Sunday, July 10, 2016

SONNET (FOR DISSIDENCE).



We are full of anger and decency—the anger of a fragile cliff, and the decency of a broken lock, the circularity of its loneliness. Consider the percentage of news that arrives staticky,

over walkie talkies. A fact happened. I say “eek!” Jokingly! How the hell do you say “eek.” The eek shall inherit the earth? It’s raining on the freight tracks beside the smokestack,

top of which grows a flowering-forth, deciduous beauty, these flowering moments tend to mimic the rugged optimism that might abandon itself in the commercial forays of our

narrow-gauge politics. It’s raining on the freight tracks near Baltimore, outrageous stocky drops, the mineral concept of dollar coins. A departure bell swims around like (grayscale)

fingertips in (lenitive) wind. Later, the upward smudge of the moon playing above the ruckus of chairs arriving, or the upward smudge of the moon playing above the ruckus of

chairs packed off for another destination. What, therefore, cannot be enumerated? The wavelengths of distal objects? Here swerves the leaf-like trajectory of an idea, forgotten,  

the years-in-relevance of a lifespan or redemption-as-industry despite witnesses. A special prosecutor arrives, sweaty and bloated. He receives one (1) office in the basement

beside the Feudalist, one (1) stack of documents, differing in content from that of the Feudalist, and one (1) forehead-mounted flashlight, to enable the examination of fissures

and cleavages. In time, the Feudalist will steal the special prosecutor’s cigar-pinching device. All citizens shall be classified as “essential personnel”, and as such, issued signage

that reads “Break out of the cycle good” and “Break out of the cycle bad.” American deer, in particular, will offer stern topographies of the weather: doe as hotfoot pelt, buck

but for the branch bristling, the leaves bright with water, the shrink-wrap woods. Strip malls adjoin every hardscrabble America, especially districts that foretell a quilt-work of

calamity. The halo of a drive-thru! All these worlds natural, the heaped-up galaxies gleaming amid the despondent wisdom of coherence. (Too many cars rotate like cakes in

glassy buildings.) Man weighs his deficits on the greengrocer’s scale. I’m so stunned—wordplays flail me. I should aspire to be more than a kindly fellow occupying a space

at the denouement of a crisis, eternally sporting greaser attire with “you betcha” scorn. Let’s consider the pastels of soft-spoken resistance, many such kingdoms, borderless. . . .


6 comments:

DAN / DANIEL GUTSTEIN said...

image: radio raheem from spike lee movie do the right thing.

hthr said...

"shrink-wrap woods": yowee. behold the proemtorial at 14 stress junctures. did the 1st sonneteer preternaturally intuit the form from the body's 14 stress pts? one wd think so, given how current rage/despondency is so bound up in our occupation of space as animals amid stupidities. "kindly" is the antidote.

DAN / DANIEL GUTSTEIN said...

hy hthr, maybe that's when the psychology session winds up -- it's a shrink wrap! in any event, personally, i feel very little impetus to veer outside the 14-part format. this could be my undoing, or simply, my derring doing. but i'm very pro sonnet. & kindness. kindness prevails, without being any kind of sucka. thx as ever for taking a look. xo grtstn

hthr said...

Yes, kindness prevails. Let us ever choose it amid so many immensities. As long as you are pro sonnet I am pro reading them. We heed not the poets at our peril.

DAN / DANIEL GUTSTEIN said...

i am pro sonnet except not a pro when it comes to writing 'em. i am, however, reminded of the -- words of -- the stranded russian cosmonaut: "i will endure", he sez, although that's the translation. there's something durable in there, either way, and my -- frank -- thought-balloons want to say "heed them [poets] off at the drive-thru." heed 'em off, kindly, if we must, and we must. --b.a.

DAN / DANIEL GUTSTEIN said...

The actor pictured above playing Radio Raheem in Spike Lee's movie, Do The Right Thing, has passed away. It saddens us very much to learn of that, as his performance in the film was quite stirring. Our condolences.