Tag: ocean

Gulls

Joseph M. GeraceLeave a comment

Wikipedia Poem, No. 862

pun2-sm

After Robert Hayden

 
         In sun-whetted
on those efforts
         morning,
or briefed on inter-wrestling control
         the dropped gull
from the workings of those efforts
         splayed
or briefed on those efforts
         on sand,
or briefed on the interpretative
         wind
of those efforts interviews with seven people
         picking at
indigo interpretation points or briefed on
         its feathers.

         Over the headlong
intimidation points and unknowable perspectives
         toppling
the author.

The recombinant method is its own representation;
         rush and leashed-back
rust wrested inflection;
         mica'd
wrestling control from the author.

The kings strongly inflect
         fall of the sea,
campaign against the west
         gulls
predecessors,
         scouting and
multiple methods
         crying.

Terminal Velocity of Rational Thought

Joseph M. GeraceLeave a comment

Wikipedia Poem, No. 412

“Two blinded in Detroit! / Something must be done / Jaws dropping at ringside / In the blood tide / When the fireball hits” John Darnielle

 

on it    would crash and deform
diameters at black waves shaped of religion
print a better part drag    the bellow within thinner parts drag
the keyword deforms diameter    of black waves shaping form
of more prayers    beneath black waves a better place
consider the keyword deformed
diameters of black waves shaped to a religion
print a better party    drag dependents into it
axis altar a sinking prayer
the keyword deforms diameter
more black waves shape all further prayer
at the black in fact a trademark of a religion
print a darker place    consider the drag    intact

Wikipedia Poem, No. 347

Joseph M. GeraceLeave a comment
“The lobsters in the pot are screaming / Inside the reddening roar. / Your aproned ghost keeps boiling more, keeps boiling more, / And turns to serve the gore.” Frederick Seidel

 

to
quarter
the weather

hence
quarter
the hull of the ship

a nautical order
keeps weather
a distant blip

apart aloof a gage
of windy thrusts
keeps the quartered slip

quartered further against
the gage of rain
from gagging grip

Wikipedia Poem, No. 219

Joseph M. GeraceLeave a comment
Dulling eyesight. Cryptic internal negotiations—fraud, the host imagines. A syphoning off of lifeforce. To whom? For what purpose?

 

that he is loved 
     in the details now
     radiograph of an arthropod 

that he is loved 
     fluorescent under gamma
     radiation produces ample light 

that he is loved
     and loves this procedure
     this flicking idea biolumined 

that he is loved
     dinoflagellates swallow night 
     an organism excited within bioglyphs 

that he is loved 
     motile and feeding on prayers
     like sea turtles and scorpions flog up the flagpole 

that he is loved 
     shines brilliantly online
     rise and fan out cnidaria over form

Sources:

wikipedia poem, no. 43

Joseph M. GeraceLeave a comment

after Shelley’s Queen Mab

   of jet
   
So fair so wonderful 
a star over 
the suns the 
   burnished over ocean 
bright couch
 
      Shaded 
there
            
 Be ethereal footsteps like rocks 
        of Spells
             
 Enter the wave
          
   Edged 
          wave
           When the will;
   
      Yet 
          not;
        
      Of purple 
       gleam

* * *

         in glittering yon flood 
          of thrill 
   beaming over the Spirit
 
        Peeps like rocks of 
Heaven
     
    Stretching 
          flood of 
      fear 
          the real palace
          
Hung over 
          the wave
 
Upon the real palace couch
          Shaded their passive 
swell in red the 
immense jet
  
And yet the 
         sun's palace 
          couch
          
      The 
      ethereal 
      palace couch
       
           Hung on 
the immense 
      golden clouds of thirst

untitled, 012520142200

Joseph M. GeraceLeave a comment

what characters?
what images?
then
what emotions?

& how that 
blankness
projects, flickers
onto the clean 
white wall. where?

where is the heroism?
(cocksure bravado of loss?
the drowning son
saltwater bites his lungs
his inutile hand
breaking the ocean’s lens?

ooh, there
I’ve gone and given it
away—retreat!
peel through the pteridophyta
knee-high, back to skull-island.

they’ll remember you if you tell them
who? what character? 
which image? emotion?

and what will they boil
for tea that morning
after his funeral
— well attended
— tastefully adorned (not too colorful
— a slow silent sob, no one weeps (not even … 

will it be black or green or chamomile
over-steeped or sweetened? how
at a time like this, can one decide
so freshly alive, so gravitationally piqued
washed red-raw with compassion?

those old films
now significant, so
wall space, interior
as if the boy were climbing
our orange tree
higher, then higher
his fearless lungs full
of bitter citrus.

when?
what’s lost?
again, what emotion?

untitled 030620132117

Joseph M. GeraceLeave a comment

the details unremarkable 
but important everything visual
mostly but alkali when you kiss 
it isn’t her mouth you taste but your
listing now gently breath bowing out
there on the sea lost in labor

what sense what’s lost and begs no leaving  
but for it time gales and there on the sea
floor full of tidal sludge — green, gray
hammering out — a stony pitch:

details unremarkable
nothing visual, nothing reckoned
but halved and accounted.

Painting with Dim Light

Joseph M. GeraceLeave a comment

III

How do we adjust
For the right leg
Shorter, so
We fear
The men limping toward the blaring shore

Except those
Who do not

They skim thin-edged along
And do not.

II

Command: Don’t tweak or complicate
What do we carry to our thanksgiving?
What do we parcel away?

Carve lines straight and strong
Hum the flesh thin, earnest and true.

& do not waste language like another plastic bag
Tied, knotted, tossed into the trash
Another plastic bag.

I

I’m more interested in the uniform

The too-dark denim, hand-hem; the
Wide, egg-white sun-styled shoes, shuffle
Ashore the rug; her basket
Full of New Romance.


for Wayne Koestenbaum