A poetry of pith,
Category: Poetry
Quarantine NotesQuarantine Notes #1: Art
Art for art’s sake is a dead end; art for heart’s sake is the way out.
Prediction
Prediction—or personal pose: / In the Age of AI / Poetry will be the last refuge / Of human language.
in under 500 characters…
Now that #ai is colonizing / #writing, my mind goes back / to studying theory in the ’90s:
Ars Poetica
There is no rest for the search engine. The unquiet dead play games with the subject/ object interface. It appears that our operating system is not a friend to Jesus. Logos flash through the sky of the Sinkiang Autonomous Region. Our wet dreams run through fiberoptic cables.
To the Cleft of the Mountain We Go
Fold up the linen and keep the receipts / Re-bury the boxes in earth. / Tight—shut the windows, hermetically seal / Let nobody see its birth! // Golden-brown bodies with Sun-kissed lips / Don silver-moon garments of old. / Hush— cool silence for raging and violence / Fire’s mouth must be closed to console. // To the cleft of the mountain we go!
Your Box Problem
“Think outside the box,” they say. What if your box is doing the thinking? Where does your thinking end and your box begin? How many boxes does it take to screw in a light bulb? The answer may surprise you.
Lo fatal by Rubén Darío – performance and translation
Marco V Morelli reads Darío’s classic in original Spanish, with music by Doug Duff. There is a new English translation as well.
18 Notes on Space
What does Space mean to you? Do you have enough of it? Too little, too much? How do you make space… for Space? This piece was composed for an evening of Poetic Alchemy held in Boulder, Colorado, in the spring of 2019.
Jupiter Square Saturn
“Jupiter crash landed into Saturn.” As above, so below. What follows is a short and bittersweet astrological allegory about the power struggles that ensue in the heavens.
Author Interview with Susan Evans
Susan Evans’s poem “Lucy” appeared on Metapsychosis website in Autumn 2020. During the following winter, we exchanged emails in which Susan told me about her creative process, her sources of inspiration, and what her hopes for the coming year.
A New World (Poems and Photos)
Going inward / I see my grey sleek wolf’s belly / moving forward on long legs striding / free, clear, unassuming / my natural strength carrying me / into the clear space ahead.
Studium Spiritus Sancti
but i often underestimate my husband / for he pointed out that i actually said schizophrigid / i had a kitchen dresser which contained crockery i never used / over- solicitude is display mothering /
Gasp
What happened, Miss Hooker asked–she meant my shock–so I said, Well, please turn around and take a look at Jesus there and tell me what you see.
Four Poems
The shrunken fighters, cheeks sunken and eyes Gibbous as praying mantis, like a god kept captive By some sick forest cult That provides sacrifice seasonally…
Lucy the Nun With the Green Socks
“Lucy the nun with the green socks / saw me hugging the oak tree / that summer I / hibernated in Spartanburg.”
Anatolian Dreams
“St Barbara, a poor white gloved icy ingénue, / Has long been a dusty piece of Black Forest wood // That grew out of the ashes of Sibylline books”
Soul Retrieval: Poems
they call it soul retrieval | when your essence | core | beingness | the skeletal|hole|body|brain that lives in your gut|liver|kidney|body| self|shatters | breaks its own skull|heart|body in its crumpled raisin|brain as the result of small t | BIG T | sOmE TyPe of tRaUmA
Sutra of the Computer Body: Questions for Karina Bush
“I’ve found a techno relationship cuts right into the core, the soul, brings out an almost more real version of yourself, makes you see yourself differently, your own potential to be better. It can achieve a level of emotional perfection. That’s also the problem…”
Animal Encounters
Following him into the darkest places taught me to never be afraid of the dark. / It’s full of unimaginable euphoric surprises…
Testaments of a Seed: Poems by Siben Gerard
“I must return love and life to those who offered me death / Gestating with hundreds and thousands of babies in me: / Progeny of my intercourse with the rock.”
Visionary Voices Read Aloud: John Milton’s Paradise Lost
Since Fall 2019, we have been reading works by “visionary poets.” While what constitutes “visionariness” is an open and dynamic question (with intense contemporary relevance) we began our quest to bring visionary voices to life by alternately reading a …
Savitri Reading Group
We are performing an intimate reading of Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri – A Legend and a Symbol, with a virtual meeting every 1st and 3rd Wednesday until the poem is fully read.
Reading “The Rain Song” by Badr Shakir al-Sayyab, with Dona Abbadi
Metapsychosis #OnlyPoetry channel presents: A guided reading and discussion of Iraqi poet Badr Shakir Al-Sayyab’s poem, “The Rain Song,” with Jordan-based author Dona Abbadi. Dona guides us through a reading of one of the most belov …
Two Tastes
on differences that make a difference, or aesthetics
Meditations on the Slave Gospels
“I wrote the meditations with the intention of translating the trauma of slavery to the page, and it did came out like an eco-graphic card; with no straight lines; no reservations.”
Meditations on the Slave GospelsGospel 1
In America I came across a mulatto, who told me, “Yes we can—Make America great again.” And for the first time, the doors of the white house were allowed open for the entrance of a black phallus; America gave birth to black dead…
Poems of Annie Blake (Part 2)
“Mothers should explain this to their daughters when they are too young…instead of folding church bulletins to make fans…”
Shiny Happy Lizard People
the biggest secret: REPTILIANS! United States lizard government / help. Bloodlines). people think they know
Poems of Annie Blake (Part 1)
blackbirds rise like a word from a hot hovel / satis house and her letter / and her first wedding gown / fires blank and face clocks / my hands / their spell / swelling the mouth of a match / the stone thrown into the sea and circulatio /