night has no dimension, open to every wandering mirage– walls dissolve between now and then– time sails a yondering montage
~How~
is it possible to exit when there’s nowhere to go?– formless narratives engulf you, cosmic tides that whisper: hello– join us
The NaPoWriMo prompt today was to “pick a poem you drafted earlier in the month and write a poem that contradicts or troubles it”. I chose “Who Is”, here
The collages above were first published in The Time Issue of the journal Feral last April.
…not that I can tell the difference between an instant and a moment– What is, exactly, the fundamental unit of time? Is it a pause, or is it a question of how the equation’s processes are organized? Where is the boundary between thriving and decay? When do cobwebs begin to appear in the corners of the mind? Does the soul, too, become dust, or is it like zero, pivoting on an axis that has no location? Is time elemental like earth, like fire? Can it fall into ruin? –or is it integral to the devil’s work, a way of placing things on a line, consecutive and immutable? Is slow really opposite to fast, or, in fact, only a different way of measuring?–and where exactly is an instant to be found? Can it be held in place, or does it have no material form, no law to explain it, no real identity at all?
The NaPoWriMo prompt today was to make your own poem from an Emily Dickinson poem. I chose Crumbling is not an instant’s Act (1010). I went through and selected words and, using them in order, wrote my own poem around them. This is a method I often employ, using words from all kinds of sources. Emily is a good source.
For some reason what I wrote reminded me of Dylan’s Love Minus Zero/No Limit. OK, I did kind of borrow “like ice, like fire”. Here’s my favorite version, by Joan Baez.
Four of my word collages are featured in The Time Issue of the Journal Feral. You can see them here.
My thanks to editor Beth Gordon, and her team Narmadhaa and Amanda McLeod, for featuring my work.
The above collage is from my response to the Kick-About prompt of the work of Saul Bass. If you follow fate far away to the return of time, understand that the passage into prophecy and myth is final
You can sometimes combine the beginning with the end. But take care. The interplay must never be rippled—look for translucence, a changing density that mirrors the journey of the stars. Listen, then turn around. Threaded into the horizon you will sometimes find the edges. Two of nothing will show you the way.
The clock invited me into its worn house, where twice a day there was a meeting place that balanced on the verge of departure. Forward or backward? I became lost in the movement, spinning around into all directions, endlessly lost inside each new location.
If I had found the common denominator…if I had been able to reconfigure what was left behind…if I could have traveled in tandem with the shadows…but if is not when. It is over, said and done.
It was a time and there was never enough of it.
For Prosery Monday at dVerse, Merril gave us a quote from Allison Adelle Hedge Coke: when it is over said and done/it was a time/and there was never enough of it. I ended up writing with a stream of consciousness hangover.
For my art, I took an old collage and superimposed it on a newish painting in Photoshop. As soon as I read the quote I thought immediately of this song.
K. 