poem-o-scope (microscope macroscope poem-o-scope)

i. in the lab of words

cluttering clattering nattering

is it second nature (or third)

to come around close to the word

any good word, a poeming word,

with tweezers and scalpel---

ii. alert

no no put those away, reductionists and poets

are mortal frenemies! No tools allowed

against the words.

iii. breaking out

instead, poets groom the words, pet their plumes

praise them and gaze lovingly. we don't dissect;

we resurrect.

expand outward in gyres of applause and appreciation

we are special colored grow lights to the seeds of language

we bust out the walls of word labs, we are the language liberation front

don't jail these beauties in cages, or locked in verse forms as prisons of the ages.

we melt the keys into ladders and escape

into wildernesses of sound. we dream the dreams of the unborn (words).

we are utterly pangyric (on the point of dance moves)

in ululating praiseforms. kudos to the anatomy of ovation,

which we display to teach everyone how a rib (noun) connected by ligaments (adjectives)

comes to motion (verbs).

We frolic in poet reveries, flocks of flattery

and cheer. Our only instruments are pencils,

which, yes, some do carry in pocket protectors, but only

to guard

the sacred word, the all-gorgeous pencil lead -

inscriber and maker of the most mighty, praiseworthy, noteworthy

notes. So this we share with our frenemies, the fashion of pocket protectors.

All other semblance stops there.

The window is a torus of energy that opens.

Yours is a face I can see clear as present
even when it has been years.
I see your face clearly, and I have no photographs of you
except one that does not show your face.
In it, you are turning toward the window
as though bending to reach a falling balloon.

The window is on the outside of the house.
The sun catches something about you.
If it is a balloon, then it will pop in the stiff, dry grass.

This is not an island. This is a place
that may be the most fearsome adventure yet.

Firecrackers light our way, tell tales of unimagined distances.

The beauty of inflections and the beauty of innuendoes;
the crows watch us, and we leave our jackets on.

Seen here, I am playing on a stagecoach.
The window of memory makes me believe I know myself,
makes me believe that I knew myself as a child.

I can move out of the window toward stars and caverns.
Calling one fickle moment after the next:
“Just try to step into me twice.”
When we have to make a swift exit,
then our drum solo will echo, our icon melt into the sunlight and
finally, a l l l e t t e r s f l y o f f

Alchemical Expansions: Recombinant Poetics and Poets in Lab Coats- Round 3

Imagine poets in lab coats

(here are some, pictured left, perhaps transforming Chaucer to rap music...),

splicing the genetics of other poems and recombining to make strange genetically modified poetry. (OK, don't freak out, we're just imagining here, there's no GMP - genetically modified poetry - being released to the thought-o-sphere at large; or is there?)

Poets Synthesizing Synthesis

Here's a poem that Imunurians and the audience collectively wrote during an Imunuri poetry reading in Richmond, the Bay Area in November 2011. Half the lines are lifted from earlier release Imunuri prompt responses published on this blog. The other half are generated by the event participants, including Scooter, Daniel, Jason, and Terence plus a roomful of gleeful creatrices. The poem's ordering and juxtaposition of the lines was a live conjoint performance of over a dozen souls. Super fun. But wait, there will be more...

Your assignment, should you choose to accept it, is to put on your lab coat and yet again recombine based on these materials. Spiff, riff, spoof. Mutate and recombine, short or long. Evolution happens over tens of thousands of generations, why not poemergence likewise spin- spooling in lively, expansive arcs of novelty and adaptation?

Key tags: lab coat, poem, [poe's moniker]

Here's what's in our petri dish....

November 2011
Imunuri Live Reading Group Collaborative Poem

Firecrackers light our way.
slapdash the sunshine through the lampshade
Damn! Them's some good biscuits!
Move it, pajamas! My levi's put whipped cream in the bird feeder. Black magic marker!
Tells a tale of unimagined distances
"A horse taught me to bow when I walked that path.
May I remember his quiet grace as I kick at my stall today."

Nobody knows that I am here.
I am alone but not alone. You are here but vanished before my eyes.

"the window that lives
in the flesh and
pulse of my
energy
is a
torus
of energy
that opens out"

close together, bound tight by DNA
"my wife and I were happy for 20 years and then we met"
"This is not an island of sirens, witches, giants, storms.
This is a place, alone, to wait.
Which may be the most fearsome adventure yet."
Sunset edges two small clouds above the mountain.
"What precedes the start of a story arc?
A place devoid of heat, sound and motion,
a still place fraught with potential to spark."
"I've got so much life in me, if i grin
the songs of creation leak out,
a small glamour of sculptor and reaper"
Pachyderm two-stepping in time to the green-haired surfer
"A hungry night owl bee
Pollinates the silver moon
Milk-weed flower, a galaxy"

"Pushing myself / brusquely / out of nite wrappings / into jeans.
Out to Sweetmilk's / feeder & / Nature's dark art."
"...curve cut wood / that frames the light / into a design
I've never seen before / or since, the sign
of make it nice, / hold fast, make due, / rain or snow, / catch this prism of
I love you"
back in time it took me ... back ... back ... back
"my mother took us to this cool park where I
(seen here) am playing on a stagecoach"
["Drum solo, My icon"]

Everyday I pour myself through myself.
I was blessed by a hummingbird once --
its tiny wing against my face
softer than grief and love combined.
"You want mountain? Easy--
Sling me across the landscape
like the body of a voluptuous
sleeping grandmother
yes,
a voluptuous, sleeping
grandmother,
or a river
calling one fickle moment after next--
go on, just try to step into me twice"

"I stop typing and move out the window, towards stars and caverns, where I can pause and take shape as air bodies.

Finally, a l l l e t t e r s f l y o f f"

"There’s no one watching over us now (except the crows)
and if you plan to stay, brother, trust me:
just keep your jacket on at all hours.
It's warmer that way, and you never know
when we'll have to make a swift exit."

thought, we dissipate it all.
"Are we not dark,
dark in our marrow, in our quiet…"
A thought of a thought precedes the start of a story arc.

Image credit- University of Alaska, Nanotech Lab