Once something goes upside down
it can never again be seen
as the thing it once was.
Or.
Just model the opening statement after Auden:
About some abstract noun they were never wrong,
These young masters. How well they understood . . .
Or.
Poets sometimes, after 26 straight
days of writing a poem every day,
are visited by a big red brick of nothing.
Or.
Cleanliness is next to godliness,
a statement especially true
for atheists, you think, as you attempt
to declutter your work space.
In Settino’s Saucers and Blimps, for instance,
everything flies or floats quite leisurely
in it’s own space, either an invasion
or an evasion, depending. Look at those
hills beyond the flat, desert-like landscape.
You want to look at the red saucers
or the green blimps, but you can’t help
but gaze at those hills, and the tiny
ship that is neither saucer nor blimp
in the great desert distance, and too,
the landed saucer and blimp together,
which you barely noticed, even though
you’ve had this painting hanging
up on your wall for years now,
perfectly friendly. Suddenly you realize
that your workspace is only partially
decluttered, and you haven’t written
a word in this entire day about music,
which seems wrong , ungodly somehow,
as you sit and stare at your record
collection as if it were a long lost lover
and you choose not to play anything
but instead revisit your friend’s painting
hanging in the other room.
michael jarmer 