Top of the GMT-8 morning to you. We’ve been traveling this week, mostly in Brooklyn, now on the wetcoast, with little time for sustained reflection, let alone quality alone time at a keyboard.
So, then, to postpone the ultimate state of inert social uniformity and beat back communicational disorder and chaos, at least for a time, by keeping the Hexagon streak intact (86 weeks!), here are words from somewhere else about other things.
Zola in her room on Zoom
is by far
the strongest swimmer
even when
the lights grow dimmer
up there still
on a bed blanketed in foolscap
plucking perfect fifths
of equal tension but different lengths
on an unplugged bass guitar
and seeing in the dust motes free-floating chords
clouding forth
(this is how I choose to see it)
out of nowhere in the grid
as the grid grinds
as she
half-listens
to the drone of the Glaswegian gnome
on the congruence of Pythagorean angles
and the pons asinorum
which is not the “knob-like” structure
in the center of the brainstem
that messages have to cross
any more than this is or you or I are
but the first real test
of the reader’s intelligence
and the bridge to the harder propositions
that only
the surest-footed donkey
can negotiate.
Zola in her room in the gloom on Zoom
humming the walking bass line Nick taught her on Skype just a day ago
again and again and again (and again)
unaware of the river of Heraclitus or the
sea of Hippasus
or the vestiges of the Chaos
whence all things spring
again and again and again (and again)
including the dark holes of darkness
between the brightly lit constellations
that she sees as she steps off the edge
of the spiraling helical ladder
of limbic
being
that leads to our living room
and decision making
and leftover potato salad or maybe a fried egg
willing every directed thought to tangibility
circling in infinite descent
like pi
in the starry sky
of the kitchen’s clutter
unafraid of the immeasurable
unafraid of the irrational
unafraid and untouched by the high high high
birdcalls
specks in the distance
in the midday sun
hi hi hi
the night is young
with Paul McCartney
and the Wings on Spotify
won't say bye, bye, bye,
bye, bye, bye, bye, bye
till the night has gone
Zola back in her room with the Zoom soon
measured in a new cadence as a fall in the pitch
the length of the diagonal across the
square above the eye-sockets and
the falcon’s full orbitals
per second per second
evasive action futile
no instruments
world or wasteland plunge into bone grail
and the frail crust
(on a side plate)
as feathers explode
and the beak cuts to the heart
blood spurting to spume
per second per second
vermillion droplets
falling
again and again and again
(and again) to Earth
unrounded horizonless
where the incommensurable and the
irrational
get number and dumber
where the undiscoverable limits of the
soul
co-exist with their contradictions
where the bottle’s emptiness
builds its nothingness
in pencil and chalk dust
on the wall of the cave
of human existence
where falcon and flacon fill
and the unspeakable square root of two
interminably decimates
so far back into the vestiges of the Chaos
even God runs for cover
as smaller and smaller parts are clawed
elegantly into yet-smaller parts
again and again and again
(and again)
which no ratio can express
when the falcon drops its fractioned prey
and bears down
and the falconer hums the same bar twice
puts her arms out
as if she were treading water off
Scott Bay and hums it twice again
and waits for the bird to be
in the hand
in the glove
and stopped
again and again
and again
(and again)
and stopped.
OK, well, yes. Peace. Happy holidays. Thanks for reading and for supporting Hexagon. See you here next week in Bamfield, British Columbia. Keep warm. Love one another.
Chris, has the west coast vibe released your poet? Lovely. See you all soon.
Mr Mooney, I Like the cadence of this read