April 19, 2011. Alone in the dark, farewell Gulf Shores.
30 Prose Poems in 30 Days: Five - The Emperor
The Emperor
His every cloven footprint is a shadow memory of when he was a man. The undulatus clouds are rippling in the cross winds like beach sand under the currents of ocean water. He sighs, sniffs the wind for the woman's scent. His animal life has become space enough to live in.
His every cloven footprint is a shadow memory of when he was a man. The undulatus clouds are rippling in the cross winds like beach sand under the currents of ocean water. He sighs, sniffs the wind for the woman's scent. His animal life has become space enough to live in.
30 Prose Poems in Thirty Days: Four - The Empress
The Empress
The woman is so unspeakably exhausted she has forgotten her old life as if each memory slipped easily through a seive and was absorbed by hungry foreign soil. The faint echo of a child's voice still fills her ear no matter how many times she swats the insect buzz away. A claw of cirrus clouds have strafed jagged white tears through the sky's ocean blue. She has walked through enough days and nights to observe the moon wax and wane, completely dissapear then reemerge. Early into her journey, the laced leather shoes unhinged themselves at the seams and slid carelessly from her ankles until she stopped momentarily to tear strips from her underskirt and bind the shoes to her feet like bandaged dressings. Her hair hangs loose like an oiled snake down her back. She regrets the stays she abandoned days back, thinks of the boning she could fashion to tip her arrows. Her dogs baying at the edge of a meadow announce danger or the discovery of a strange scent. The dogs are circling a stag, snarling and snapping at its muscled legs. The animal is menacing her pack with his impressive antlers. It is only a matter of time, she thinks and is suddenly overwheled with a feeling of peace and a strong desire to sleep. She lies down in a fairy circle of heather and begins to dream. Mother! Her mother emerges from the ground wearing a crown of wheat. Her arms are filled with pomegranates. She is smiling. When the woman awakes, her dogs lie nearby, their bloodstained jaws slack in slumber. She can feel him watching from a distance. She knows she must wait, still.
The woman is so unspeakably exhausted she has forgotten her old life as if each memory slipped easily through a seive and was absorbed by hungry foreign soil. The faint echo of a child's voice still fills her ear no matter how many times she swats the insect buzz away. A claw of cirrus clouds have strafed jagged white tears through the sky's ocean blue. She has walked through enough days and nights to observe the moon wax and wane, completely dissapear then reemerge. Early into her journey, the laced leather shoes unhinged themselves at the seams and slid carelessly from her ankles until she stopped momentarily to tear strips from her underskirt and bind the shoes to her feet like bandaged dressings. Her hair hangs loose like an oiled snake down her back. She regrets the stays she abandoned days back, thinks of the boning she could fashion to tip her arrows. Her dogs baying at the edge of a meadow announce danger or the discovery of a strange scent. The dogs are circling a stag, snarling and snapping at its muscled legs. The animal is menacing her pack with his impressive antlers. It is only a matter of time, she thinks and is suddenly overwheled with a feeling of peace and a strong desire to sleep. She lies down in a fairy circle of heather and begins to dream. Mother! Her mother emerges from the ground wearing a crown of wheat. Her arms are filled with pomegranates. She is smiling. When the woman awakes, her dogs lie nearby, their bloodstained jaws slack in slumber. She can feel him watching from a distance. She knows she must wait, still.
National Poetry Month 2011: Einstein Defining Special Relativity - A. Van Jordan
Einstein Defining Special Relativity
A. Van Jordan
INSERT SHOT: Einstein’s notebook 1905—DAY 1: a theory that is based on two postulates (a) that the speed of light in all inertial frames is constant, independent of the source or observer. As in, the speed of light emitted from the truth is the same as that of a lie coming from the lamp of a face aglow with trust, and (b) the laws of physics are not changed in all inertial systems, which leads to the equivalence of mass and energy and of change in mass, dimension, and time; with increased velocity, space is compressed in the direction of the motion and time slows down. As when I look at Mileva, it’s as if I’ve been in a space ship traveling as close to the speed of light as possible, and when I return, years later, I’m younger than when I began the journey, but she’s grown older, less patient. Even a small amount of mass can be converted into enormous amounts of energy: I’ll whisper her name in her ear, and the blood flows like a mallet running across vibes. But another woman shoots me a flirting glance, and what was inseparable is now cleaved in two.
A. Van Jordan
INSERT SHOT: Einstein’s notebook 1905—DAY 1: a theory that is based on two postulates (a) that the speed of light in all inertial frames is constant, independent of the source or observer. As in, the speed of light emitted from the truth is the same as that of a lie coming from the lamp of a face aglow with trust, and (b) the laws of physics are not changed in all inertial systems, which leads to the equivalence of mass and energy and of change in mass, dimension, and time; with increased velocity, space is compressed in the direction of the motion and time slows down. As when I look at Mileva, it’s as if I’ve been in a space ship traveling as close to the speed of light as possible, and when I return, years later, I’m younger than when I began the journey, but she’s grown older, less patient. Even a small amount of mass can be converted into enormous amounts of energy: I’ll whisper her name in her ear, and the blood flows like a mallet running across vibes. But another woman shoots me a flirting glance, and what was inseparable is now cleaved in two.
