The following is a new poem of mine appearing in Not For Resale. The journal is edited by Sydney A. Smith, and you can check out the other wonderful poems at the NFR website. Happily, my work appears alongside one of my favorite poets, Amalia Tenuta, whose work I was lucky enough to publish with Dead Mall Press.
Here are screen shots of the poem as it appears:
Reflection:
The poem is in a mode that I would like to explore further, and I may extend this one to several more sections and share the new drafts here. The basic starting point for its train of associations is the historical convergence in the late 1840’s of 1) the discovery of Neptune, 2) the publication of the Communist Manifesto. The astrological significance of Neptune and its themes of collectivity, utopia, intoxication, and music are central, but the poem doesn’t limit itself to these. Ultimately, the poem is just an attempt to get these fragments and constellations of idea and history to dream together — to do things I didn’t totally understand but needed to encounter.
Notes:
The image of a heart dripping in the head comes from Samuel Beckett.
“Trash stratum” calls up this quote from Philip K. Dick’s VALIS: “The symbols of the divine initially show up at the trash stratum.”
The reference to Ophelia calls to mind yet another mid-19th century artifact: the famous 1851-2 painting by that name by John Everett Millais
“trash stratum,
ghost commune, poems
stitched into a sheet metal
boundary, its rust glyphs
tapping your heart” !!!