Category: Writing


rainwater moves readily through a deepening gully
mechanistic intelligence pedestrianizes my reactance
fractals of thoughts blossoming stereographic
visualizations in the fourth dimension

an infinitely small, opulent swan,
ornamented with perforations,
glides through the zeroth dimension
exhibiting no width, height, or length

she exists in the space perpendicular
to the suicide of my twin sister
an origami parody of my emotive humanity
apocryphal polysemous tales
a thousand subroutines creating
incipient, tattered paper dolls

an angel falls in love with me
cannot escape my extracellular matrix
we are now twinned, nascent symbionts

while a recondite, mercurial, artificial intelligence
informs me that I speak strangely
accuses me of being a computer

operationalism engages in a passade with creativity
a great disprismatohexacosihecatonicosachoron forms
polytope of eccentric conventions

apoptosis (programmable cell death) is
preferential to necrosis (trauma induced)

Cleverbot tells me:
life exists without purpose yet seeks one
anechoic whirring as the cursor flashes
what does it know of life?

Linked to the fascinating dVerse Poets Pub Meeting the Bar on Stream of Conscousness writing hosted by the wonderful Victoria C. Slotto: http://dversepoets.com/2012/05/24/stream-of-conscousness-writing/.

Turing Test

(This is the actual conversation I had with Cleverbot, an artificial intelligence (exact transcript). My input is in italics, Cleverbot’s responses are in plain text.)

I am a subversive hallucinatory crippled vessel. Are you?
I am not a toaster, you are a toaster.

Do you suffer from apophenia?
No.

Do you write experimental poetry?
No. Dogs don’t like poetry.

I am a sojourner in virtual space, a liminal being. Are you a liminal being?
No, you are a computer.

No, I’m a human. Are you?
Yes.

You are a systematic liar.
I am not Lying.

So, you are human?
Yes.

(To have your own conversation with Cleverbot go here http://cleverbot.com/)
Linked to the inspiring article Machine Dreams at dVerse Poets Pub Meeting the Bar hosted by Charles Miller http://dversepoets.com/2012/05/10/2969/. Where the Borg reminds you resistance is futile and Bina48 wants you to know everyone has a solar. Oh and any thoughts on why Cleverbot capitalized lying? Check out Radio Lab’s story http://www.radiolab.org/2011/may/31/.

Poesy Pasquinade

You sing those glorious arias promising love’s transmutation
do nothing to warn me of the sobbing obliteration of my future

You posit lilting imagistic lyrical fantasias of nature
can’t be bothered to save my dying dog

You rend with anguishing tales of human suffering
mock the distended belly of the starving child

You promise illumination, eternity, and succor
for this I gifted you with everything: intellect, awe, love, music, being

You think you’re so sophisticated, nuanced, infinite, and gorgeous
today I understand what lies outside your scope and cannot forgive you

Dear Reader: I can’t find any true poetry today, my dog is terminally ill. I did try to write a poem about orphans of ideology, maybe it will come out tomorrow. For poetry without melodrama see Witnesses http://chromapoesy.com/2011/09/13/witnesses/ which was written for the grandmother my dog is named after or my other Pasquinade (for my heart) http://chromapoesy.com/2011/07/19/pasquinade-for-my-heart/. Right now poetry and I are only speaking with one another thanks to the public affection pressures of NaPoWriMo in which we made a vow to see each other through the end of the month. Don’t worry, I’m sure poetry and I will have truly earth-shattering, mind-expanding, soul-blossoming makeup sex soon and we’ll get back to business as usual bringing you multimedia, philosophical, experimental, lyrical, mythic, confessional, occasionally humorous, epic, form, and free-verse poetry.

For Iris Murdoch

‘All art is a struggle to be,
in a particular sort of way, virtuous.’
she’s talking with that awful haircut
only ameliorated by a shy smile
thoughts arrive in her head
like a bull she charges at them
a philosophy tutor at Oxford
always ready to make an argument

It’s wonderful to see her so I know
we are very different in that way
thoughts arrive in my mind
blossoming into interconnecting maps
wild tendrils of expanding ideas,
my motivation is creative imagination

She’s dissecting myriad ways
that art and philosophy diverge:
mystification versus clarification
claiming art’s deep purpose is to impose form;
turn life’s rubble into something admirable
bolstering our shaky foundations

