With One Step at least one mind always open checking out is checking in, time for your elation growth is seldom symmetrical, ticking as I warm with bulbs between my feet, networked so I can fly when my arm’s a world away, a 65 beetle for a bracelet a city where you don’t have to go outside, borealis in a glass, with my contacts everything’s black & white how decisions are mass-produced—you have to know who to ask I’m living…
ANY DAY RAY Celebrating Beat poet Ray Bremser (1934–1998) You’ve riveted the swivel-mirror with your reigning game of breakup. Battered eggs renege a second helping. Saps refute the gluey music. I’m brothels to a thistle. I’m bootlicks from obeying. Enter Bremser where the neon adman bellows, brandishing his tawny beard. “Kindly time your leap for cheap theatrics!” Affordable a cordless drill, of tumbling wombs now doubly whisked to kiss the nipple. Prison schism scatters rags, as vines climb the mended…
Mantra Why should the phrase “Nothing is hidden” occur ten times a day in my private mumbling? I have no gospel but poems; it’s used in several I know, but in error: no one is watching. Granted, whenever one buys or types something one is oneself a product or potential threat; but those keeping tabs aren’t the viewer I imply. He, it sees nothing; no one does. Yet the data accumulates, and whether its proper metaphor is topsoil or a…
Mirage II Perception is a trap door in the sky So they said As they dragged And crawled O’er burning deserts And rain-soaked fields On their way into the black Into night as day as night For gold and roses were there Just over there Just over The blue horizon Twice blessed, they believed But my songs differed Twice blessed! they cried But my paintings were oblique Jazz Crooned Swing Shimmied Blues found Wooden kimonos For five Then six No…
Spinozablue welcomes new poetry by S.R. Brown, Stephen Mead, and Duane Anderson. Secular monasteries of the mind. Byzantine, Gothic, Romanesque ruins of the unconscious. I dwell in the space between ancient walls, vaulted ceilings, piazzas, and naves, bereft of their original spirits, inhabited now by something else. By my own pantheon — if I could will it. Watching Verhoeven’s Benedetta brings this full circle. Searching later for monasteries and abbeys online, going back to scenes from that film, I can…
THE SIBYL (Lagerkvist, P. The Sibyl. Translated by Walford, N. Vol. V-240. New York, NY: Vintage Books, 1958) I – P 1 (pinioned within the (ancient (sibyl (god’s (her son’s unchanging (smile)) touched)) rocks) heights) Sun: II – P 3-5 gazes ((below, (maelstrom (of rocks. (serene (white (the bridal)): temple)) above) the city) son). III – P 7-10 Threading the path (mirrored, mazed,( (the sibylline focus) raveling unfocused intent,) reflecting an intricate silence) uncreating prophecy: IV – P 10-14 thorn…
Keeping Open An idiot’s delight, (What, not dead yet?) Mutterings, the daily scales practiced sometimes (—Who you dancing with?) get carried away. Joy swims upward. The face is raised, throwing off husks, gritty earth, the strain of sighs pushing forth (—here, here it is) the sunflower sky. Work, work… I’m amazed the further I plunge the more launch happens: morning birds or the midnight Carillon… (—Is that you in there?) Knock, knock , .. the heart aflutter wings keep opening:…
In the Eyes of a Worm The saying goes “The early bird gets the worm”, but that only happens to the ones who get up late. The ones who are smart like me set five alarm clocks, five reminders to wake up before the bird. In the Eyes of a Corn Fed Pig You may think I have no manners, but it is you with none. Oh, the mess you create with all your dirty dishes, pots and pans….
Reconnecting with an old flame I admire your ability to turn revolution into a job in the desert with the good lighting and a good grasp of calculated endangerment An easy laugh with a terminal glottal catch is what I live to affect – personalization sounds good behavioral conquest sounds good also as long as I wear the nitrile glove I admire your calm here at the end a knowing cover for a freak-out luxuriating in the killing sun Self-actualization…
Sleepless, I Wander Out Sleepless I wander out into the moon’s hallway, a silver corridor with many doors, all shut, all quiet. Behind one of them, perhaps, you too are pacing in a small chamber, trailing the smoke of a dream behind you. In each of your footsteps starlight pools on the carpet, its design and patterns curling like vines around your ankles, their tendrils kissing your ankles, trying to hold you – I could tell them that you are…