The Hollowed Out Moment 1.9.2020

[dr_con]

The Hollowed Out Moment 1.9.2020

Cupped clasped 
enfolded held
Now squeeze the 
10’000 things unwritten
and let them 
all Go

What remains?
Here - In 
This Hollowed -
out Moment

first a sense of rough
unhewn unweaved unknowing
the offer of Relief a salve
of association
patterned pitter-patter
a symphony of this -after -that
that- after- this

Release Release Release
below    above     next to
All gone No Me No You
No It or Caboodle
And it’s best Unsaid 
No finger- No pointing- No Moon
And of course:
Not - No finger -Not - No pointing -Not - No
Moon - Nots abandoned no matter how
attractive binding and building their form

Later
write about
Midnight manifest
pointillist lights color -
coding lunar ambient
the terpene tang of
Douglas Fir Scots Pine
the rough - downy- softness of a
favorite blanket the thermal
differential between crystalline Out
and a cinder-cracked firelit In --

The perfect Angle
To see -hear - touch -taste
-smell the borderless - Big
and all it implies.
 

[dcmarti1]

Seemingly stream of consciousness, but I think there was some hidden calculation.

I loved the "midnight manifest" and "lunar ambient".

Imagery, with a hint of surreal. 

[Tinker]

D_C, As I've said before, much of your writing goes right over my head but I always feel something from reading your work.  This one, I actually got it.  Been there, done that.  You were writing what I have felt so many times.  I especially loved

On 1/9/2020 at 5:27 AM, dr_con said:

write about
Midnight manifest
pointillist lights color -
coding lunar ambient
the terpene tang of
Douglas Fir Scots Pine
the rough - downy- softness of a
favorite blanket the thermal
differential between crystalline Out
and a cinder-cracked firelit In --

Really good.

~~Judi

[A. Baez]

Wow! Very interesting!!

Echoing Marti, an intriguing sense of stream-of-conciousness undergirded by intent. I can almost follow this poem from beginning, though, as is typical with your poems, this does require a fair amount of laser-focused effort at times. I do appreciate the areas in which you make this process a bit easier, and the relative prevalence of these points. Still, even in their absence, I found myself caught up in the sheer beauty of the sounds, rhythms, and potential/implicit meanings. I love the way you take familiar and familiar-seeming word sequences/expressions and break them up, reimagining and repurposing them, like rap.

Quote

And of course:
Not - No finger -Not - No pointing -Not - No
Moon -  

has a distinctly zen feel, conjuring "not-doing."

 

At the risk of coming off as a pedant:

What's the apostrophe doing in place of the usual comma in "10'000"? Is there any actual reason other than just trying to be novel?

I found the sudden shift to "midnight" in S5 jarring. The title had led me to believe you'd be talking about one discrete moment; starting here, it appears you're talking about two.

And can there really be such a thing as "rough downy softness"? Was the echo of S3's "rough" intentional here?

Special pleasures:

the close clusters of adjectives in Ss 1 and 3; the sequence of "un's" in these in 3

capitalized nouns and adjectives, to varying extents lending an air of figurativeness and greater meaning to these words, as in some of your previous work; at its best, this reminds me of Dickinson in a good way

"salve of Association"--Great metaphor; so concise yet unmistakable in its meaning!

Quote

patterned pitter-patter
a symphony of this -after -that
that- after- this

Great sonances and onomatopoeia. But any reason for the irregular and unconventional placements of the dashes?

"It or Caboodle"--Haha!

"terpene tang"

Quote

the thermal
differential between crystalline Out
and a cinder-cracked firelit In --

Such an evocative contrast! "Cinder-cracked firelit In"--wow! Such exquisite shorthand for that very special archetype of comfort.

"borderless - Big"--Ah, there's that capitalized "Big" that I loved so much in your solstice poem, this time cast as a proper noun! It's so fun seeing recurring threads like this in your poems. Along with the ensuing line, a great ending; this poem does seem to be all about implication.