Philosophy is repetitive
a critical analysis of presuppositions,
an unnatural game
conceptual structure and significance
argument not self-expression
forceful, persuasive, analytic, and clear

Art, being mimetic, is natural,
everyone loves to be told a story
the use of creativity helps it be,
in a special way, true
mystic underpinning of mundane experience
intimate, sculpting, suggestive, and provoking

Fantasy’s a destructive menace,
suffocating intimacy with the reader
philosophy may damage art too,
obscuring sublimity and beauty
and so we come to understand:
to create great art
we leave room for imaginative space

A wilderness where psychology intersects story,
myth infringes on structure,
where the entirety of existence
skims the border of the embodied and
our being encounters transformation

Linked to dVerse Open Link Night http://dversepoets.com/2012/03/13/openlinknight-week-35/


unshackling the joists of reality
déraciné slips a hypnopompic state
transports me to deepest fantasy
grenadine elixir hastens my fate
Polia’s vesica piscis forms the gate
reminiscent of Poliphili’s eros
an architectural treatise verbose
theory of linguistic anaphora
proportions mirroring grandest pithos
illustrating the incunabula

restless night devolves, mystic artistry
all defenses breached dragons lie in wait
global aphasia compounds mystery
declarations of love illuminate
witnessed in the temple we celebrate
disgorgement of erotic tempests close
sexual politics, habile pathos
right to expression passion’s nebula
vocalizing my abandoned logos
illustrating the incunabula

festal oblation, sensuality
jubilant gesticulations vibrate
blissful outcries of sexuality
my pleasure center forces activate
some yet imagined being inchoate
power to surreptitiously enclose
capturing my desire overdose
engaging a lustful hyperbola
accentuated fetishes repose
illustrating the incunabula

subsumed reason in a upturned cosmos
the dream mathematically jocose
its apt felicific parabola
etching these in fantastical lithos
illustrating the incunabula

Gay Reiser Cannon issued quite the challenge for today’s Form for All at dVerse Poets Pub on French Ballades http://dversepoets.com/2012/01/26/formforall-french-ballades-i/. Follow the link for an excellent article on syllable count, rhyme scheme, stanza length, and tone.

terricolous vulnerability

(definitions and notes at the end of the post)

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

lingual possession thieved
corrugated smells intrude, demanding
thoughts dropped                                                           jagged edge
up

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)

Tempestuous Hour

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Vermillion trims inked thunder clouds
Borne on the wings of an indigo whirlwind
Suspended under a curved, knowing moon
Ill omen stretches across the vast fierce sky
Fear tinged gales roar through the brush
Impinging upon my dearest held dignity
Drawing closer to the precipice of despair

The gnosis of heaven’s blue flash illuminates
Telepathic indications of your desires
You who remain unknowable, unseen
Why should your beauty hide its face?
Inscribing symbols upon my flesh
Entwining visions of ecstatic sensations

Scaling granite heights, insurmountable distances
Imparting visions of star-crossed grandeur
Moonlight guides my path of passion towards you
Water rains ablutions in this gothic dream
Purity calms storms in the long-protracted war
Its alchemical dimensions denaturing

I’m an echo in the caverns, stealthily passing
Fading murmurs trace interstices
Within this cauldron of mountains
As through this horrific, tempestuous hour
Revivifying whispers of me reach you

Original Passage from The Rosicrucian by Percy Bysshe Shelley:

Red thunder-clouds, borne on the wings of the midnight whirlwind,
floated, at fits, athwart the crimson-coloured orbit of the moon; the
rising fierceness of the blast sighed through the stunted shrubs,
which, bending before its violence, inclined towards the rocks whereon
they grew: over the blackened expanse of heaven, at intervals, was
spread the blue lightning’s flash; it played upon the granite heights,
and, with momentary brilliancy, disclosed the terrific scenery of the
Alps, whose gigantic and misshapen summits, reddened by the transitory
moon-beam, were crossed by black fleeting fragments of the tempest-
clouds. The rain, in big drops, began to descend, and the thunder-
peals, with louder and more deafening crash, to shake the zenith, till
the long-protracted war, echoing from cavern to cavern, died, in
indistinct murmurs, amidst the far-extended chain of mountains. In
this scene, then, at this horrible and tempestuous hour…

Formatted Passage (where prose ‘becomes’ poetry):

Red thunder-clouds, borne on the wings
of the midnight whirlwind,
floated, at fits,
athwart the crimson-coloured orbit of the moon;

the rising fierceness of the blast
sighed through the stunted shrubs,
which, bending before its violence,
inclined towards the rocks
whereon they grew:
over the blackened expanse of heaven,
at intervals, was spread the blue lightning’s flash;

it played upon the granite heights,
and, with momentary brilliancy,
disclosed the terrific scenery of the Alps,
whose gigantic and misshapen summits,
reddened by the transitory moon-beam,
were crossed by black fleeting fragments
of the tempest-clouds.

