April 2017 Words + Art Reading + Poem

I. POLARITY

Two worlds,
a foot in each,
is the fate of almost all.

In this temporal space,
we live in the place –
between the poles.

AC | DC –
pulled in half –
with an unknown power
to choose.

One all gloss + shiny reflection (illusion)
The other, apparently empty + flat.

II. ASKEW

But suddenly the world tilts
and we don’t know what we’re looking at
or
where we are.

We are sliding down
the edge of gloss,
heading towards a sharp point
of matte closure.

Compression rushing at us
while our hands
grasp pointlessly at the gloss.

III. LURE

We think we are headed for emptiness
(in fact we are)
as we slip through the point
and land in the gloss.

The lure of the gloss polarity
– undulating its illusory reflections –
has captured the flag in its
optical false depths
and we are called to choose.

We swim in its plumb depths
lulled into stuperous slumber
filled with palaces
of whirling activity
carried by
soperific sluicing rains
we do not feel for being
in the water.

IV. ALL

We end.
It ends.
It all ends.
Or so we think.

We think we still have
a body –
and familiar senses
and apparatus.
We think we know it’s dark,
it is matte.
it is empty.

Some sense of time seems to happen.
And then time parts as strands of serpentine sea grass dissolving.
And we are at peace.
We become real.
We know what is real.
We come to know the gloss is death.
And we embrace the matte, the all.

V. AGAIN

And then it is white.
All around us.
And what was the end
is a beginning –
Again.

We remember something
about the falseness of certain
light, reflected.

We remember we have to remember something about
the gloss,
in polarity and askew.

We will know this time
that there are no endings,
only beginnings
when a beginning is needed
Again.