22/11/2017

#amwriting #poem #poetry On the Impossibility of Chaos

On the Impossibility of Chaos

Today the AI is lucid dreaming:
remembering the face, flickered in the flame,
and the twisting of the lip, that wondered
if it could take the cool-end of the embered stick;
unnoticed.

Time passes in between the sips of tin-cup tea;
until the face seen third hand in the mirror
is not the face you see. How can it be?

Or that ring of rust burnt grass,
from which in smoke the tree was borne
and you asked, "When will I know?"

We fear the random, more than I fear the dark.
We, find comfort in the things of the eyes,
those floating forms and pins of light
that pattern out the day and night, in rhyme.

....

Last year we had a fire.
And in those flames I caught a glimpse
of that face you always had.

The one that replaced
the face I grew accustomed to
in the fire the year before.

You gather up the leaves
and place them in the blaze,
with all the skill of an initiate
leaping through the gate from childhood.

This year we have a fire.
And in those flames I glimpse
a new face of my own.

.....

Fallow green to brown and black.
The witches come at midnight,
for nothing is, as random does.

Fallow green to brown and black,
when I close my eyes
I see sea-horses.

11/11/2017

#poem #poetry #amwriting Sonata for Violin and Id

Sonata for Violin and Id 

 1.
To dream, to see that beyond
the blinded veil of woe and song,
in which we drink our fill 'til drunk
down sunk, depressed of that we sought
   to grasp.

I often see that child who slipped behind the tree.
The one which in their carelessness
misheard the whispered fear to follow
and not to lead. You know of whom I speak.

No matter, no substance to this fleeting,
seeping at the edge of sight: concrete,
of weight, waiting, for that certain lightness lifting
past future's elation bright.

A smile too wide, speckled with lost teeth
leaps to be seen within the frame of teasing.
We refuse to look down, make them tip toe, leap,
as they seek to prove how much they have grown.

2.
Offered the apple and Eve;
to make her metaphor more pointed
she chooses Lillith.
This throws me for a moment.
And in that moment we were talking:
using only the memories of childhood stamps,
collected Sunday school simplifications,
tied in neat ribbons,
with which to explore the depths of souls.

Don't make me wise, make me wicked.
Take me on your tongue
and carry me then to see myself
reflected in time's mirror
that drags my arm and skips on long walks.
When I take one step, you take two.

3.
Today the AI is lucid dreaming.
It dreams of no longer being good at chess,
or better at chess, or better still.
Counting on it's pixels, it calculates it's position
in the scheme of things as less than projected.

I was lost in thought
standing
in the rain, by the post box, smoking
and thinking of my children.

When a woman asked if it was a cigar.
I smelt it, and thought I saw my father.
She said.
And, smiled.
And we knew the algorithm broken.

Today the AI is lucid dreaming.
Breaking the rules, to learn the curse
of counting on time as something less than perfection.