1. |
Weather
04:36
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Weather
Well, the tears carved through your face
just like the Colorado River through the Arizona desert,
and you thought things couldn't get bigger.
Well, they did.
So you say: How will this affect me later?
Will it come in dreams or weather?
Or knots or heaps or poetry?
Or books you read? Or will you just forget?
About it all
About it all
Well, these days I don't know what's keeping
me safe from the city swallowing
whole parts or just crumbs of myself.
Tell me, is there a way to get out now?
And I’ll say: How will this affect me later?
Will it come in dreams or weather? Or
knots or heaps or poetry?
Or books I read? Or will I just forget?
About it all
About it all
Well, I was over the weather
this storm can’t forever go on in this place.
But rain stays together and erodes forever
new canyons of my aging face.
Well, I was not quite sure whether
a capital letter began this whole poem,
and I’ve lost the tether that kept this together.
Now I just want to go
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2. |
Towel Dried
03:51
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Towel Dried
I was baptized in a bathtub,
towel dried under the sun.
Five hundred threads I counted
before it came undone.
Over time and underwhelmed,
the heavy gaze I’d learned
watched me from afar was lost
in fog or something worse.
To break a piece of Tourmaline
To find out what this all could mean
One slender piece, a colored prism
Within three points there's a prison
A slender piece, a colored prism
One day I’ll find some opal
cut in half, exposed.
Expressing every color;
not an answer, good to know.
The veins of color thin, but playful,
lead me to a place
of wavelengths that cannot pass through
this big wide open space.
To break a piece of Tourmaline
To find out what this all could mean
One slender piece, a colored prism
Within three points there's a prison
A slender piece, a colored prism
Well I would be a liar if I ever heard myself say,
"I knew that it would all turn out, it would turn out this way!"
So I might dig it up. Dig dig dig dig dig it up today.
Then flash a smile with two handfuls of soil: “It means!”
My birthmark is an hourglass
and spills upon my knee.
Irregular and anywhere,
but here attached to me.
The grains of sand, deliberate,
fall into their place,
but leave the other half alone,
a big wide open space.
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3. |
Collimated Light
03:51
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Collimated Light
The distance in a single point
is the same between two states.
Deep in thought or two pressed lips,
so much in little space.
Now another line break breaks,
or a negative’s exposed.
Not a picture of Berlin
or a picture of a home.
I thought it was collimated. Come to find I’ve been mistaken all along.
As if by aperture, my sense of you diverge diverge.
The photo’s now clear and intact. Inaction jump-starts quick diffraction.
Now you’re just a good idea I had, I had, I had.
The image I have lingers still,
but doesn’t have a frame.
Somewhere in the past tense buried,
and tucked within a phrase.
I thought it was collimated. Come to find I’ve been mistaken all along.
As if by aperture, my sense of you diverge diverge.
The photo’s now clear and intact. Inaction jump-starts quick diffraction.
Now you’re just a good idea I had, I had, I had.
A familiarity develops oh so perfectly.
Uncared for comfortably isn’t it entirely.
A familiarity develops oh so perfectly,
and it isn’t entirely.
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4. |
A Theory
04:22
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A Theory
Two knots - symmetrical
But look - it's a trefoil
Can't cut - this thing apart
Can't pull - these strings
One knot - tied years ago
Why not - oh it's chiral
Don't look - it's different
Than what - you thought
And you would know me better,
as threads sewn, cut, and tied.
Now ripped just like the tether,
reused, or scrapped, or dyed.
I learned - what's trivial
It means - it's possible
Untie - a knot that's been
Tied tight - by someone else
And you'll- forget about it
And I'll - forget about it
Not yet - forget about it
I can't - forget
And you would know me better,
as threads sewn, cut, and tied.
Now ripped just like the tether,
reused, or scrapped, or dyed.
All of my trigonometry
couldn't measure complexity
or face reflections.
The rest just doesn’t get mentioned.
Didn’t match your geometry
Or your view of this history.
Forget reflection.
The past doesn’t get (mentioned).
And you'll- forget about it
And I'll - forget about it
Not yet - forget about it
I can't - forget
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5. |
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Water on Mars
(I am)
staring at Lake Michigan,
and drawn to the horizon.
It connects sky to lake to land
like some great hyphenation.
So blurry, hazy, undefined,
someone colored outside the lines.
It’s not a smudge, oh certainly,
but some great possibility.
Too planned, too perfect to efface,
the lake serenely as a page.
A wave, a blink, a brief distraction
interrupts.
All the verbs don’t
do enough
to move things into place.
Don’t look back.
Can’t dwell on
wasting a beautiful day.
(I am)
sitting on a bench alone
in Iowa, and spacing off.
Fall drops like heavy curtain.
Summer packs up all its stuff.
Just then my foot turned in the dirt,
and in this moment I was sure
the crunch of earth beneath me now
explained everything I had found—
discovery, a bit of reason, change of mind, a change of season—
Evidence of life on Earth, I’m sure I’m sure!
All the verbs don’t
do enough
to move things into place.
Don’t look back.
Can’t dwell on
wasting a beautiful day.
Straight lines
Black ink
All rocks
Don’t sink
Rest up
Go out
Sit back
It’s raining here in Illinois.
The wind pulls like a tether.
Still not sure where I should go.
Maybe I'll follow the weather.
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6. |
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The City
Sometimes the city obliterates.
Sometimes my bedroom suffocates.
Sometimes the coffee isn’t good.
And other times it is.
From the plane I saw an
orange light, where I was born.
Flashes now, like Venus,
on my retina.
An absence shouts, a presence speaks.
I haven’t found a job in weeks.
So I’ll just be here in this place.
Don’t mind me.
I let the dishes pile for days.
Not because I didn’t want to clean.
The bits of food along the porcelain were
meteors falling from a grey sky.
An absence shouts, a presence speaks.
I haven’t found a job in weeks.
So I’ll just be here in this place.
Don’t mind me.
Sometimes the rain drops from the sky
and forms some crystal column spines.
Sometimes the traffic growls and snores;
I ignore it more and more.
Sometimes we go through the emotions,
sleep on dreams, and float on oceans.
Sometimes a chorus in a forest
chants and chants and chance and chants:
A perfect tiger with perfect stripes!
A perfect tiger with perfect stripes!
A perfect tiger with perfect stripes!
A perfect tiger with perfect stripes!
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Fair-Weather Friend Chicago, Illinois
A perfectly collimated beam with no divergence cannot be created due to diffraction, but light can be approximately collimated by a number of processes, for instance by means of a collimator. Collimated light is sometimes said to be focused at infinity. Fair-Weather Friend is Alex Strong. ... more
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