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

Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Rochelle Owens: Hermaphropoetics/Longing


Sculpture by Eugen von
Bruenchenhein (1910-1983)
as shown in Outsider Art
exhibit at Philadelphia
Museum of Art, 2013
In a dream
of a hermaphrodite
in silhouette 

slender and elongated 

a hermaphrodite

shimmering in scene after scene

staged and scripted
out of a lost narrative 

discovered after the siege
longing thrown onto the body

an asymmetrical form
hyperfeminine  hypermasculine

collecting and sorting
chicken bones  turkey bones
exquisite the beaks and feet

organizing bones

lovely the pigeon bones
sculpted  delicate

gothic cathedrals
shimmering in scene after scene

the shape of vertebrae
rising from a postapocalyptic pit

the waves of the Atlantic crash 

the RUINSCAPE disappearing

then the LANDSCAPE yielding forth
dandelion  yielding forth

lemon trees  strawberry
hibiscus  mango  goose grass
pomegranate

leaves spreading  undulating
secreting mucus  nectar

amorous the greedy seed amorous
covetous the warring roots

murderous sex cells
hypermasculine  hyperfeminine

hungry the fruiting bodies
swallowing the prey

the waves of the Atlantic crash

In a dream of a hermaphrodite
wanting to starve

wanting to devour heat and light
eating a scoop of sand

organizing skull  wishbone  femur
assembling  structuring

gables  spires  parapets
lancet arches  flying buttress
rib vaults

graceful the flowing tracery

a hermaphrodite
sculpting angels  prophets  kings
gargoyles  saints

shimmering in scene after scene
the shape of vertebrae
rising from a postapocalyptic pit

[note.  This is the fourth installment of Rochelle Owens’ ongoing work, Hermaphropoetics, to be presented on Poems and Poetics.  Of the series as a whole she writes: “Rare but real. Accidents of art and nature in which the senses entwine. Hermaphropoetics, a series of poems inspired by spores, fruiting bodies, rupture, comfort with the rottenness.  Metamorphoses, irregular sprouting of new neurological connections leads to the process of writing and living.  Poetic meanings that lay in wait underground.”  The proof of course is in the work itself. (J.R.)] 

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