Accept Except

Even one plus one
can surprise you
yielding a some-
thing that's true
that's not two.

If you’re certain,
run against your grain.
Closed curtains
are full of pinholes;
the bricks of the world
have hollow backs.
Chance tearing
the fabric.

If you are interested
in beating the odds,
embrace them.
To be specific:
nothing’s odd
that’s held close,
and nothing’s true
that isn’t false.

Where you’re stuck,
take leave, and what
you can’t believe in,
believe.

Freshman Story

Professor Orangutan

had us over,

gave us beer

(to my mother’s horror),

showed us he’d shaved

a bald swath across his belly,

took Christine and I

for a ride in his new Camaro,

cleaned up after Jodi

when she threw up,

cleaned up after Jodi and John

when they used his bed,

had us back over

twice more before

the end of the semester.

Today I could wonder

what he was doing

with his freshman class,

with his divorce,

with his middle-aged

peaks and summits,

with his explication of Whitman:

“Eat! Fuck! Blow farts!”

Still, I trust Professor Orangutan

because he gave me

the seminal

book by Gorilla Chimpskaya,

which turned me onto poetry

for a lifetime of notebooks,

ink stains on my fingers,

and utter transport,

while sitting on the floor

eyes rolled up in my head,

understanding

(though I never did myself)

why you might

shave a bald swath

across your belly.

big bang theory, figure 1

Balloon

breaks its endbounds—

bang! Big boom

of birthdeath

yes!

exhorting

pasta-field zing

across egg-yolk endless

contains nothing

but ribs

turned

outward to hold

everywhere's heart

as noise flume

wham!

IMUNURI Prompt: Exception to the Rule

Write a poem about a/the/you as the/

exception to the rule.

A plea, or a plea bargain. A plaidoyer, or a rant.

Let's hear it all, get on your termagant or curmudgeon

and show some teeth

and/or get into long philosophical poetry about what are the exact terms, conditions, or ethics of when to grant exceptions,

and or why are there rules anyway. anarchistic sentiment is ok for this prompt as well, whatever flows your verse...

Labels: poem, exception, [poet's moniker]

Note: Image source "Primordial Soup Sack" by Fractal Freak (2008)

the upside down i invents

what if exclamation points

are upside down "i"'s

such that when we assert, we invert

i -> !

our boundaries blow apart

upended, feet up

yikers! we blow up

the magic carpet has slid out

from under

us each:

our entire sense of proportion

distorts

and our heads kiss down

to the very marrow of earth

! -> i

perhaps, by getting our blown off heads

close to the breathing body of the planet

after an exclamation

we reground, rebound

ary and then level out

perhaps exclamations pump our sensebodies

in dilations and contractions of reorientation

a kind of yogic epiphanic spiraling

bringing us round again, ground bound, bright

2 y.o present

2 y.o. present

watched over by the snow dusted Wasatch
two sisters & me & 2 y.o. Kayden
  in front of his tray of cocoa makings
                        &
when i ask “ Can I have some?”
  takes his spoon to whipped cream
                         &
  lifts the soft sweet white cloud
  into my mouth.
Yum. The present tastes good!!!

gestures towards: the resonant thread

"Although we evidently have forgotten the mastership of
well‐being, our structuralist type of science has taken on a life on its own and
shown us, resistant though we are to accept it, that some of the ancient
scientists knew a long time ago what we are “discovering” only now. In the
spirit of the spiral‐shaped form of the evolutive holomovement, we have
gone forward in time, yet moved in a circle and thus reached a point where
we have already been before–only on a higher, potentially more evolved
level." (H. Fruehauf, 1993)

in the dream i encase small folios
scribbled by hands smaller than fingers
sewn to chakras and connected with strings
inside vestments smaller than human
and arrange these for hours
sewing, connecting, securing

each symbol blazes like a small
dense seed popcorning outward
extroverting into packed and imbricated symbols
which themselves unfurl

who composes the world?
i am not a tinker and
(who composes the word?) the songs
that come from the heart of me
do not come (who composes the war?)
from me or any human (who composes what we are?)
truly but uprising (as if in a large square pouring into millions)
from the very fabric of matter cohering (the center of which is the world's largest
hospital):
i wish for more beautiful and elegant elemental
gatherings

i may say i am looking for the thread
that connects everything, when meanwhile
i'm made from them, all i need to do
is pull on the edgerill of a flosswhirl
or braid it more fully

reweaving the fibriles of my center
restitching the plexus of my being

our mentation and proclamations perhaps velveteen pinocchios
to the way rose bramble arches into cedars

today's prayer: may we be as brave as our Egyptian kin
who are meta-multicellular, who come into the fierce
gas made of Pennsylvania poison
and rubber (and real) bullets,
detoxifying the militarized response at the edge
and re-enter the wombcell of unison
on pathways held by humans,
carried on motorbikes
to the largest hospital in the world
where we heal
and get up again, moving outward,
to meet and gift full presence
in a slow, blessing gyre
within the cauldron of creation

something is breaking open
hopefully more bud burst than tragedy
something weaving through,
composing us newly in the spring that comes
in Thanksgiving, with inches and inches of rain
drenching us hopeful
even as the sky closes opens closes
the sound of a military jet tearing open
the clouds who grieve

ripe persimmon

ripe persimmon

buddhas appear as giant purple dahlia flowers
 above our deck
      blossom each year in fall’s moments of heat.

