“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.