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

Thursday, September 24, 2020

PATTERNS OF ANIMUS: A New Poem by Rochelle Owens

[For some years now, Rochelle Owens has been a regular contributor to Poems and Poetics & before that a key part of the poetry world which many of us have shared with her.  Of the power of her work, Marjorie Perloff has written: “… brilliantly inventive, immensely learned, sophisticated, and witty in its conceits. She is, in many ways, a proto-language poet, her marked ellipses, syntactic oddities, and dense and clashing verbal surfaces. Hers is a universe of stark gesture, lightning flash, and judgment, a poetic microstructure in its superb modulations of rhythms and internal rhymes, its ironies and paradoxes. … Owens's lyric voice is unique among contemporary poets. An astonishing body of work.”  For all of its ongoing changes (the symmetry of her strophes in the present instance), that assessment, I think, still holds true. (J.R.)]

 Etched onto                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            the metal plate  zigzags

of black angles  

 

vertical/horizontal

 

chasms and fissures

in the earth  the engraver draws

a  geometric form

 

fatal the design 

 

when your eyes move

vibrating subatomic particles

split  vertical/horizontal 

 

spirals of colors pulsate

 

through the gaps

of your fingers circles of

burning silver

 

light into heat

 

earth yields dandelion  

yields lemon trees  biomorphic

geomorphic  polymorphic

 

through the gaps

 

of your fingers 

a glass of ice water sparkles

red violet the light

 

of early morning

 

        *

 

The scenic order

tells the story of the noble

and ignoble

 

like the bone at the end

 

of your little finger                                                                                    2

the distal phalanx  tells the story

of  your hand 

 

like the tail and stinger

 

tells the story

of the scorpion long ago 

an hour ago

only a minute 

 

through the gaps of

your fingers spirals of colors

pulsate  red violet                                                                                                   

 

the light of early morning

 

        *

 

Molecular the skin’s mind moving

back and forth

 

        *

 

In the swamp near

the palace  a dead paysanne floats

a dead paysanne floats

 

in the swamp near the palace 

 

in the drizzle and wind of

early morning  moving back and

forth  drifting in circles

 

microscopic algae

 

harmonious with mold

and fungus  evoke the rhythm

of spontaneous change  

 

the flesh of the apple

 

moving back and forth

front to back  her bulbous tongue

and blood-packed eyes

 

her broken knuckles                                                                                                         3                                                                                                                                                                                        

 

blowing kisses along

the folds of her neck  the burned

skin of her palms

 

the Universe contracts

                                e  x  p  a  n  d  s

 

on her inner thigh

a tattoo of a scorpion  animal soul

spiritual hole  carnal/spiritual                                                                                          

 

Behold  Amadeus!

 

           *

 

A jagged black line

zigzags  chasms and fissures

in the earth 

 

patterns of animus

 

vertical/horizontal 

biomorphic  geomorphic  polymorphic 

a flow of hormonal forces 

 

the bacterial slime

 

amorous the greedy seed 

mosquitoes amass  rotate in circles 

soaring  hovering 

 

moving back and forth 

 

vertical/horizontal

a pale green lily emerges

from the swamp

 

long ago  an hour ago 

 

only a minute

 

*   

 

Inside the kitchen

of the palace  the smell  of                                                                                                4

fat  suet  tallow                                                                                                            

 

meat on a grill

 

‘salt for the stew

salt for the butter’ sings my

good daughter

 

morning to evening

 

evening to morning

an unlit cigar in the butcher’s

mouth  ‘shoot you 

 

cut you  stomp you too’

 

morning to evening 

evening to morning  no teeth

to bite  no claws to maul

                                                                                                                                 

blood in  blood out

 

        *      

 

In the swamp near

the palace  a dead paysanne floats 

a dead paysanne floats

 

in the swamp near the palace 

 

in the drizzle and wind of

early morning  the heavy blade

moves back and forth 

 

hacks off bones 

 

front to back  vertical/

horizontal  the heavy blade

moves back to front 

 

hacks off diseased parts

 

moves back and forth

hacks off hard skin  moves front

to back  vertical/horizontal

                                                                                                                                       5

hacks off tails  heads

 

work is a binding

obligation a set of skills in                                                                                        

sequential order

 

‘shoot you  cut you

 

stomp you too 

no teeth to bite  no claws to maul

salt for the stew 

 

salt for the butter’

 

sings my good daughter

on the fat folds of her neck

dark marks of burns

 

between her thighs

 

the black rose

 

      *

 

Inside the stable

in the zone diverging from

a course of events 

 

past  present  future

 

the engraver draws

archetypal scenes  staged

and scripted

 

out of a lost narrative 

 

the mute eye witness

sees  through the gaps of

your fingers 

 

a kneeling figure

 

the feet enclosed

in sandals  on the fat folds

of her neck

 

dark marks of burns                                                                                            6

 

the mute eye witness sees

the contours of arms  shoulders

through the gaps

 

of your fingers

 

moving back and forth

death strapped into riding boots

each successive image                                                                                  

 

splits vertical/horizontal

 

like subatomic particles

chasms and fissures in the earth

carnal/spiritual

 

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