dear Board of Directors: I am uniquely qualified to bring your organization into the next phase of its nonprofit lifecycle. With seven years of progressive experience as an administrator I’ve quadrupled the budget, secured more than a million dollars in support, collaborated with hundreds of organizations, partnered with corporate donors, provided measurable outcomes for vulnerable populations…
(dear reader, do you know anyone who needs an Executive Director?)
packing boxes! thoughts invade this sanctuary of art,
all my treasures will be (hidden)
polymythical fractious storylines colliding
synchrotron beamlines branch
as abstract futures smash up
i contemplate my tragic flaw
she reminds me i’m capable, intelligent, creative, functional, witty, lovely
believe the list! win fight perform wow charm hedge prove!
oh and they all say i’ve been through so much worse (this never helps)
kerfs mark raw silk, ripping
tactile encounters are disasters of percipient stratum
yet i was so open, orgasmic (blush)
tracing your words (thought artifacts)
undertow gains potency – i withstand the pelting rocks – deafening roar
poetry swirls, th e l i n e s w o n ’ t c o n n e c t
4………………3…………..2…….1
melodies disenfranchise
i’m an imperfect processor with selection bias
questing for an oracle of algorithms
deciphering code
delineating borders
i smile but lick my canine
press to feel solidity
the rage to master won’t rescue this poem
from the brink
of disintegration
pandect induces bradycardia – NO!
where is the intricate architecture?
you can’t build a civilization without infrastructure
life invades organically
intermingling traumas, visions, and vistas
(it is four in the morning)
tender phylogeny
an imposed or inherent order?
steel girders at wrong angles
concrete poured outside the mold
(WordPress keeps undoing my formatting,
stealing all the spaces!)
who needs self-conscious poetry?
reality stalks like a zoo panther
stuck, stuck travelling the loop
loop my loop
loop my loop
my terricolous vulnerability
(liminal space)
who comes every day to loop my loop?
to make me face Brutality Between the Lines
damn lines that don’t connect
i redraw with new colors, open ensō
what does it mean
(do you know what it means?)
my pocket atlas is written in symbols
metaphrastic selenography
buried under ethnolinguistic axioms
i’ve become a sojourner
within my own cultural schema
a foreigner at home
Notes/Definitions: neologism: 1. A new word, expression, or usage. 2. The creation or use of new words or senses. 3. Psychology a. The invention of new words regarded as a symptom of certain psychotic disorders, such as schizophrenia. b. A word so invented. 4. TheologyA new doctrine or a new interpretation of scripture.; Hāna: is a census-designated place (CDP) in Maui County, Hawaii, United States. The population was 2,291 at the 2010 census. Hana is located at the eastern end of the island of Maui and is one of the most isolated communities in the state. It is reached mainly via the Hana Highway, a long, winding, 52 miles (84 km) long highway along Maui’s northern shore.; crepuscule: twilight; enantiomorph: 1. mirror image, form related to another as an object is to its image in a mirror. 2. either of a pair of crystals that are mirror images of each other, and are optically active. 3. (chemistry) A similar molecule or compound; an enantiomer.; noctilucent clouds: tenuous cloud-like phenomena that are the “ragged-edge” of a much brighter and pervasive polar cloud layer called polar mesospheric clouds in the upper atmosphere, visible in a deep twilight. They are made of crystals of water ice.; hierogram: sacred writing or a sacred character or symbol.; somnifacient: causing or inducing sleep.; auriferous: containing gold.; nonprofit lifecycles: 1. Grass Roots – Invention 2. Start-Up – Incubation 3. Adolescent – Growing 4. Mature – Sustainability 5. Stagnation & Renewal 6. Decline And Shut-Down (as conceptualized by Speakman Consulting Firm); polymythology: A combination of a number of stories in one narrative or dramatic work.; fractious: tending to be troublesome; synchronotron: a particular type of cyclic particle accelerator in which the magnetic field (to turn the particles so they circulate) and the electric field (to accelerate the particles) are carefully synchronised with the travelling particle beam.; tragic flaw: defect in hero’s character that causes downfall; kerf: a slit or notch made by a saw or cutting torch; percipient: 1: one that perceives 2: a person on whose mind a telepathic impulse or message is held to fall; stratum: 4. one of a series of layers, levels, or gradations in an ordered system <strataof thought>; disenfranchise: to deprive of a franchise, of a legal right, or of some privilege or immunity; selection bias: (2) selection of samples or studies by researchers to support a particular hypothesis.; algorithm: In mathematics and computer science, an algorith is an effective method expressed as a finite list of well-defined instructions for calculating a function. Algorithms are used for calculation, data processing, and automated reasoning.; pandect: 2. A complete body of laws; bradycardia: slow heartbeat; phylogeny: The evolutionary development and history of a species or higher taxonomic grouping of organisms.; terricolous: living on or in the ground; Liminality is a psychological, neurological, or metaphysical subjective state, conscious or unconscious, of being on the “threshold” of or between two different existential planes, as defined in neurological psychology (a “liminal state”) and in the anthropological theories of ritual by such writers as Arnold van Gennep and Victor Turner.; Brutality Between the Lines is one of my poems (found here http://chromapoesy.com/2011/08/05/brutality-between-the-lines/); Ensō (円相) is a Japanese word meaning “circle” and a concept strongly associated with Zen. Ensō is one of the most common subjects of Japanese calligraphy even though it is a symbol and not a character. It symbolizes the Absolute enlightenment, strength, elegance, the Universe, and the void; it can also symbolize the Japanese aesthetic itself. As an “expression of the moment” it is often considered a form of minimalist expressionist art.; metaphrasis: the practice of making a literal translation from one language into another.; Selenography is the study of the surface and physical features of the Moon. Historically, the principal concern of selenographists was the mapping and naming of the lunar maria, craters, mountain ranges, and other various features.; ethnolinguistics: a field of linguistics which studies the relationship between language and culture, and the way different ethnic groups perceive the world.; axiom: 1. a self-evident truth that requires no proof. 2.a universally accepted principle or rule. 3. Logic, Mathematics. a proposition that is assumed without proof for the sake of studying the consequences that follow from it.; Cultural Schema Theory (Nishida, 1999) explains the familiar and pre-acquainted knowledge one uses when entering a familiar situation in his/her own culture. Cultural schemas for social interaction are cognitive structures that contain knowledge for face-to-face interactions in a person’s cultural environment. Schemas are generalized collections of knowledge of past experiences that are organized into related knowledge groups; they guide our behaviors in familiar situations. Cultural schemas do not differ from other schemas, except that they are shared by certain cultural groups rather than individuals (Garro, 2000). Schemas unique to individuals are created from personal experiences, whereas those shared by individuals are created from various types of common experiences (Garro, 2000). Cultural Schema Theory proposes that when we interact with members of the same culture in certain situations many times, or talk about certain information with them many times, cultural schemas are created and stored in our brain (Nishida, 1999)
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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.
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.
Chromapoetica 