memory is a horse
drawing reigns
through the snow
myriad threads
of retrocausality
converging
mathematical
model predicated
on chaos
mind traces
a divergent
illusion of absence
melody haunting
blue interstices
of imagination
motion creates
waves of substance
woven in spacetime
this poem is a wormhole,
a dimensional shift, an anarchy,
a nonexistent thing asserting itself
there is no inherent orientation in outer space
only an expanding universe, accelerating
a phantom energy driven expanse
illuminating a bestiary of metamorphosis
nebulous, interchangeable creatures
viewed from subsuming positions
encoding a matrix of symbols
laciniate selves emerging
from the mysteries of geminating galaxies
supernovas of nuclear fusion transmutation
———- birthing and destroying ————–
a disorientation at the event horizon
terminating in elegant effigies ingloriously askew
amidst the gracile lines demarcating existence
metaphrastic missives from dark energy
an unraveling poetic exegeses
it is unknowable and unseen
dancing these helical truths
pneumatological enigmas of stochastic intimacy
in an explosion of probability theory
systematic errors of passion
improbable actions inventing equations
expressed by carbon fueled mouths
digressions of regurgitated sense impressions
from a finite point in space
picturesque idioms torn asunder
by the slings and arrows of a native tongue,
lightening that tears at the veil
constructs and deconstructs perplexities
that tremble with human sensibilities
Derrida’s post-structuralism
exposes and undermines the oppositions
hierarchies and paradoxes:
signifier/signified; sensible/intelligible;
writing/speech; passivity/activity
liquid modernity’s tentative position
cloud construction of identity
which imagines a neutral mode
of writing (existing)
veridical paradoxes, congeries of the strange,
margin notes and shadow expressions
cantos in the wilderness without compass points
husk and kernel unite
unsaying every word
in indented continuations
cave paintings and charcoal outlines
of the same lamentation
all artifacts of the passion:
Kierkegaard’s desire to discover something
that thought itself cannot think
ancient pearls embedded in glacial time
these round numinous volumes,
clay surfaces formed of pounded stardust
howling waterfalls of half-life elements unwinding
constructs in the fourth dimension
curved space departing Euclidean geometry
threshold frequency erects the base
a foundry of hollow spaces
where precept and concept unify
an intentional dementia
impenetrable fortress of subjectivity
mastery and transgression merged
into something perpetually
lost in translation
aleatory insights resounding
in a multiplication of caesuras
semantic slippage and resolution
birthed in unimaginable articulations
accretion of allusions weighing upon poetry
morphing electroacoustic transducer
interrupts echolocation, dislocatingting
signifier from its denotata,
disrupting the patterns of semantic relationships
speech acts like a convoluted telekinesis
positing thought invents language
superflat eye disfigures
this universe of enactments as
poetry collapses, excises novelistic tendencies
so poets become geometers of dismemberment
lacerating with erotic precision
spinning an elaborate manifesto:
produce without possession
envision freedom from rationality
educe a contradistinction
gather the cipher and the subtext
and integrate a secret sharing scheme
excel but do not lead your thoughts
breathe, decrypt the psychological schemas
act without premeditated expectation
be the paradox of noise within the silence
assimilate the workings of the universe
puzzle out an esemplastic theorem
unlock strategies of liberation
allow entropy to overpower existence
be an echo in the caverns, stealthily passing,
an imperfect processor with selection bias
questing for an oracle of algorithms,
embody a fading murmur, trace the interstices,
become a ghastly literalness of absence –
all states are possible in the end
NOTES: This was written for my Meeting the Bar: Wild Beasts prompt at dVerse.