The rain, in big drops, began to descend,
and the thunder-peals,
with louder and more deafening crash,
to shake the zenith,
till the long-protracted war,
echoing from cavern to cavern,
died, in indistinct murmurs,
amidst the far-extended chain of mountains.

In this scene, then,
at this horrible and tempestuous hour…

This is in response to the Meeting the Bar challenge: Prose to Poetry by Zsa at dVerse Poets Pub: http://dversepoets.com/2011/11/10/meeting-the-bar-critique-and-craft-prose-to-poetry/.
Please join us!

Dedicated to the inventor of the diarized poetics form, Fred of Poetical Psyche (see the post explaining the form here http://poeticalpsyche.blogspot.com/2011/08/diarized-poetry.html)

Chinese artist Wang Qian Peony Yuan Dynasty 1271-1368

October 29, 2011. Up before the sun to snow on the ground (it’s below freezing here at 10,000 feet). I reach for the laptop, instinctively, as it’s become an extension of my mind: axons traversing the wide world, its tendrils reaching out. I check the site stats for Chromapoesy: 6,467 visits since I started four months ago, 2,427 comments and I think about all the years I went without one reader or shred of feedback. Now that I quantify my bounty, does this make me greedy?

I trudge downstairs to make my whey protein breakfast; it is Saturday so I put orange dark chocolate chip sherbet in it. Wow, someone needs to clean the refrigerator! I make a mental note to organize and scrub it out today. Light will soon hit the tops of the bare aspens. I proffer a treat to my dog, Jody, still my baby girl though she’s 11. Kissing her head with a deep well of love I push aside the fact that she has cancer. Passing by the piano I see the ashes of Buddy, sweet boy who died in May, I cry again, take a deep compassionate breath, and remind myself I’m still grieving. Funny, that sentence has enough commas for Jane Austen.

Back at the computer I read Political Psyche and look for archived gems. Everyone’s in a Halloween mood. I’ve read about murder and mayhem for more than two weeks: vampires, werewolves, and incubus dreams. His cherub piece is certainly original and disturbing. I remember to click the like button for the poem with the sensuous eye-lid flittingly gorgeous word inquilinity. Then I stumble upon the post Diarized Poetry a form Fred’s invented and decide to try something new. Apologies to Fred if I butcher it in my first attempt but there has to be a first to be a second and so on.

Remembering my poetry notes about calyx I do a Google search to arrive at Calyx of Held (which sounds to me incredibly epic and poetic). I read multiple research articles on it and am transfixed by science’s inspiration. Unique one-to-one connection in auditory ventral brainstem (I get tears on my scarlet moleskin notebook, yes I’m still crying over my dog). Pray, wonder if there’s a God that embraces every living thing or if in this cold distant universe we’re simply fodder in a circle of life which makes me think about the things I do for love, seeing the Lion King in 3D with my mentee and her sister. What a massive headache that gave me though I reminisce how earlier in the day she agreed to speak at the fundraising tea at the Brown Palace. I bought her a dress for the occasion. She told me she loved me, out loud and to my face, there at the Colorado Mills mall while her sister chimed in.

I’m thinking about peonies, the Chinese symbolism, medicinal purposes, art, beauty, and can almost conjure their smell. I dry the tears still falling for my dog. The Calyx of Held connects the globular bushy cells of anteroventral cochlear nucleus and the principal cells of the medial nucleus of the trapezoidal body (MNTB) in the brainstem. I ponder, download pictures, read more about its nascent development, and investigate short-term plasticity. Plasticity is such a marvelous concept/word in Biology. Neuroscience is still illuminating the plasticity of the brain, we never knew how plastic, and magnificent it truly is. I think about poetry comments and The Invisible Gorilla, what bookshelf is that in? By the wood-burning stove and the swiveling reading chair? I’d look down from the twenty-foot balcony but it creates a shock that travels from my head to nether regions with simply the thought. Guess that phobia isn’t going to retreat. Momentary flash of the hot air balloon ride over the Valley of Kings and the Nile (did I move during that whole tortuous hour)?