The Coffee Project - April 16-19, 2011
April 19, 2011. Last day on the deck in Alabama.
April 18, 2011. Pat in pj's morning at the Bay house.
Crocodile breakfast.
April 16, 2011. Breakfast with the gals in Gulf Shores, Alabama.
National Poetry Month 2011: The Prose Poem - Campbell McGrathh
The Prose Poem
Campbell McGrath
On the map it is precise and rectilinear as a chessboard, though driving past you would hardly notice it, this boundary line or ragged margin, a shallow swale that cups a simple trickle of water, less rill than rivulet, more gully than dell, a tangled ditch grown up throughout with a fearsome assortment of wildflowers and bracken. There is no fence, though here and there a weathered post asserts a former claim, strands of fallen wire taken by the dust. To the left a cornfield carries into the distance, dips and rises to the blue sky, a rolling plain of green and healthy plants aligned in close order, row upon row upon row. To the right, a field of wheat, a field of hay, young grasses breaking the soil, filling their allotted land with the rich, slow-waving spectacle of their grain. As for the farmers, they are, for the most part, indistinguishable: here the tractor is red, there yellow; here a pair of dirty hands, there a pair of dirty hands. They are cultivators of the soil. They grow crops by pattern, by acre, by foresight, by habit. What corn is to one, wheat is to the other, and though to some eyes the similarities outweigh the differences it would be as unthinkable for the second to commence planting corn as for the first to switch over to wheat. What happens in the gully between them is no concern of theirs, they say, so long as the plough stays out, the weeds stay in the ditch where they belong, though anyone would notice the wind-sewn cornstalks poking up their shaggy ears like young lovers run off into the bushes, and the kinship of these wild grasses with those the farmer cultivates is too obvious to mention, sage and dun-colored stalks hanging their noble heads, hoarding exotic burrs and seeds, and yet it is neither corn nor wheat that truly flourishes there, nor some jackalopian hybrid of the two. What grows in that place is possessed of a beauty all its own, ramshackle and unexpected, even in winter, when the wind hangs icicles from the skeletons of briars and small tracks cross the snow in search of forgotten grain; in the spring the little trickle of water swells to welcome frogs and minnows, a muskrat, a family of turtles, nesting doves in the verdant grass; in summer it is a thoroughfare for raccoons and opossums, field mice, swallows and black birds, migrating egrets, a passing fox; in autumn the geese avoid its abundance, seeking out windrows of toppled stalks, fatter grain more quickly discerned, more easily digested. Of those that travel the local road, few pay that fertile hollow any mind, even those with an eye for what blossoms, vetch and timothy, early forsythia, the fatted calf in the fallow field, the rabbit running for cover, the hawk's descent from the lightning-struck tree. You've passed this way yourself many times, and can tell me, if you would, do the formal fields end where the valley begins, or does everything that surrounds us emerge from its embrace?
Campbell McGrath
On the map it is precise and rectilinear as a chessboard, though driving past you would hardly notice it, this boundary line or ragged margin, a shallow swale that cups a simple trickle of water, less rill than rivulet, more gully than dell, a tangled ditch grown up throughout with a fearsome assortment of wildflowers and bracken. There is no fence, though here and there a weathered post asserts a former claim, strands of fallen wire taken by the dust. To the left a cornfield carries into the distance, dips and rises to the blue sky, a rolling plain of green and healthy plants aligned in close order, row upon row upon row. To the right, a field of wheat, a field of hay, young grasses breaking the soil, filling their allotted land with the rich, slow-waving spectacle of their grain. As for the farmers, they are, for the most part, indistinguishable: here the tractor is red, there yellow; here a pair of dirty hands, there a pair of dirty hands. They are cultivators of the soil. They grow crops by pattern, by acre, by foresight, by habit. What corn is to one, wheat is to the other, and though to some eyes the similarities outweigh the differences it would be as unthinkable for the second to commence planting corn as for the first to switch over to wheat. What happens in the gully between them is no concern of theirs, they say, so long as the plough stays out, the weeds stay in the ditch where they belong, though anyone would notice the wind-sewn cornstalks poking up their shaggy ears like young lovers run off into the bushes, and the kinship of these wild grasses with those the farmer cultivates is too obvious to mention, sage and dun-colored stalks hanging their noble heads, hoarding exotic burrs and seeds, and yet it is neither corn nor wheat that truly flourishes there, nor some jackalopian hybrid of the two. What grows in that place is possessed of a beauty all its own, ramshackle and unexpected, even in winter, when the wind hangs icicles from the skeletons of briars and small tracks cross the snow in search of forgotten grain; in the spring the little trickle of water swells to welcome frogs and minnows, a muskrat, a family of turtles, nesting doves in the verdant grass; in summer it is a thoroughfare for raccoons and opossums, field mice, swallows and black birds, migrating egrets, a passing fox; in autumn the geese avoid its abundance, seeking out windrows of toppled stalks, fatter grain more quickly discerned, more easily digested. Of those that travel the local road, few pay that fertile hollow any mind, even those with an eye for what blossoms, vetch and timothy, early forsythia, the fatted calf in the fallow field, the rabbit running for cover, the hawk's descent from the lightning-struck tree. You've passed this way yourself many times, and can tell me, if you would, do the formal fields end where the valley begins, or does everything that surrounds us emerge from its embrace?