An open letter to the Beats:
to you who are anathematic to propriety
constantly risking absurdity
killing our darlings!!!
ambitiously invoking a new vision
you monsters that dance upon our graves
in pyrotechnic hallucinogenic gyrations
scored by DJs from another galaxy
decked out in divinely comedic glow paints
you who dive bomb our discourses
like fuck is a neologism of your own devising
rattling and tearing down cages of perception
unleashing amphetamine pumped diction
cartwheeling descriptors of obscene nature
you who jump jive a dirty boogie
and get all up in our lexical junk
honestly, we, the venerated few of the dead poets society,
blame you for all this foul-mouthed, Piss Christ postmodernism
for turning poetry into a god forsaken jumble sale
in the name of liberty or revolution or adolescent angst
you killed Kenny and refuse to respect our authority!!!
please consider this your death threat, hate mail,
anthrax-laced, redacted funding letter from the NEA
your kick to the curb or the road or whatever
rock you crawled out from under, stoned,
because we’re not gonna take it anymore!!!
Note: I had a bit of tongue in cheek fun with Gay’s fantastic prompt on the Beat Poets at dVerse.
Olivier de Sagazan
for David Chamberlain, Jr.
(inspired by his series of
Labyrinth poems)
here in the wilderness
encountering my fierce nature
thoughts lignify into woodcuts
thousands of barren landscapes
inculcating a melancholic picture
odd trees with finger thin branches
veiled in snow, grasping at the sky
painting blue stars in an empty heaven
I mourn what is irretrievably lost
something raw and enigmatic
written in my cathexis of longing
awash in an inaccessibility of meaning
I writhe sideways like an angry cobra
forming chalk outlines of the labyrinth
liquid mind streaming in slumber
an emulsion of ether, untethered
sands around me shift, amnesiac
creating fragments of identity masks
that reveal dreamtime spent in a desert
chasing my Minotaur shadow
there in the darkness I meet a Seer
who prophesizes my true nature
chained, I walk with two spirits
sorrow and pain expressing
nightshades of unborn ruin
I am merely the center-point
King Theseus of this lost tribe
ragged wanderer in exile
painting symbols in blood
a sediment of iconography
upon the walls of history
until Ariadne arrives like a mirage
finds me in the dreamworld maze
haunting the zero hour, engaged
in games of ritualistic sacrifice
and deftly cauterizes my wound
her sacred arts of magic
secure my inerasable love
offering an orgiastic thread,
triune passport to paradise
a string of beautiful words
creating an utterly pure tale
to reconstruct the mythic life
of my glorious and terrible wings
Wikipedia Commons
In memoriam for Dave King
‘I am writing a novel
in which no one speaks . . .
every one of my characters
moves like a shadow . . .
As of now, chapters ten,
and to a lesser extent,
maybe, eleven,
seem quite unpenable.’
written by Dave King, excerpts
from WAR AND PEACEfulness
I. Alasdair MacIntyre and Isaiah Berlin will engage in a civilized debate of moral philosophy and value pluralism in the divinely lit library of the hereafter
while it seems improbable
that the two will ever
arrive at the Answer,
hidden within the firestick,
their agreeable natures
ensure a kind exchange
and mutual respect
(as ours did)
II. Postmodern experimentalism encounters a fine intellect and a dashing wit
not only did he meet the bar
he vaulted it rather spryly
III. Anything can happen
unfortunately, it often does
cancerously and suddenly
IV. Stendal, Joyce, Hypatia, Riker, and Woolf toast his life by writing an eternity of allusions
words are like magic,
scintilla, igniting the soul’s spark
Plato’s divine spark longing
to unite with ever more
transcendent forms of beauty
Hypatia approaches the door
only those who’ve transitioned
may enter, opening a gateway,
releasing the fiery cries of seraphs
(I will meet you in the liminal
threshold between your faith
and my fractured metaphysics)
her radical eye encounters his pneuma
perhaps a whisper of which
will live a little here in the poem
as an act of remembrance
V. The consummate performance artist mourns the poet
you walked alongside us
desiring a dream of arctic skies
and ice floes captured in verse
now silk enrobed traces of your artistry
float by, a music, ever passing
as your gentle voice is lost to the wind
Book with Wings by Anselm Kiefer
‘The aim of science is to make difficult things understandable
in a simpler way; the aim of poetry is to state simple things
in an incomprehensible way. The two are incompatible.’*
I exist in the abstract vector (impure) space
between the mortal and the divine
within this night of broken glass
where there are no mutually exclusive states
in a profound paradox encapsulated
by a series of spectral lines
superluminal small heavens (within)
embodying the nature of light
restless remnant of a tattered whole
(oracle) of four dimension spacetime notation
carrying a universal wound of broken stories
in my native tongue, mathematics
imaginary world of leaden transformation
an enchanted map leading me on a path
between genius and madness
antimatter colliding in a book with wings
(space & time)/(momentum & energy)
coexisting potential alchemical matrices
uncertain relations in superposition
oscillating ash of solitude and union
*Paul Dirac
let’s make a corporate baby
white collar sex crime to
become Gods of limited liability,
conceptual artist creators
launch a Kickstarter campaign
to attract early angel investors
book him his own reality show
with a recurring cast of characters
imagine a secret R&D department
Google’s gonna solve death
but who’s covering life
in 24/7 high def wish fulfillment
he’ll command the stage with all
the rights & privileges of a real boy
Enron asks us: ‘Why, asshole?’