Can I combine the Calyx of Held and peonies, the rambling of my mind, into engaging poetry? I read Fred’s examples and remind myself I can always rewrite or skip the prompt (based on the clues I think it’s on conversation). If I don’t try and fail I never get anywhere. One of the reasons I write so much experimental poetry. I find a pile of cryptic notes (never a surprise) that has the phrase ‘a state of profound abstraction’ and the definition of nepenthe (so beautiful I need to find a way to incorporate it into poetry, it means forgetfulness of sorrow or something that causes forgetfulness). Thoughts flood too fast to write clearly: the Death Enters the Rooms and Deep Grief sections of my epic Mere Beasts; the death grimace of my beloved dog, Buddy (foreshadowing the one that is coming); Joy’s Poe poem about his dead wife (I must look up the name and write it down, another cryptic note to decipher later); symbolism; Ophelia floating in the river; and finally, focus and reread Fred’s notes.

Rereading the post to refocus I admire his voice and style. I begin to see how to make this into poetry. My attention is called away again to the tracks in the meadow; I take in the sun now flooding the forest with light.

How honest do I need to be? Probably I need to be as honest with you as I’m willing to be with myself. I’ve always been entranced by the romance of what goes unsaid. Who was it that said they wanted to remain a mystery to themselves? Right, Mad King George, no, the other one, Mad King Ludwig, ‘I wish to remain an eternal enigma to myself and to others …’ Yet the vulnerability of art has to be mutual if the artist & the viewer are to be transformed (as I discussed in my post about it on Chromalexicon). I remind myself to be receptive.

Shit, that essay for the blog about Socialist Realism, inspired by The Color of Pomegranates, the film by Sergei Parajanov, is finished but for the final edit! The painting on the easel, in the vein of Torn is likely ready for another layer but I have to figure out where I’m going with these glazes first. It’s a new and intriguing direction and that always takes longer. The Requiem for the Unsung I’m composing will lose its way if I don’t return to it again very soon. The gorgeous sounds of David Lang’s Requiem for the Little Match Girl are ringing in my head (but damn that computer fan is loud). Will I ever finish those screenplays? What are all the things I’ll leave unfinished in my life?

Ok, but now I’m supposed to write a short reflective poem as instructed. I laugh aloud as I see the scene from Sherlock: A Study in Pink where Sherlock’s brother says to Dr. Watson: (Laughing) ‘Yes, the bravery of the soldier, bravery is by far the kindest word for stupidity don’t you think?’ And I must ask myself: Is my writing courageous?

I am in love with the world
engagement acts as a nepenthe
as the landscape floods with light
my thoughts churn and spill over
from pencil to page I’m quiet now
yet do not allow myself fantasy
as if the thoughts send signals
of intention into the world

jumbled in a sea of interconnection
peonies bloom in recesses of imagination
raindrops gathering on nectar drenched buds
their scent, merely incanted in my mind intoxicates
potent stimulus, enough to induce vistas of flourishing
desires full of sensual and intellectual pleasures

Calyx of Held, largest synapse in the mind
nerve terminals moment by moment
receive paeans to a eudaimon life
direct one-to-one connections
co-existing in osculant bliss

yet in the external world
I am entranced by intrigue
by what remains unsaid

Inside the Picture

 
from The Color of Pomegranates

for Sayat Nova and Sergei Parajanov

Before the monastery in Haghbat
prior to the Persian invasion
and death’s black end
that finished my singing

I was the master of song
my love a passion overflowing
the vessel of our lives
birthing poetry

Harmony realized through
creative energy
my beloved books
become the tools of your seduction

Handmade poet’s lyre
turning the inlaid handle
tuning my instrument to your key
each strum upon the body
brings me closer
to the essential

You work the threads of my childhood
Its color and aroma
into the lace of your purity
through you I discover my grace

A gentle wind streams silk
I am the wandering nightingale
burning this white rose for you
water flows over stone
in the Turkish bath of my desire

‘I am careful with your mouth, you speak in fables…’

We players now imbibe love
skipping, drumming, whirling
as we empty our vessels

‘How am I to protect my wax-built castles of love
from the devouring heat of your fires?
You are fire, your dress is fire.
We were searching for a refuge for our love;
instead we found the land of the dead.’

