Trick and Treat - 10/31/08

Maybe there is a zone of the strange

every once in a while I seem to drop in

the only difference between me and the “crazy”, 

to paraphrase the surrealist Señor Dali,

is that I am at least partly sane

how else explain these uncanny three?

Yesterday I scanned an old, forgotten negative

Lincoln and his General(s) my name for it

after a book of that title written years ago

Towering Lincoln, top hat, and bearded

looks down on his bull dog Grant

maybe asking him the brand of his whiskey

so he can suggest others of lesser pugnacity drink it

Then this morning I opened the paper and was dumbstruck to read

about a new book on Lincoln as commander - the first in fifty years

by James McPherson, renowned historian of the Civil War

Improbably coincidental!  - I shook my head

and if I told you the second picture 

was taken within days of the first back in 1991

would you believe me? - I swear on the Book!

What else is out there - What else might there be?

ET

I caught this extra-terrestrial

just before he stepped into his beam

don’t be deceived by superficial appearances

this is the glow of a higher-dimensional being

ready to return to his own domain

but that’s sixteen years ago

who knows where is he is now

he might be urging you to vote for McCain!

 

Schroedinger’s Bank

In Schroedinger’s High-Flying Derivative Bank

what is the probability there’s anything there?

you open it up and there could be a lot

or maybe the vaults are completely bare

it all depends on arcane hidden laws 

but one thing is certain of one thing there’s no doubt

the Quantum Fat Cat will always get his rightful share

 

The Science of Greed

They plundered equations for quarks and stars

created a vortex that emptied the jars

now as we teeter on the grim Horizon

let’s hope for an Einstein who can go back in time

reverse the equations undo the crime

 

The Final Amnesiac

She’s posting something in this bar or restaurant

It looks like an image of Death

Perhaps it was Halloween or a playbill for a Gothic Band

I have no recollection of this scene

though I am sure I was attracted by the hair

of all the old negatives I have scanned so far

this is the most alien

and why not?

Death is the Final Amnesiac

The Biggest Non-Recollector of all

Birth of Venus

This I had also forgotten

but it all came back as soon as I saw the scan

the place, the time, the angle

Venus being born from a fountain

but in between something had happened

I had seen her among the trees

oozing light bright as a candle

singing her morning song

principal soloist in the Music of the Spheres

that’s what I said, I’m not kidding

and Moon, I’m not forgetting

but you’re in a league of your own

this one’s also bright

but lacking occluding instruments, the trees

and motion to strike the strings

her voice is mute, at least for me

no, I modify that now

I hear the spray, I hear the light

that’s what she does for me

after all these years

She’s Greek to Me

I didn’t want to shoot Apollo

and incur his Olympian wrath

even though he was distracted

by pursuing the beautiful Daphne

for he is the far-seeing god of sun

and even a glance could have rendered me ashes

instead I focused on the fleeing nymph

imploring her father, the river god, to spare her virginity

which he did in a god’s ambivalent way

where life and death are always intermingled

by turning her into a tree

Apollo Belvedere

Apollo Belvedere reflected in slime

wasn’t that a Star Trek from its earliest time?

