To begin ...

As the twentieth century fades out
the nineteenth begins
.......................................again
it is as if nothing happened
though those who lived it thought
that everything was happening
enough to name a world for & a time
to hold it in your hand
unlimited.......the last delusion
like the perfect mask of death

Monday, August 22, 2011

John Martone: Magicicada spp.

Even if little boys in play
shd use a piece of grass or wood or a brush
or perhaps a fingernail
to draw an image of the Buddha
such persons as these
bit by bit will pile up merit
and will become fully endowed with a mind of great compassion;
they all have attained the Buddha way.
The buddha’s relics will circulate widely
 --The Lotus Sutra

HD 10180, a yellow dwarf star like our own Sun, had five planets detected by the HARPS (High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher) programme at the European Southern Observatory. … Two further planets were discovered in the system towards the end of 2010, making it the most-populated planetary system to date.
 --BBC 0ct 1, 2008

it’s another
planet now
cicadas

*

cicada shell’s my amulet cerebrum

 *

must be
same gene

tells you
get
out of

yrself
cicada

*
 yr shell — my shell —
cicada
kayak

*

cicada shell
kayak too this
bottomless lake

*

little
boat

on that
sea

lucky
drowning!

*

every bit of you comes out cicada

*

lonely mobs
13-year
cicadas

*

in my undershirt
examining
cicada molts

*

13 year
cicada — what gets
reborn?

*

cicada molt my skin color

*

cicadas
termites

how much longer
being human 

*

cicada — millions
never knowing
one another

*

cicada millions
an ocean
full of whales

*

bumbling down
this road one more
cicada

*

cicadas die
legs drawn up
so human

*

mulberries of course there’s a stain

*

cicadas & mulberries equal in number

*

ci
cada
wings

maple
keys—

& still
this

air
remains

*

cicadas
falling

out of
sky

all those
people

*

imago
instar
nymph
which are you?

*

sky’s
one
big

eye
glass
lens

*

o cicada
you’ve no
eyelids

*

knowing
what youre
about —
catastrophe

*

rusting — ruins
surrounding
the pea plants

*

                        
peas really climbing now — youre out of sticks        

*

bare wood shack
cabbages
taking shape

*

get out
of yr head
sketching cabbages

*

old clothespins
all those lives
outdoors

*

electrical box --
there's yr opening
wrens

*

thunder
he pulls up
his socks

*

tar paper roof
trellises
filling up

*

all
youwant

to be
one

dragon
fly
wing

*

little kitchen
you get all
the light

*

elbows
on a wood table
solo

*
                                                                 wood table old friend
a bread-
&-
butter

solo
life

*

bare kitchen counters
& the radio
off

*

raining
it’s a glass
bowl

*

ten-year-
old
bamboo

knows
the trick’s

to root
in
water
*
                                           another raccoon you scrub a pear

*
dish
towels

fold
ed

*

under-sink
cabinet
won’t stay shut

*

you wash
yr spoon

& brush
yr teeth

*

come spring
the mice forsake
this little kitchen

*

in
the right
light
you
dis
appear

--june 2011

[This is the third set of poems by John Martone to appear in Poems and Poetics. On publishing the first set, “geometry,” & again for the second set, "presence of all colors," I wrote: “[Martone] remains throughout our greatest living miniaturist -- his art a scaled-down work of nearly epic dimensions,” an appraisal I think that continues to be the case today.  (For a fuller accounting see the "geometry" posting, August 18, 2010.)]

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

that's pretty darn precise : "[...] our greatest living
miniaturist -- [...] of [...] epic dimensions,"

few take an heed of the give-away lesson John teaches

Conrad DiDiodato said...

I couldn't agree more!

When will the "miniaturists" get their day?