boxed in bonus-sized portions
for garden-varietal religions,
I've had these scuzzy intimations
great big (voids) lie behind
most altruistic inclinations
and the biggest news is,
we're still expanding
with-in-exhaustible potentials
to be eternally filled greater.
Now I'll admit to being
hampered in my cognitive
capacity for meaningful
pattern recognition
by my debilitating
predisposition toward
concentrated forms of myopia,
ergo, I can't shape
a formless mess into anything
but incoherent flimflam.
I've tried alleviating this
condition with meditative
concoctions and palliatives
of sensory deprivation,
yet I fear I'll need
a silicon-chip-enhanced head
before I can glimpse
the cosmic legerdemain spinning
its paradoxes of endless
surfaces but no top.
If I finally do, I'll smile big
as a great-white gull winning
his first demonstration hand at
the three-card monte of not-to-be
reconciled contradictions.
This poem is written for Big Tent Poetry's Week 2 Prompt, and was inspired by the March 7 episode of Philosophy Talk on Infinity. The suggestion was to only use three to six words overheard, but I think I ended up using as many as a dozen here. I'm a philosophy nerd.
14 comments:
You really seemed to "get" the prompt here.
Fascinating choice of words and ideas conjured by them.
I love "Shape a formless mess into anything but incoherent flimflam." This is damn fine writing--the whole thing!
You've found some wonderful words here. I must find a use for "scuzzy".
I don't think your cognitive capacity was hampered at all, Francis!
WV: merit !!
Wow, Francis the movement in this is fantastic.
Pamela
I absolutely love this - grinning and loving it!
Fascinating poem. You definitely chose some interesting words. I liked this image very much:
"the cosmic legerdemain spinning
its paradoxes of endless
surfaces but no top."
@Cynthia Some of the prompts suit me better than others, and this one was up my rambling alley :).
@Brenda Poetry has given me much practice at shaping formless messes, and yet I still end up with flimflam ;).
@Vivienne Scuzzy was the first one to catch my ear.
@Derrick I'm glad the word verification seconded your opinion :D
@Pamela I think it benefited from me letting go a little of my controlling impulses.
@Tumblewords Thanks so much... though I hope you don't feel gulled like the narrator :).
@Mary A friend recently posted a poem that mentioned klein bottles and that influenced those lines about the endless surfaces.
hey Francis... you rock!
i started this poem with a very serious attitude and half through it, i found myself grinning cheek to cheek...
and whenever philosophy talks turn out to be like this, i think the person is a real philosopher...
i alwyas told my students, if you listened to a lecturer or read a book and felt you were not getting anything... or you were not motivated to ask any questions or search more... if you felt like running away... just be sure that the lecturer or the writer himself could not understand the subject matter...
i rarely read philosophy books just because of this!
;)
i have a brain that works very well... no need for others making it a wreck!
same thing for you here... your mind is forming some concepts into shapes that are really able to communicate masterfully...
'a silicon-chip-enhanced head' was a killer!
also found the other hyphenated words really clever and thoughprovoking... yes! you ARE s hyphene tamer...
your tone was a wow!
what else?
i can go on and praise this piece more... but that's enough, no?
your mind may get dizzy...
and it's not good as we want to read more poems from you...
:D
and crow is happy that she could have a sort of influence through klein bottles...
i have another work about them... and infinity... how do you like it?
http://dearteachercrow.blogspot.com/2008/06/drinking-from-klein-bottle.html
and if your mind likes climbing up a moebius ladder:
http://dearteachercrow.blogspot.com/2008/06/moebius-ladder.html
don't you think you need a scarecrow here on your blog?
:D
The third stanza is brilliant. I like the wry tone a lot; it reads like a song to me.
Big Tent Poetry looks interesting. I have a soft spot for circus things; at least my idea of the circus and its aesthetics. Not really the concrete tamed animal reality. See, here I am philosophizing; not sure how that happened. Typical me.
Enjoyed the word play so much! Especially reading "flimflam" & "three-card monte" in the mix of high-minded ideas in a shadow-boxing tangle.
Smart & fun. Fun combination.
accurate "sounds" of those conversations that say nothing by saying something -- the 3-card montes of rhetoric!
@hb I do make frequent use of the hyphen, and it's a good idea to keep me grounded. I don't think well when dizzy. I enjoyed the klein and moebius poems... I think I've climbed that ladder before ;).
@Jenny Thanks... I've been in a bit of a rambling mood lately. For me also, the actual circus never seems to live up to my expectations of it.
@Deb & Carolee I'm glad you enjoyed the word choices. I've learned this very valuable rhetorical lesson over the years, You can't argue with flimflam :).
@Deb & Carolee ...and thanks so much for organizing Big Tent and the prompt.
Post a Comment