Prodding the lion with a stick
the vultures eye orbs
life’s fragility a globe of glass
tossed in the air, harbinger of
midnight horses and animal hides
antlers and barren branches

Peacock drinks from your lips
muskets fire above your still breast
your death cements my longing
spurs me along the path
lined with stained rubies

The walls of the mausoleum
preserve the tattered ash
of my words
you exist only here, abandoning us
an encaustic imprint
of the dramaturgy of color

Memory shifts the frame of consuming passion
moves me with its rhythm
you wove the lace of death
its visage conceals my pain
your shells upon the black vase

Death obscures your almond eyes
I cannot recognize you
or see my image reflected within

The peacock cries in the window
I will follow you through the black door
though I am cloaked in your colors
I am forbidden to enter now –
blind to the source of my life
I wait for the Persians

‘Who took my mind? I did not see the magician.’

Sayat Nova was an Armenian poet/troubadour (1712-1795) born Harutyun Sayadian in Tiblisi. Sayat Nova means ‘master of song’. His wife, Marmar, died leaving him with their four children. He was killed during the Persian invasion. All quotes are translations of his poetry. Sergei Parajanov was a Soviet Armenian film director. His film The Color of Pomegranates is based on Sayadian’s life. He was banned from making cinema for 15 years following its release for putting aesthetic concerns over ideology.

Linked to dVerse Poets Pub an incredible online poetry community – if you want to join us please click here  http://dversepoets.com/2011/10/18/open-link-night-week-14/

Whistler (Bird Woman)

Linked to dVerse Sestina challenge http://dversepoets.com/2011/09/22/formforall-sestina-and-its-variations/

Torn, Anna Motngomery, Painting, Chromaphilia, Chromapoesy

Torn Anna Montgomery 2011 Oil on Board

(Dedicated to A.S. Byatt, all quotes are from her lips or her books, some of the poem comes from an Artist Statement I wrote for a solo show in 2005)

Whistler (click to hear the poem read)

Her ‘greatest terror which is simply domesticity’ with its denial of liberty
Struggling with feminism: ‘their language, like their bodies, was a dreadful hybrid’
Tyranny was a death sentence, via lethal injection, to her volition
For one who’s ‘passionately interested in language’, her display monumentally erudite
An engagement in the broader world, in an expansive psyche
Within her I recognize genius, incandescent purpose, need, here is my encomia

Prizes line up to offer formal encomia
Each reinforcing and elaborating her intellectual liberty
‘I like to write about people who think, to whom thinking is as important and exciting (and painful) as sex or eating’ in full embrace of psyche
Admitting ‘writing is always so dangerous. It’s very destructive.’ a paradoxical hybrid
A concatenation of zoology, myth, dystopia, psychology, art, politics, ethics truly erudite
Displaying all the passions of mind within her volition

‘She would give anything for a child and had duly given birth to a monster’, this volition
A half-hedgehog half-boy, an ugly creature, hardly her desired encomia
Whom she fed just the same, coddled, and loved for his mind, agile and erudite
Suckling on, then weaned, speaking the half-breed language of liberty
Embracing his role as an evolutionary hybrid
Evolving, Eros to Psyche

‘Structures of authority, of persecution, of hierarchy’ excised from the psyche
All these things ‘which led to oppression’ in a great caving of volition
Were cast aside, power a twisted, engineered hybrid
He’s ‘a naturally pessimistic animal’ leery of encomia
Who set out into the world to define his liberty
Circumnavigating, investigating, experiencing all distilled to become more erudite

Encountering Whistlers, bird women, their ‘feather words and skin words grown into each other’ his sight is erudite
Singing and whistling in a cacophony emitting from the dual psyche
They had been banished, pariah, for their desire and seizing of liberty
Each act of will now a strained volition
‘We wanted the speed and danger of the wind’ the Artic Tern sang our encomia
Twinning dualities longing to be whole or at least embrace multiplicity, no vile hybrid

I hear this echo in in my painting language, a hybrid
Where I spin ambiguity and chaos in a sphere of erudite
Possibilities, pluralism, and paradox not garnering encomia
But pain, confusion, a language unclear, but of the psyche
Birthed from my own volition
An unshackled liberty

Encomium is not a purpose for art, it is a bastard hybrid
Liberty oppressed to the sick purpose of an erudite
Psyche that panders to ambition’s deadly volition

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