Oh no - in that one Apollo is seduced by Daphne

tricked by mortals and then left behind

here he’s just pictured as an algae fed dream

The Birth of Athena

Zeus, fearing the fate of his father, Saturn

swallowed his children

until his daughter, Athena

burst forth fully-formed from out of his head

leading her brothers and sisters to freedom

Orpheus in the Underworld

Orpheus in the Underworld seen for his lyre

his form’s obscured, but his voice is singing

there’s his beloved Eurydice near

Hades looks on as two Shades appear

he’s heard rumors she’ll never depart

he knows human efforts are never assured

Let’s party like it’s 1899

except the denizens of this domicile 

don’t seem the partying kind

maybe because the Fin de siecle is about to end

no need to worry 

Pablo is nigh with a new art trend

If the Master had ever wielded a chain saw

instead of slicing and dicing conventional forms

he might have cut out something like this

only, of course, much better

Omni Guru

This famous fast food franchise was losing dough

all the construction around was obscuring its show

so they called on Omni Guru to save the day

big, brash, hardy, and gay

he rescued them and then went away

East Wing After the Rain

I call this the Prow

that’s easy to see

it’s angled and pointed

to cut through the Blue

it’s ever protean

like the spirit of Greece

takes on anything the atmosphere throws

transforms and molds it to the perpetually new

Nature, it’s said, abhors straight lines

that’s superficial

they manifest deep structures 

that govern the curves

no need to refute me

I speak rhapsodically

and not apodictically

spell that without spell-check after three glasses of wine

Sites of Renown

This sight is now defunct

no more telescoping the Capitol between tree and stone

but on the other side where stands the Prow

there’s another extinction to be bemoaned

On a certain day in May in the years before the terror outrage

facing the Prow sideways in the early afternoon

the glow would rise like a reactor going critical

then BAM! - visual nuclear fusion

building and Prow smashed to ONE

Stonehenge, the Tombs of Egypt

and all the others of Ancient renown

had nothing on this 

but how many noticed 

it being ephemeral and not noised about

Once as it was happening, I needed to share

I called to a woman passing by

urged her to come closer and stop and stare

“Do you see the fusion?” - “Yes, I do”

and I was glad

Defensive landscaping has wiped out this spot

but  it may return someday when there’s less to fear

but people may become attached to the new trees there

and not trust the words of an extinguished scribbler

Heads Alike - Hirshhorn Museum of Modern Art

                 Ode to a Scanner

Little box of light and humming buzz

I owe this picture’s second life to you

I had missed it on the contact sheet

all those years ago

it would have languished in basement limbo

and then finally passed beyond the pale

had I not decided to look at it

and all the others on a more discriminating scale

I couldn’t have done that with the chemicals

too much work too much money

so only you little box of light and humming buzz

saved this picture and its sculpted rhyme

now it rests eternal in the realms of cybertime

                         Going to the Motherwell (NG)

I saw your fancied body double and then forgot about it for several years

until one day watching people walk by this glassy railing

Of course, I saw their lower selves reflected in its blatant mirror

but when I looked up and stared

I saw their heads and torsos, faintly,

also doubled there

How can air or stone reflect? - the Motherwell had gone by then

I still don’t know but it’s somehow there

something about the building

something about the stone

something about the angle that keeps me coming 

seen sights are good 

but those barely seen are sometimes better

 

Time Expired

There’s someone out there predicting the end

here his dark criers and the dream that they send

Rough Weather Ware

I second that opinion, look in my book

I’m not just selling raincoats but seeing you’re cooked

 

The Law of Copies

Faces in the infinite sea of becoming

faces that can be lifted off

and pasted anywhere

the right of copies, which we are,

is primordially protected

 

Big Sky Big Mind

Sky blows up in mind

right outside my wife’s restaurant

upside down over the entrance steps

where the lovesick hawk once climbed

no drug is faster

no drug is more profound

this place should be protected  

designated a National Historic Hanging Shrine

where pilgrims come after healing waters

to open their eyes 

 

Visual Evolution

The eye evolved to scan the land

and not to search the sky

to see if lions were on the prowl

the clouds were all too far

but now that beasts are banished 

we drop vestigial fears

hang upside down widen eyes

and let the space blow in

It makes no difference if this story

is accepted as literal fact

take it as a Platonic Myth

that motivates the act

 

You know what I’d do if they abolished all zoos

I get a nice camera and go in search of some fowl

or maybe even a great horned screechy owl

I’d see them in situations unusual and strange

but not enough to totally rearrange

then I’d snap and I’d click and whisper with glee

I’ve got another for the Ground Glass Menagerie!

—————————————

Somewhere nearby live the forest monks

copying books, illuminating manuscripts

keeping learning alive in a barbarian world

all photos unaltered

Schroendinger’s Third Cat - B&W from 1992

Two cats make three

how can that be?

it must have something to do with Quantum Probability

Yin and Yang - Female and Male - (infrared photo)

What have they done to deserve this title?

look carefully - are they not the very image of each other

though postured strangely to the quotidian eye

inversions have a way of overturning

Another one in the same vicinity 

I inverted and twisted there he was

the Guru of the Glen - the Noble Namaste

the Perfected Master of these watery realms

we exchanged greetings and then a bow

easy for him a stretch for me

but two years later the winds blew in

uprooting trees destroying his home

he’s moved on I don’t know where