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

Friday, September 15, 2017

Rochelle Owens: From “Solarpoetics” (continued) 12-15


[Writes Owens of her new masterwork: “[In the order of the letters of the alphabet I am making use in these poems of a system of mental relations which by the act of writing becomes the poem, a cosmic meditation.”]

Vulnerable Flesh Eater

12

And of the volume of bread
eighty percent is empty space

*

The letter L  a right angle
walk down a street
step by step blood pushes
to the surface     
 
On your tongue  a metallic taste

Flour and water
yellow  sulfurous  a plume
of smoke  I strolled in wind  cold
and heat 

Drifting geometries 

Between victim and executioner 
T H E   R U I N S C A P E
the eyes move constantly while
reading body of data
 

13

Networks of neurons organize themselves 
chemical  molecular

*

The letter M vibrates in
the earth hums the rhythm 
of  spontaneous
change

Animal hole  spiritual soul 

Slapping flying insects
Insects far and near
spiritual hole 
animal soul
  
A secret tribal language

Work is a binding obligation  focus
on a common scene  a plume
of smoke  bread baking
butchery


14

Microbes in a petri dish
a method of colonizing and dispersing

*

The letter N  remembers 
once upon a time 
on the sea bed  strange
scars

A black line zigzags

Zones of inclusion  exclusion
the reading brain  eyes
moving constantly
pinpoint

A selected shape

A circle  a hole  a fat fold
of the abdomen  a breast vein
as thick as a finger 
A loaf of bread


15

All the letters are in nature 
the forms that our cortex chooses

*

The letter O is a hole
that engulfs  consumes  gut 
head and tail  one
animal

The pit of mayhem

Out of the digital age
a set of skills in sequential order
body of data  data
the body

Rhythmic the flow of hormonal forces

Edible the heart  tongue
and  liver  sings the poet maudite
salt  for the stew  salt
for the bread

[Earlier sections of Solarpoetics appear here and here on Poems and Poetics.]

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