Borobudur buddhas
 inside their stupas
      look across a Javanese valley
our flaming desires burn below
 sensation flashes fleet.

buddhas reign is short lasting & impossible to recall
 the instant you feel here
   you are already gone
into orange persimmons ripe enough to eat. 

  

IMUNURI prompt: Exclamation x3

New prompt this week!
Create and post something
that uses exactly three
exclamation marks!
Woo-doggie!

keywords: exclamation, poem, your handle

Summary sketch of an n-dimensional passage through n+1 dimensions

All is watchword spelling outer rings, falling into a frame, starting again.

Always onward, spilling outward, opening, falling out of frame, starting again.

Always on, alone, reeling outward, pining, flailing like a flame, a star—again.

I was an onion peeling, a flower opening, falling into a flame, a star again.

I was on an ion feeling a flower opening, fallen into a flame, a starfish aging.

I was an eye or a feeling, a flow or an opening, falling in fire or stargazing.

Time was an eye or a feeling, a flow or a flowing, calling on fire to start again.

Time is an eye in the ceiling, a roll and a knowing, scalding fiery stars again.

Time had eyes and feet things, holding engrossing, scattering pyres, cardigans.

Time has eyes and free thinking, roly-poly, one gross caterpillar, pardoning,

empathizing, feeding on holy knowing—an enormous caterpillar, harboring

empty sighs—though filling with wholly knowing, ginormous cataclysm hovering

energy highs, thoughts filtering the whole knowing enormity, schisms closing—

E equals emcee spires, hot fluting notes droning musicality, spasms echoing.

We qualify, spiraling peers, outflung tones, owning music’s reality sequencing.

Sequels of squares, nearing undone, oboe droning ecstatically rendering rings,

satori staircasings, wind-chiming person/polyhedron in kitchen melody piping.

Saturday sunbathing, wind deciding pursuits to enrich afternoons and evenings.

Saturday sun bathing Richmond, abiding with avenues, guns, ditches, bees knees.

Sunday’s sundry earth-things, family abode, hunger and riches of green beans.

inside my mountain

inside my mountain

Back in the cave
looking out at the rain
only a few leaves left
huckleberries gone.

IMUNURI Prompt: Patterns Across Scales - Profound Poetic Architectures

Fractals represent shapes or patterns that repeat across scale. Poetry reveals many forms of patterns that repeat across scale, whether physical, emotional, or spiritual. Generate fractal poetry based on this idea, this shape, or whatever synchronicity is holonically reiterating across scales to you this week.

Tags: poet's moniker, poem, fractal

Image source

homing devices

i wish for ribbons in a robin nest

something cozy, before the wind howled.

some place subtle, some place blessed

scooched in close, safe from scowl.

certain raft in cedar, incensed

by wood not ire. neither foul

nor rancid fleshed, peaceful sense

of home. less growl, more owl;

less jowl and teeth, more pal and fleece

less crawl and grief, more valley and motif.

less gall and more belief

less mal, more green leaf.

these are the blessings the waifs did seek

even child ghosts search for succor and relief.

coming to the window of years-long house:

to this day, we leave dishes of milk.

Wet silos

Wet silos

black ink
scraped across the screen
then
red ink

“I can see clearly now”
singular images
two distinct colors

silk lifts to reveal
wet silos
juxtaposed
screws and compasses

masculine building blocks
coupled silhouettes.

IMUNURI prompt: write something!

This week: unprompted

Write to a prompt you missed from a prior week;
write something to any subject, style or process you choose;
or take a week to percolate ideas for future posts


keywords: poem, [your name or tag], [the keyword that goes with the prompt you choose or else "unprompted"]

“Flos Ferri”

Calcifying seals the joints
between you and I,
and
aragonite solution
crystallizes in rarest gem forms
unseen for centuries
in our hearts.

We must dance out the calcium
and protect the gems.

Sometimes we must break
the calcium with a kick,
and sometimes the aragonite flowers
break loose, too.

Let’s not spend
our little time
debating
which is weightier:
loose joints
or stone florets.

What’s dance is dance;
what’s broke is broke.
We go on across the floor.

(wrote this while dancing...)