First picture: "Crumpled And Slightly Flat". Second picture: "Meaninglessness Conveyed". Third picture: "Sacraments Of Conjecture". Fourth picture: "Equilateral". Last picture: "Three Sheets Of Paper".
The first poem of this post actually has nothing to do with paper. (Well, actually, ALL poetry has something to do with paper...)
It is a poem I wrote today that would fit in well in the last post about machines. So think of it as a post-script for the last set of poems on this blog.
This Scale Without Equilibrium
--------------------------------
(This Device)
--------------
This device understood its dreams. But yet
It knew not its actual center. Yet it finally did.
Oh, it was calibrated by such forgotten ascension.
And it posed, becoming the barometer of our
Nonconforming convergence, of our bland assumptions.
It became the thermostat under which we
Remained human, over which we concealed our
Emergence. Oh, this device enumerated the
Polygons, counted our bisectors upon the dimensions
Of the space of comprehension. And it measured truth
Via its own lies. Then it compared every dichotomy
With its conjugate. And purity soon
Reawakened to achieve the balance of this
Scale without equilibrium. Thus, the device perceived
All reality through its indicator, through
Our own hallucinations distinctively misaligned.
=============
Now, back to paper.
Well, this poem is not that much about paper either. Just a little.
Once And Thereafter Isosceles
------------------------------
Gazing upon the game, I oscillate and
Deny my certainty. For, I am defined via
The page, via the circle and its diameters.
Oh, we draw the straight lines from this
Circumference to itself opposed. And
These intersecting edges may betray destiny,
Might beget the entirety of such precognition.
So, then I scrawl from vertex to vertex,
Epitomizing my vagueness by triumph, by
Interaction. But soon the mesh is complete.
Soon the triangles become my theorems,
Become the truth of finality. And you,
You become my strangeness, and I become yours.
But who is magnificent in their loss?
And who plays the gambit never made,
Transforming the paper into the cobweb, into
Its complexity once and thereafter isosceles?
++++++++++
Concept
----------
If the shadows cast across our world
By those dreams of crumpled paper
And of lines in the sky,
If that darkness contained any meaning,
Any meaning aside from conceit for conception,
Then the patterns drawn on the inside
Of my consciousness, they would have purpose,
Have intrinsic value ultimately and completely.
But, alas, I am far from certain that
Any of the circles and grids and spirals
Have an existence upon the ether,
Upon these mathematical and scientific constants
Which imply the entire whole and all
Of the simplest single points at each vertex
Of an infinite-dimensional cube.
..................
The Ink Imagines
-----------------
The ink tingles. And, therefore, it is haphazard.
It is scratched into the canvas of emptiness.
It is drawn as words onto a paper presumed.
And each verb scrawled alternates in its character
From every noun. For the former are straight
And perpendicular. Yet the latter are curved,
Concentric, and dripping. And I intersect
Adjectives with abstraction. But, still, these
Linear phrases entice my convexity. And I
Become swollen, become intricate and simplistic.
For the ink imagines, imagines its constituents
To be of shape and emotion. So, I sip again
The syrup black; then I am distant. Then
I am prolific, am precise; then I am
Demanding of the squiggles inside where I
Have written what I endure, where I have written
Of that ambiguity in which such truth differs.
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
The Pages Of An Undecided Book
---------------------------------
And in that world without beginning, I glance
Upon the immediate images made from the pages
Of an undecided book. Then I understand, I
Am dreaming. And I wonder, are these hallucinations,
These visions, are they implying my own soul? Or are
The tableaux I observe equal only to their plagiarism?
Ah, I quickly shift the page, and then another
Perception is drawn for my imagination's ambiguous edge.
Then I forget the pleasures observed -- the pages never
Become again what they were. Then I tear
The paper callously. But such an infraction
Does not remain, does not matter. Because I only recall
The white of this tome, only recall the
Creases without shape. For I deny that these
Geometries are mine, deny that the dream
Is truly false. So I place the book aside,
Preparing myself to wake, to confront my self-betrayal.