30 Prose Poems in 30 Days: Three - The High Priestess
The High Priestess
Sparks from the fire pitch like smelted gold toward the embrace of the full moon. It is a cloudless night. The woman is no longer surprised to hear footsteps approaching her camp, but still reaches behind her to rest a hand on the familar curve of her bow and quiver. He emerges from the darkness surrounded by a pack of black dogs. She nods acceptance, and her guests settle around the fire. The dogs wait patiently for her to cut glistening strips from the spit, their dark eyes reflect streaming fire. She sees her image mirrored in the wells of his black eyes. She thinks to reach out and stroke his face, smooth his beard, trace her fingers along the ridges of his horns, but it is too soon to express her gratitude with such intimacy. There will be another moonlight night for this, another time after the dogs have returned from hunting, bringing her their fresh kills.
The Magician
The wind is speaking in a low voice through the small spaces between plaster and leaded glass. It's breath forces the thin cotton curtains to expand and bunch with each exhalation. She listens while stirring the contents of her large copper pot, one hip cocked in defiance. The wind is speaking. She taps the wooden spoon against the pot's lip and rests it, unwashed, on the nearby sideboard, tears her apron from her waist and leaves it where it falls. The door is battling against the wind's hard fist. The woman opens the door and the wind grasps her by the hair and flings her into the sky. She grows wings and flies along the rolling railway tracks of a radiatus cloud converging on the horizon.
The Fool
The sky is littered with the spent shells of small humilis clouds. It is a humble day, despite the boast of the afternoon sun. She is cooling herself under the wide expanse of shade the Russian Olive provides. Her feet are swollen and she has unfastened the leather laces and the top five buttons of her blouse. She is free of those she has left behind: the man and the sleeping child. She has been granted permission to step out of the life given her to stealth through alfalfa and wheat fields and alongside creeks swollen with mountain water. The mountains to the east still hold snow in their creases. She has not slept or eaten in three days. Bird chatter seems to her like a chorus chanted from a Greek tragedy. She remembers the stew and its potatoes and hank of pork she left simmering on the cook stove. The clouds remind her of the smoke symbols she read about in a book on the New World. She tries to decipher their meaning and finds in the bumpy cauliflower shapes a warning from the ghost of her mother.
Sparks from the fire pitch like smelted gold toward the embrace of the full moon. It is a cloudless night. The woman is no longer surprised to hear footsteps approaching her camp, but still reaches behind her to rest a hand on the familar curve of her bow and quiver. He emerges from the darkness surrounded by a pack of black dogs. She nods acceptance, and her guests settle around the fire. The dogs wait patiently for her to cut glistening strips from the spit, their dark eyes reflect streaming fire. She sees her image mirrored in the wells of his black eyes. She thinks to reach out and stroke his face, smooth his beard, trace her fingers along the ridges of his horns, but it is too soon to express her gratitude with such intimacy. There will be another moonlight night for this, another time after the dogs have returned from hunting, bringing her their fresh kills.
The Magician
The wind is speaking in a low voice through the small spaces between plaster and leaded glass. It's breath forces the thin cotton curtains to expand and bunch with each exhalation. She listens while stirring the contents of her large copper pot, one hip cocked in defiance. The wind is speaking. She taps the wooden spoon against the pot's lip and rests it, unwashed, on the nearby sideboard, tears her apron from her waist and leaves it where it falls. The door is battling against the wind's hard fist. The woman opens the door and the wind grasps her by the hair and flings her into the sky. She grows wings and flies along the rolling railway tracks of a radiatus cloud converging on the horizon.
The Fool
The sky is littered with the spent shells of small humilis clouds. It is a humble day, despite the boast of the afternoon sun. She is cooling herself under the wide expanse of shade the Russian Olive provides. Her feet are swollen and she has unfastened the leather laces and the top five buttons of her blouse. She is free of those she has left behind: the man and the sleeping child. She has been granted permission to step out of the life given her to stealth through alfalfa and wheat fields and alongside creeks swollen with mountain water. The mountains to the east still hold snow in their creases. She has not slept or eaten in three days. Bird chatter seems to her like a chorus chanted from a Greek tragedy. She remembers the stew and its potatoes and hank of pork she left simmering on the cook stove. The clouds remind her of the smoke symbols she read about in a book on the New World. She tries to decipher their meaning and finds in the bumpy cauliflower shapes a warning from the ghost of her mother.
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