In a daydream I attended
an exponential function
hosted by his eminence,
the summit of his self creation;
close acquaintances only, commonality
reassured in glyphic communication.
His hacienda was mostly atria,
potted green, and rain washed
marble chessboards where gardeners
wearing chefs’ hats offered fertilizer
and entrées.
Memories if compressed by force
achieve solidity, quite attractive
although immobilized,
he told me, and took me on a tour.
~/~
Beneath a shade cloth willow,
a selected group debated lies and fantasy,
with whiskey, ice and me,
wound in a Roman bedsheet,
a little nervous in such brightly illustrated company.
At a certain unremarkable moment,
his eminence leant towards me sotto voce:
The magic of my youth has left me,
its cicadas and ephemeral smoke.
Once I fell in love with a vagrant light,
a luminous firefly, and now
I seek a book she wrote
about verity, magic and myrrh—
The Egg in White.
Might you help me in my quest?
I feigned a degree of contemplation,
looked up into the windy sky
where a storm of truth was brewing,
and dissembled with a flourish of my glass.
An Isley single malt if I’m not mistaken.
Do you mean magic magic or just plain magic?
Might this egg have been instead a pale
amber shade, and within, the ashes of a phoenix?
And which came first, the book or the egg?
After sunset I observed the other guests—
they didn’t leave, they found their places
in the corridors
or on the plinths in alcoves.
Each returned to a static life,
each no more than
a cobwebbed recollection
of his eminence.
about
It is easier to judge the mind of a man by his questions rather than his answers, Pierre-Marc-Gaston, Duc de Lévis, 1808; the phoenix in ancient Egyptian mythology.
tangential
My longish poem “When We Were Young” will appear later this year in an issue of Mithila Review, an international speculative arts and culture magazine. Continues →
artwork
incêndio, flammable memories
i like that image of memories being compressed so densely they become solidified.
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Thanks Daniel. I don’t want to break the ‘never explain’ rule, but I think memories do become fixed, often the way we imagine things were, and often they’re not at all accurate.
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i am a persistent breaker of that rule. i always write with a purpose. i am a fastidious editor, so it is inevitable i see multiple possibilities.
that is something i have experienced: people have assumed i’ll be the same person they knew me as, & having changed it is baffling to them that i wouldn’t respond as they expect. i don’t believe in a rigid persona, as we sup experiences, we change, & may not realize, but we do. i don’t blame someone for thinking i’d be the same, people don’t know any different. we are so comfortable curating a persona we don’t note the alterations. There’s Tom Waits song with a lyric something like “i never missed home until i was away for a long time” (i paraphrase) i think the sentiment is similar to what i said above.
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I know what you mean, no change = security but no-one has a choice. I used to think I was this person or that person but after years of Buddhism, although I haven’t mastered emptiness, I’ve come to appreciate re-creation, how we recreate ourselves day by day, and being a little chameleonic isn’t a bad thing either.
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there is a line by Theodore Roethke “by daily dying i have come to be” it is one of the wisest lines of all time in my opinion
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“The summit of his self-creation… A little nervous in such brightly illustrated company.” Gem after gem… in the purest sense of the word.
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Thanks 🙂 , influenced by various people I’ve met … Best I just leave it that 😉 .
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This is divine, Steve. I love it.
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Great, thanks Vanessa 😀 . There’s a bit of reality in there, mostly from my time in Latin America.
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Intriguing.
I agree, gem after gem.
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PS congrats on “when we were young”
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Thanks times two. I’m a bit too lazy to write two pieces of poetry most weeks so I don’t really have anything much to send to publishers.
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You could send all of it, well at least, what I have read!
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Thanks (cubed at least) , but the markets I send my poetry and short fiction to want original work that hasn’t appeared anywhere, which is reasonable since they pay for first publication rights. I’m afraid the message is “more writing, less Pinot” …
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Yes, I guessed that. I’m just biased 🙂
Haha too bad that message couldn’t combine the two somehow.
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PPS “I feigned a degree of contemplation” made me laugh. Too relatable haha
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It’s funny how daydreaming and deep thinking look so similar. Sometimes I refocus and say “Yes, I agree completely,” but “Sorry, did you say something?” is safer 😛 .
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haha agreed.
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Another fine piece Steve. Congrats on teh upcoming, also. Well done.
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Thanks Frank, I probably should write more but I don’t find it easy, have to be in a poetry mood 🙂 . Or something.
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Creative mood is needed, and it doesn’t have to be poetry, buit when you do it, you do it good.
Cheers,
Frank
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I learnt a new word yesterday: hypermnesia – it seems to fit (into) your writing rather well 🙂
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❤ I looked it up and listened to the pronunciation which had me baffled. For myself, I have a selective memory, but unfortunately I don't do the selecting 🙂 .
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I came across it in a copyedit and nearly ‘corrected’ it to hyperamnesia (which it turns out is not a word) on the assumption that it couldn’t be right
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That’s what I guessed it meant before I looked it up. English is a strange language, like ‘flammable’ and its opposite ‘inflammable’ hahaha.
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This felt magical for me. Your gardeners wearing chefs hats on the marble chessboard made me think of the gardener playing cards in Alice in Wonderland.
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I meant the 3 gardeners in the shape of playing cards.
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Thanks Candy. You’re right. Funny thing is I wasn’t thinking of that at all. It’s just a tangle of familiar places/events in Latin America with domestic workers and so on. The chessboard reference is actually black and white marble floor tiling.
I think everything comes from memory in the end, unless you have true otherworldly visions 🙂 , same for Lewis Carroll I suppose.
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You know that your writing is excellent when you stimulate the personal memories of your readers. And your poetry does that for me. Thanks for an enjoyable experience!
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You’re very welcome 🙂
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The artwork is beautiful and your words. Worthwhile and an amazing read.
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Thanks so much John and I do apologize for not getting to this sooner. In technical terms, I missed it because I’m an idiot 🙂 .
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You are welcome. I work a terrible job myself. I’m always playing catch-up.
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Reblogged this on johncoyote and commented:
Please read and enjoy the work of a talented writer.
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Thanks again, I appreciate the repost, Steve 🙂 .
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Was my pleasure and you are welcome.
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