****************
That Eternal Cloth
--------------------
The paper, that eternal cloth, it enveloped me; it
Flung into the fold, into the abrupt bend.
Curved and delicate, the lines of such a spiral
Enclosed me and my echoes. And that reverberation
Is gray, as too is the cocoon of pulp. And flat
Is the wad prior to its destruction. Yet it now
Is convex, is now convoluted, is also crumpled
And unsettled in its vertigo, in its tangents all
Rotated and shattered and caustic. Oh, the paper
Tears, but still it is stained by imagination.
Still it creases and crinkles and redeems its blandness.
For I draw upon its beauty the perplexing ambiguity,
Draw upon it the geometry of complicated permutations,
Of complimentary diagonals each surrounding me
Via such a semicircular and thoughtless shroud.
oooooooooooooooo
Unfolded And Torn Is This Paper
---------------------------------
Unfolded and torn is this shell, is this paper
Upon which I once drew such words, words of
Severed strangeness and perception. Displaced, yes,
Is that certain light that has determined its own
Superstitions, that has demanded that the page be
Crushed then burned then made moist but spectacular.
Oh, those shards of shapeless flatness, they are
A hindrance and an irradiant dream. For I unfold
The peel from its enlightenment, unfold the
Reams made into our phonemes wrought and written
Onto the voices themselves, onto forgotten poetry.
And I pronounce these scribbled images sacred.
I pronounce the syllables as if they remain
Within my virtue. Yet I then shatter all the
Perversions of my mind, erasing such sounds from
Paper I again fold and tear, that I again betray,
Never assuming those possibilities could have
Abstained from absence, from ink surely contrived.
/////////////////////
Amongst The Paper Encased
--------------------------------
The paper upon which is drawn the circle, the square,
Is drawn the ellipsoid shaded by its form (despite
Its topology) -- this page shelters the very image
Which reverberates within it. This imprecise dream
Traces its assumptions above the flatness evolved, above
The scintillating machine we have envisioned.
Abbreviated, certainly, is that random epitomization
Of graphite and ink cursively hewn onto such pulp.
Yet similarity denies the finitude of any spiral,
Of any calculations coarsely flung, then thrown
Among the lines and void of white amber, amongst
The paper encased by sacred insignia, by emptiness
Made into thought made into mathematics made dark
And illegible but smudged, made into these
Obtuse silhouettes of our perception.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Of This Such Scratch-Paper
----------------------------------
Divided
Into subdivisions, into
Multiples, again into inconsistent fractions
Again constant (and unequal to any ratio) ...
I approached, as an inexpressible approximation,
My distant madness of such this scratch-paper.
I randomly proposed these imagined scribbles
Onto the pages of my insignificance
(Yet always still my most significant reality)
Onto pages unimpressed
By their once erased vacuousness
(Remaining as it has remained).
We: pronouns resurrected as integers
Inconsistent on these abaci,
In these lines unplotted, unknown,
Forgotten ...
We were nothing but illegible
And symbolic of nothing.
We were but of no expression
Of my distant madness, of this such
Scratch-paper, of
This such scripture
Torn into exclusively edges.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Inevitably Torn
-------------------
Every vision of our empty-sets,
Of the most dimly-lit pages
Onto where not one syllable has
Ever been written, where
Not any pencil nor pen (nor
Hastily scratched image) has finally formed,
Finally been drawn into the creases and rips
Of reality threatened by its truth
Inevitably torn...
But if we collapse our perceptions
Into but that knot of paper,
Of paper itself the poetry
It would have had once printed upon it,
(But alas, such is plain) --
We will never find the purposes quite
Free and once adored. But ultimately,
In some way, we will redeem
The ignorance of our resentment
By the act of an inexplicable humanity,
By the anger which tosses that
Crumpled wad of all we might have found
Into the waste-basket within
Our hubristic selves, into the simplest oblivion,
The oblivion
Of what we might likely achieve ourselves.
Leroy Quet
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