Paramaterial Dialectics

1. All Inner Walks are Outdoor Walks

A pedantic paradox, even this corporeal
Thing, a crystal ball you hold in your hand.
Though theoretical is weighed, considered
As a compass to a pole treasure for Mani.

“Badness!”—you laugh; I say, is it not
Objectified, like the wanted man without
Whom we’d be left wanting, mere wanton
Vandals set free outside example boxes?

The invisible good is here, we believe.

2. Immaterial Dialectic

Immaterial, not. By itself is already
contentious, for conflicts have materiel.

3. How

What does it matter?
Is it matter or what?
Where? How’s it made?
And, really, as what?

4. Why, You Say

Why? ‘Cause the poorest
Questions, asking proofs
Of existence, or of death-
Proof qualities, are already
Matters of life and passing.

5. Behind the Skulls

Beyond the mechanical, neuroscientific poetry.
Beyond political realities, utopia, fantasy,
Where each ghost makes cups and plates float,
Upholding boredom with sheer materiality. 

6. Therefore, Paramaterial

Material argument, not purely.
Immaterial, neither. Each of these
words, these poems, is begging for

proof, but of horror! Or beauty!
The significance of which begging
is in its calling upon a city of gods.

—April 2010

Alternative Prosaicnesses

In spite of the ongoing Congressional investigations over sub-standard dikes and national ghost projects and so on, . . . today I am still starting the blog-posting of my oldest poems, opening with the virtual-last-page piece "Alternative Prosaicnesses" from my first virtual poetry collection eponymously titled Alternative Prosaicnesses, a collection first self-published online in 1999 and re-published (again exclusively online) in 2009 under the same title but containing only the first half of it. As an online book, both collections were made available for free. I am therefore making it available for free reading again today, returning the collection online, one refurbished poem at a time. Without further ado, here is that virtual book's virtual-last-page poem, which was added to the collection as a title piece in 2013:

Alternative Prosaicnesses

I’ll lay it all down like a Proustian fountain sprout
from an involuntary spring of spontaneity, however
the lines shape themselves from Mondrianesque
atria.
Each leap
will welcome wanton jeers from purists and precisians,
them there partying with their bias, like stockbrokers
and fiscal polygyny, oh bulbous am I with my helium.

Every story that pours out of the woodwork is sweat
of some purple prose, fruitage to rococo buffs and
baroque bulls, jazz to the fanciful, puzzle to pedants,

putrid nonsense to your legalese or journalese or . . .
Have you heard from Helen? Has she phoned us
yet from Troy? So do I digress, as is my wont, . . .

Worm, that’s me. Call me Proem or Pee. But do not
make the mistake of thinking me dull or dodo-esque,
being Mondrianesque in my prolificacy or industry.

In the end I’m only like you, who tend to go round and
round in a calculus of thought that may never come full
circle to a halt like you’d hope for. But that’s the idea.

I’m essaying points not to extend your agony, sorry,
but to apprise you, prosaically but briefly, of the reality
of the situation, these abject objects’ objecting to our

contemplating in words gods. That Helen? I’ll take it.

— February 2013