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.]