Otoliths 40

Just for a change, I have a verse poem published at Otoliths, followed by ten visual poems which you might need to click on to view properly. Otoliths is always a great mix of poetics.

http://the-otolith.blogspot.com.au/2016/01/stephen-nelson.html

For Jhana

Bright birds win

g olden sugar swoon

of witch jout.

 

Naked toe scoops
 
undressed anus fizz

translunar.

Deft on Dante

                                  

Now seems a good time. I've been putting it off for years. Now seems the right time. Ok I'm going to pick up Dante and start reading, perhaps spice it up with a dose of St.Thomas Aquinas. Yes, now seems the right time. The plan is to write a series of poems in response, salted with medieval mystical theology and flavours of the early renaissance. Truth is, I'm scared. Dante is daunting. But Bede Griffiths told me to do it. And Thomas Merton. And I trust those guys. I probably won't post many of the poems here. I'll sit on them, save them for something special, who knows what? But I will post the poem I wrote today, an introductory poem invoking divine mercy and all sorts of other stuff to help me on my journey into the underworld. Here it is . . . wish me luck:

Forest of half formed misfortunes,
half moon hang nails,
half hung
              demoniac embryos,
I approach you with a slacker’s concupiscence,
metaphysically maladjusted.
Go lightly with my slow-witted digibox,
my irregular dopamine WiFi.
You transcend the equinox,
the suppurating Catholic beatification
of a plum coloured sun penumbra.
You shape me brickless.

Costa Bounce (for Mike Cannell)

mind fathom liquid lamb
unbounded BO(iii)NG bus -
limitless.
cuss cess
castration pond, pool pounce
uncaring.
LEGO oud. id


(id
 oud
 odd
 out
 oddity) oudity. nude.


napalm frond. pine coal
carcinogen with


(ith
 outh
 ath
 oath


 banana) bone.

cleft urgent (ramshackle)
constabulary. organic
mead menstruation through
deciduous foreign organ.
rain flow organ.
rain florgan.


cellphone. cellophane.
cellotape. cello.
chill orange. cinnamon testicle.
CRUELtea CROUTon.


MONK VORTex of
lemon tart espresso.

Dream Poem & Interpretation

My dead grandfather speaks
thru the telephone, sickened
by the world he haunts, its
ecstasy of suffering; appears
& complains the world abandons
him. Late, the Mother enters,
her seductive confidence &
dripping saliva jacket,
confront-
ed by my grandfather who
threatens her with kisses.
Neither is Danny dead; he lives
in tents up the Cauder,
ensconced in hippie liberty;
creator of waterfalls, spirit trees,
sound gardens, jungle highways,
smokes the ash end of the reefer;
dull actors in
1950s sports cars castigate
his absence.
                  My view of it all
is Arran through windows, binoculars,
too late to go to church, tho apparently
not London.




Interpretation:

My grandfather (on my father’s side), not the most approachable man, is paranoia, fear of the New World Order, the awful state of the world. The return of the Mother is the return of the feminine, the goddess, the female energy that begins as spirit, then filters into wordly affairs, politics, business. My grandfather, that old male domination, is threatened at first by her liberty, her sexuality, but gives himself over to her. The skip to my old friend who died recently is a leap to the personal, and speaks of escape, liberty from my old ways, old hang ups about God (at least a mythic God, the dull actor, not God who is One) a leap into spiritual liberty, light, peace. My friends, pleasant aspects of the Self, are creative; the water highways are subtle energy channels running through the centre of my body, uniting earth & sky. Finally, the detached view at the end is a view of mystery, an embrace of mystery. Arran represents mystery, as it did when I was a child, sitting on a beach looking over the Firth of Clyde to its majestic peaks, reading Lord of the Rings. The escape to London is the leap into the now, or perhaps the healing of old wounds at a time when the church is going through its last days on earth. In this situation, though not recorded in the poem, I am with friends and am whole with them, though not without tinges of insecurity.

Waitressing

left boob pops from

red shirt

coffee

thin & bent as a

willow bow;

sees face on

phone sound

alarming.

Lilt

Those cone combed faerie folk, swinging
from the chandeliers again, thinly cultured,
parasitically drunk on foam fume foam
and ragged pop,
I take a torch to them!
I take a torch to them! -
mad egg that I am –
and scatter and evolve my way
through bucketloads of DMT,
pinioned on an oozing pineal gland.
We have the zest! - And the
s-q-u-a-s-h pip puck sucking energy target, Wee Willie Winkie’s
eyeball to brain overheard a woman,
talking to a man,
the sweetest whisper in the slipsky

night. Open tear ducts to
champagne and let the love monkeys
feast the relevant scientific data,
leafy canopies, jungle berries,
squashed ginseng energy drinks
propped on beachy
health trends. In my

room, I’m swift to ignore the wind-down
sprite jerks juiced on play junk
from the juice yard. Terence had a zinger
that he bought from Dr Leary twice
the price and sold to me as
untamed shamanism.