< brain freeze > (ready made)

[milo]

        < brain freeze >*

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,
And Mourners to and fro
Kept treading – treading – till it seemed
That Sense was breaking through –

And when they all were seated,
A Service, like a Drum –
Kept beating – beating – till I thought
My Mind was going numb –

And then I heard them lift a Box
And creak across my Soul
With those same Boots of Lead, again,
Then Space – began to toll,

As all the Heavens were a Bell,
And Being, but an Ear,
And I, and Silence, some strange Race
Wrecked, solitary, here –

And then a Plank in Reason, broke,
And I dropped down, and down –
And hit a World, at every plunge,
And Finished knowing – then –

*found readymade at some Emily who-ever-she-is website.

And yet: I love found/readymade because it gives readers their due,
because it recognizes that a poem is as much a creation of the
reader as it is of its author (which varies a whole bunch depending
on the abilities of said reader and said author)

Contradictory hierarchy of made-ness:

> readymade-by-a-soulless-automaton-that-was-made-by-a-soulless-
automaton-that-was-made-by-a-soulless-automaton

> readymade-by-hand-by-Romanians

> readymade-by-hand-by-those-people-in-the-next-county

> readymade-by-a-machine-that-was-hand-made-and-controlled-by-
hand-by-someone-in-China

> handmade-by-my-uncle-Dan

> handmade-by-me-from-instructions-I-read-on-the-web

Which brings to mind the massive($$$) legal disputes wherein
an attempt is made to resolve whether something is an 'invention'
or a 'discovery'.

At some level everything is a discovery.
The definition hinges on what level you stop at,
AND how you define that level.


More readymade/found:

"The vermin only teaze and pinch
Their foes superior by an inch.
So, naturalists observe, a flea
Has smaller fleas that on him prey;
And these have smaller still to bite 'em,
And so proceed ad infinitum."

--Jonathan Swift

I think it's great that you bring it to a point most are afraid to go. Like painting Mona Lisa with a moustache without the moustache.