to explore what it feels like
(from the inside) to be wealthy,
entitled, and largely immune,
reliving every boy’s wet dream:
to be the King of Versailles
join the nouveau-riche yacht club
arrive in style in a Embraer Phenom 300
he’ll be the top of his Ivy league class in a
burgeoning (oc)cult of accumulation
we’ll reenact hostile takeovers of legend
(exotic dancers will party at the mansion)
he’ll cum on fraud-laden, creative,
quarterly reports until he just can’t do it anymore
sparking corporate espionage in far-away places
off shore accounts to sink a nation
(all in the name of performance art)
super star risk takers of global proportions
A chorus of stones
(eternal echoes)
the unconsoled
sacred pleasure
after virtue
the sacred and profane love machine
of human bondage
scar tissue
(half-life)
elegy
writing subtext
warped passages
a language older than words
the secret language of symbols
ways of seeing
(after mountains and sea)
heaven and earth
the immense journey
silence & solitude
(erosion)
where there is no name for art
the inheritance of loss
unfolding meaning
(passions of the mind)
possessing the secret of joy
the architecture of happiness
Created for dVerse Poets Pub FFA on spine or sorted-book poetry.
Ai Weiwei
he creates an underground black book
covert artist communication device
white, grey covers with adventurous
distribution (psst- gallery goers)
‘wanna incite the subversion
of state power?’ only eleven years
in prison – hooligan tactics to
counter sanctioned criminal acts
Sichuan earthquake topples tofu construction
in a cover up of her seven happy years
child victims dismembered by indifference
mauled and devalued into a state secret
making mourning subversive
police beat propaganda into the skull
of a poet’s son who turns technology
against them – fuck the motherland
this revolution will be twitterized
in Beijing, Mao Chow the cat opens a door
but never closes it behind him
slinking through a surveillance state
exhibiting an uncooperative attitude
a ghost passes him on the street
whispering the names of children
in an act of remembrance
Jade werejaguar mask of the Olmecs
mercurial volcanic ash
disintegrates the constructs
of permanence,
scarring the landscape
wind collides with the world tree
marking the cardinal directions
we are shaken about
beaten by life and one another
untethered from identity
in the borderlands of cyberspace
I became a shape shifting supernatural,
an apparitional avatar
arboreal hunter, spirit guide,
constellations imprinted upon my pelage
I prowl the numinous threshold
to the home of the spirits
ravens guard the branches
draw the edges of death
scream warnings and watch me
bloody my pelt on thorns
wounds of my animal form
create caves to the underworld
I am wise and foolish, powerful and weak
never capable of being otherwise
psychic scars form the light
witnessed through the veil
I reveal my ancestors and progeny
my dream time chameleonic nature
jungle dwelling dangers
find exorcism in expression
liberate my vulnerability
inspire your intentions
you coax me from the treetops
dispel my debt of gratitude
salve my Godsmitten paw
unite us in shamanic ecstasy
Jaguar (public domain)
I’m an Executive Director with a doctorate in education, a consultant, painter, photographer, composer, poet, and vocalist.
Chromapoetica 