Musette

April 4 poem: Metamorphosis (cutup)

I'm keeping up with writing, but behind on posting. Playing the cut-up game, which still amuses. Today's words are courtesy of the Collegiate Encyclopedia, pgs 1174-1174, Nuremberg to nymph.

 

Metamorphosis

In Greek mythology, whispers arched over the earth, often descending headfirst into human suffering. Some, internal, or female, produce subtle, luminous filaments, bristles or sheets well-disposed toward humans. Trees begin to resemble water more closely, lightness of being usually but not always growing. Nine songbirds guard ignorance of reality, a rapidly growing family of synthetics usually associated with a distinctive, pungent fragrance. Tasks traditionally performed by insects—farming and diplomacy—eventually give birth to conspicuous metamorphosis: goose-step marches with stunning muscularity, a Manchu writing system. Deities ultimately fail. Most are forest dwellers; some live in nursery rhyme, bringing their wives to surface again as dragonflies, ignorance, psychiatry. Nyala, extremely long-lived, emerge aquatic, float to the surface of liquid lava pools. Ignorance of reality (perennial) is edible, used for ornament. The wing buds of perception dance.

Photo (of an insect wing) by davidfntau via Flickr.

April 3 poem: Fear (cutup)

Today's words are pulled from pgs 682-683 of the Collegiate Encyclopedia—Greater London to Greco. I can safely say: The words change. The mind that arranges them doesn't (but tries to).

 

Fear

To master great fear, master fire, the stone floor strewn with rushes, purity rather than expertise. The storm has been known to thrill, carry off defensive walls, need. Change is a mottled brown predator, a single system fortified by watchtowers. Heavy-bodied, saw-edged, it is widely feared. Cybele, great mother of the gods, portrays a supernatural, semiabstract vision of heaven above, a source of minerals, a beach. Her lover often approached her altar, a vast expanse of sand hills and cloud belts with elongated human figures, houses blown up by gunpowder, embellished (or even invented) by rumors. When entered, the changing crests may blend into the coloring of a forest, her sacred pine. Altarpieces in every village, private adventurers encouraged to travel, pilgrims. Then errors, disasters gathering, birds, larger prey. Few have a normal view of earth below. Both sides attract rabble, decline. The body fluctuates, superseded by salt land and marsh. Spans origin, withdrawal. Continues, voracious. Passes.

Photo by Matthew Venn via Flickr.

April 2 poem: Our accident (cutup)

Still thinking about Japan, here shown in a NASA photo from March 13. I'd intended to stick to the desk encyclopedia for cutup material, but a New York Times piece caught my eye, a William J. Broad piece titled, on the web, "From Far Labs, a Vivid Picture Emerges of Japan Crisis." It's fairly limiting to remix one tightly focused source, but this one offered "detailed portraits of the imperceptible," which seemed to want to live in a freer context. So... (Posting late, by the way, as I might this month, but, so far in this young month, keeping up with the writing.)

 

Our accident

Thousands of miles away, the observable facts: Mystery, code-named “illuminating,” turned out to be complex, fragments marked with the invisible. The subtleties of simpler information melting. We’re witnessing need and time, honestly blind. The cyclical split of sympathy, the partial or full liquefaction of lack. Spin. That division, lattice of hours and days, hidden workings exposed, points to presence, a cooling water. Signal (vivid, scraps emitted) joins the invisible wisps. A blackout can result in observable data points. Snippets of risk. Detailed portraits of the imperceptible. Atmospheric reassurance, a complicated gas we cannot model. What we cannot grasp or name. We cannot avoid division. We are relying on the volatile secret. We inspect the core, marked, damaged, revealed. The likely outcome: duration. An acronym for release.

 Photo by NASA Goddard Photo and Video, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, via Flickr.

 

 

April 1 poem: Romance (cutup)

I'd thought I'd stop for April, but the pleasure of playing with words was just too great. So for poetry month, I'm doing cut-ups. Drawing my vocabulary from the world of a random two-page spread of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Encyclopedia. It can be interesting. And if it gets old, I'll play with something else. Today's words came from Pages 728-729. Entries about hayfever, and head-hunting.

 

Romance

Every woman knows the danger of spoilage, the elegant isolation of orchid and hummingbird. Erotic, but detectable only by absence, and not even by that. To transfer this soul matter, luminous (a code for sacrifice), involves exile or enemies, underground activity: belief cut in the field while still green then mechanically blown into stacks. Blood and sand, elaborately flamboyant.  “Love goddess” is a code for sacrifice pollinated by brilliant worldly contradictions. A limited or comprehensive counterpoint and harmony. The spirit, its sound currency, returns reinterpreted, out on bail, a loose network of contradictions and shortcomings neutralizing the noise. The seasons appear, tied with wire or twine. A practiced symptom, never lovelier.

Photo by Yatur@ 安雅～YAN, Yan Anya Yan, via Flickr.