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Chicago, night: photo by photoalvin (Alvin Shubert), 22 May 2009
Looking up, prostrate
on concrete
tented in the soft glow
of the arc lamps
.......overhead, a nimbus
or mist, as of being
becalmed at sea
Chicago, night: photo by photoalvin (Alvin Shubert), 22 May 2009
8 comments:
Tom,
".......overhead, a nimbus
or mist, as of being
becalmed at sea"
here too, but south wind kicking up, front approaching
11.27
first grey light in sky above blackness
of ridge, bird calling from pine branch
in foreground, sound of wave in channel
second portrait pen and ink,
one of three “unknown”
being, in which it is still
itself, still another
grey white fog against invisible ridge,
circular green pine on tip of sandspit
Steve, yes, south wind, and we at the matchstick haunted house don't like the feel of it.
(A voice nearby has been murmuring "Pineapple Express".)
Mangled Heroic Couplets
Your poem with its Latinate nimbus
Swept my worldly thoughts out to sea—
There I thought of the Hellenic aura
And with what equal ease the breeze
Spirited my severed head back to me.
Resurgent memory, “tented in the soft glow . . .”
Life (that incessant streaming) is, some days, a fire hose directed at the solar plexus.
It has the sense of a stillness, a calm, pressed on the subject.
Yes, that's the derivation of this recursive notebook annotation, keyword "pressed" -- an immediate baffling sensation of being pressed down upon pavement, twisting one's neck (slowly, with difficulty) to try to see what's above, seeing only the elevated street lamps (through blood), a light rain falling, disembodiment, state of shock.
Not yet quite knowing what has just befallen one... and for that matter never to know, exactly.
And by the by, Vassilis -- though it must be admitted forms have yet to be filed for the return of the severed head from that nimbus, there always remains the off chance it will turn up in a storm drain somewhere and float back homeward... certainly one would be happy to have it back, in the event... how can a person be expected to get on with developing a proper aura, sans an (at least) semi-intact dome for it to fit around??
And yes, Hazen, that streaming fire-hose... when it points your way... oof!
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