“The Soul and the Mind do not have the same memory…
O memory the soul renounces
Frightened to conceive you.”
The Poetics of Reverie, pg 104
I was also partly (perhaps mostly) inspired to write this poem by reading Marissa’s lipogram sem pass yesterday, and decided to leave out the letters in the word ‘Calm.’
Artist’s Note: When we are trying to escape fear and the other less pleasant sensations, are we not just fleeing from feelings painting the truth before our eyes?
Pounding postures of obsession: Without C A L M
Fright pushes through the nests
Words wove with the twigs of bright
Spring visions.
They exist wedged into the rigidity of eons.
They writhe – they require progress in twists.
Stroke this identity with your fingers
Soothe the pounding postures of obsession
Never sensing the deep keys to these eyes
Or the devious keys to the birds of sight.
For I drive the ties of now
To drop off, drop down
Surround this body in the stone surf
Press your body into serene eternity
The ten gripping digits shorten ‘now’
To ‘no’
Brush your retort in red behind you
Sweep the beyond to the future
So the first returns to the end.
Speed by this worry, hurry.
Write with the severed pens of desire
To see fresh wings.
We weren’t designed to bend
So we now drown in depths
Of egrets dripping fibers of hope
To destroy the hue of truth
Rub up, ruin the injury.
Wed the poise of terror
– In her iron nest of spines you know
You know your tests.