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The Journey to the West

Though we journey to the West We pray to the East More or less that's the way Each day begins and ends It’s a tale everyone ...

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Ode to Picasso's Ageless Embrace

One fine
Chelsea morning
In May
Trekking along
The sunny side
We encountered
Yellow blossoms

Westerly we progressed
Placing a wisp or two
In the air
Behind the Christ Church
Drawn towards
A vision of
Late in life truth

I asked – do you remember –
Walking into
Gagosian first --
Standing in front of the
Blue black winged starling –
I asked if you could solve the riddle
Of the inner-most sanctum

And then we stumbled
And found ourselves
Before Theban gates
Reading a text
Chromatic
Of dream texture and
Pointing generally towards

Two spirits of single flesh
Oedipus and the Sphinx combined
In chalky Mediterranean light
A unifying vision of
The bicameral mind
Seen through the lenses
Of a compound eye

Cubism
To higher power
Brought
Beyond the
Limits of mere frame
Each image composed
Of constituent parts
Yet selves themselves
Wrought by
Greater devising
Onto another plane

So pictures form clusters
And clusters form vines
And in this way
The world in its entirety
Climbs and entwines
In the mind
Of the aging Master

Arthritic in his studio
but unsubdued
By spirit of sparagamos
deeply infused
While obsessively retracing
the steps of
Les pas a deux
Of contrasting pairs

Like Maestro
Emerging from
Behind the easel
Only to find Monstro
Standing proud
Upon the stairs

And in the Gallery last
Suggestive of
Valedictory task
The Iberian Adam
And his loose limbed madam
Disport in utter abandon
Grappling without repose

Let peace everlasting
Be good and be damned
For genius notwithstanding
There's not a moment to lose
For losing oneself
In heedless embrace
Thus reaching a place
Beyond understanding

Where we may discover
The imperishable truth
Of you residing in me
While uncovering as no less true
Me deep inside of you


Thursday, August 20, 2009

From Whence the Urge Comes

One day while at play
Jack Dorsey suddenly
Felt distraught from
His good friends
Too long parted
Without knowledge
Of what path
They pursued

Through this labyrinth
He wielded labrys aloft
And with inner eye atwitter
He deftly brought forth
First thought of a network
At one stroke full formed
Of such enduring kind
Built on the glitter
Of social instinct

A status check
Around the net
To let each chime in
According her own means
About whatever she might be
Seeing and doing

From Athenian birth
Of this type
To prototype
Without pause or
Discouragement
Twitter soon outgrew
Obvious beginnings
Taking shape as
A mystery cult
Overleaping
All bounds
Celebrating
Species mastery
Over our own worst devices

Moment to moment
We worship in this
Virtual shrine
Perched atop
The world of clutter
Offering up libations
In a stream of perpetual chatter

Demoting and
Promoting the
The very need to speak
In manner both sublime
And ridiculous

From prologue to coda
140 characters at a time
We run the gauntlet
Of packet signals
Streaming to oblivion

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Ode Composed on a Wireless Device

Fresh words unfurl
Out the front door
Down 28th Street
Two leashes in one hand
Moving westward
Briefly pausing for
The bend and the scoop
And the subsequent grasp
Of poop-bag deftly stashed

And the hurried return
To the representational task
Ever leaning leftward
Through midtown grid
By method oblique
With life-force inferred
From words overheard
In the street

Hey anybody got a cigarette
On 7th Avenue turn
To meet the next mind storm
As the nameless man complains
About the mosquito swarm

I’m like a crooked cop
On foot patrol of
Fame’s outer precinct
Prone to thievery
Of the sidewalk
Sights and sounds
And thus well grounded
By a steadying beat

With benign intent
But slightly indiscrete
Observant of the cleft
Mother tongue
And fingers adept
At wireless pit a pat

A walk around the block
Is far from a random thing
So filled with the sense
Of a positive return
Now an accomplished fact
Thoughts wrapping round
For the click and send
In six stanzas complete

--------------------------

Monday, August 10, 2009

Into the Polymer Sea

From Long Beach slip
The post-modern Magellan
Sails forth in fiberglass ship
Steering for the very heart
Of the Polymer Sea

Athwart the bow the midshipman
Stands on lookout for strange wonders
Boat hook in hand
Lancing into crystalline waters
Bringing forth baggies and bottle caps
And strands of a household mop
Splayed jellyfish style

Water so clear yet filled to the brim
With sun and salt bleached plastic
Stretching a thousand nautical miles
In the confluence of currents
Where blue whales once lazily sported

Longing to encounter a creature
By happenstance or selection
Fit to the niche
Of the plentiful Styrofoam bits
Oh Brave New World
So rich in appearance
Of discard broad on open waters
Rendered sterile and featureless

Thus Charles Moore journeys
Into the means of the end
Of the known world
Where plastic slowly loses its grip
Cajoled by wind and tide
Into diminishment

When comes the midshipman’s cry
At first sight of small atoll
A mere silicone fleck
In the sparkling sea
Dropping anchor and wading ashore
Moore proudly plants
Civilization’s flag on pristine strand
Only to discover beneath his feet
The blight once more

For the world entire on which he stands
Is Exxon’s answer to Murano glass
Crunching lively under tread while
Smoothed and shimmering
In South Pacific glare
He’s come aground
On thermoplastic
And so have we

Saturday, August 1, 2009

In the Portland Hotel

In the Portland hotel
Feeling oh so fare thee well
Blowing smoke in our midst
We tumbled astraddle
Both one and another

And we rattled the bed
Making love with a twist
Until quite suddenly
The world took a sinister shift

Though we remained
Undaunted and only burrowed
Deeper into the sheets
As if centrifugal force
Drew us closer together
At last falling asunder
We found untroubled sleep

Thus coming into possession
Of unexpected bliss
Through an almost unnoticed
Rift in space-time
A moment quite
Unpretentious
And yet marked
By a deeper design

When energy without
The slightest warning
Embarked us on
A new path forward
Thus finding limerence
Through episodic reversal
And sea change besides

To which we in good turn
Would grow quite accustomed
Bringing forth a quantum
From the daily crumb
So that recto or verso
We’d get on with our lives
More deeply committed
To mundane tasks
Yet forever on the brink
Of the oracular