Welcome to “Poetry at The Arts Fuse.” A new poem every Thursday.

 

Selections from “String Theory”

 

1.

Nature having taken place, the seasons turn didactic. Fiddlers fiddle as errant densities seek to have their say. There are no more distant powers, but only proximal events. And we, whose choices led us here, read the stars as quilting points in a cosmogonic scheme. So what would the language of this place be but a song embodied in its singing? The search for meaning propagates waves beyond the reach of words.

 

2.

To compose words is to place them in the space-time of their textual becoming. Their order of bloom details where they’ve been. Together they are but the bearers of tidings, albeit those tidings are fabulations. Who once carved words on prison-house walls has completed his sentence on paper. The warden had hoped he would learn a trade, but the punctual labor of weighing his words sufficed to fill his days.

 

3.

Few are the traces of his having been, but a revery is not a requiem. Long are the nights of Babel, where we weep for our mother tongue. Émigrés study character maps in search of common ground. Imagine sauntering quiet streets while you pluck low-hanging fruit. Then imagine the sun on your face, as if for the very last time. There, my friend, is your happy ending. Happy as any who have died at peace in the know-ledge of having been.

 

4.

Whose words aspire to the condition of poetry spends his days among adagios. Thus absorbed, he is disinclined to explain himself any further. I has its reasons, and so do they. Gram-mar’s got game despite the chatter. The grooves of history are scratchy and worn, its lyrics painfully familiar. The final challenge was to endure remediation. It was thought the adults would not survive. Thus to secure the future of labor. Hardly a win for the ages.

 

5.

The violence of history is not a metaphor. Known paths intersect with unknown vectors. Sea level rises as its surface warms. Denial only weakens the political will required to postpone the inevitable. An easy death is supreme good fortune. Planetary death is at best a footnote in the scrolls of future cosmography. How much less is your own species? Whose gods are immortal in name only. And only till the last believer dies.

 

6.

The narrative ended in a misadventure. Not all stories are fated to be told. There’s a time to witness, a time to adjust, and a time to simply walk away. And wise are they who walk away, opines the dysphoric reader. Granted, some journeys preclude your return, but such is the precarious life of exile. “What to do? And what to do next?” There’s always talk of a better world, somewhere off the grid. The mural exhorts the viewer to look, a painted wall to see.

 

7.

Serial sentences need pronouncing. Such is life on the x-axis. It’s early in the Anthropocene and already the rally towels are ragged. Whence, these signs of dispossession. Extremities hasten his mind’s demise, but his heart remains strong in the face of ruin. His extant memories are scenes of destitution. And those are fading fast. Now, we are left to commune with the ghost of the man that he once was.

 

8.

All things are manifest by dint of their forms, a claim borne out by lucid dreaming. Shades of blue show an evident ardor for the outlines of things unseen. Ghost winds bear away sunbaked topsoil. Natural disasters are simply that. Food deserts stretch from coast to coast. Islands sink beneath rising seas. Transfixed by the stars, and with nowhere to be, we try our best to connect the dots and read the signs we see.

 

9.

We’re happy to welcome a new generation, but song remains the first best answer to the question you’ve been meaning to ask. The cease-fire ended before it began. Now, there are vacancies left to be filled with banter from the mouths of babes. On the street, such constructs are far from fragile. In private, they’re more than a notion. That being said, they have their pride. They will no longer serve the Lords of Folly, whose whims they can’t abide.

 

10.

The face on the clock wears a civilized mask, polished by years of dissembling. When the big thaw leads to the next extinc-tion, the gods will mount a comeback. Trapped in vicious cycles of despair, motive yields to skillful means when people start to disappear. In antiquity, suicide was deemed political. Despair was the province of poets. Now, as myriad deaths attest, self-loathing plagues the land.

 

11.

There’s every reason to take a drink and but one reason not to. Though many a thing wants thinking through, it’s time you spoke your mind. These manifestos are thirsty work. So is mucking out the halls of knowledge. Songs of departure are not unknown. There will be no rest till you finish your memoirs. Neither rage nor rebellion quell the pain that drives you ever onward. It’s only later, after hard use, that your traumas appear as scars.

 

12.

Etched on the template of our incapacities, sidetracks explain how we failed to arrive. I tell this tale as a somber indulgence. One day, an angel got caught in the shuffle. Found in the cut. Lost in the deal. But even as childhood was one long minute, we did what we could to make it count. The gathering dark was an inspiration. So, too, the mockingbird just after dawn. Now, having done with transitional objects, we seek what remains of our lives.

 

Californian by birth, Ted Pearson is a poet associated with the Language school. He is the author of 30+ books, spanning five decades. His most recent collections include Set Pieces, 2021, Spuyten Duyvil (New York, NY), Set Pieces, 2021, Spuyten Duyvil (New York, NY), Overtures, 2023, BlazeVox Books (Kenmore, NY), and Chamber Music, 2024, Shearsman Books (Bristol, UK)

 

Note: Hey poets! We seek submissions of excellent poetry from across the length and breadth of contemporary poetics. See submission guidelines here. The arbiter of the feature is the magazine’s poetry editor, John Mulrooney.

— Arts Fuse editor Bill Marx