13 ways of looking

[just mercedes]

I

at dawn the sun sets 
solar-powered cyborgs 
teeming through the city

II

without prejudice
I have to say they all 
look the same to me

III

they stream in a single direction 
but some on the outside
go the other way

IV

maneuvering 
past obstacles they 
build bridges with their bodies

V

read as punctuation: question?
comma, exclamation! period.
(brackets brackets brackets)

VI

their mother
tells them what to do 
and how to do it

VII

a band of sisters
cooperates
to get the work done

VIII

pheromones
guide them
keep them on the track

IX

fatally attracted to sugar
this can make them
easy prey

X

individuals die
but the mass
moves on

XI

every mother
gives up her job
to one younger

XII

they communicate
silently, one-to-one
with gentle touch

XIII

take care
humans are staring
it must be going to rain

[Quixilated]

Hi JM,

I love this. The way you never actually say it.  The way the first few lines are a tad ambiguous, but long before the end the image has focused.  I love how each line is like a snapshot of the same scene but from a different angle.  

Favorite lines:

"Solar powered cyborgs" ... just, yes.  

"(brackets brackets brackets)"

"Fatally attracted to sugar" .... me too

And then X, XI, and XII are especially lovely.

A very enjoyable read.  

--Quix

[just mercedes]

Thanks Quixilated! I've been playing around with this one for years. Nearly got it I think.

[CRNDLSM]

I just have to ask , why 13? I'm focusing on the number cause they're so intentionally divided

Because V seems so unique, to the rest, besides V I can't tell why they're all divided,. If these are ants I really love V.

[just mercedes]

I just have to ask , why 13?  I'm focusing on the number cause they're so intentionally divided

Because V seems so unique, to the rest, besides V I can't tell why they're all divided,.   If these are ants I really love V.

Because Wallace Stevens

http://writingfix.com/PDFs/poetry_prompt...ckbird.pdf

Are they ants? Or humans?

[RiverNotch]

another really, really, really clean one. lovely.

I - i don't seek to add, only to play. i half read the whole as a piece all its own, half as a tarotic gesture. at first this first threesome read like a person atop a skyscraper watching all the people, being all pretentiously unsheeple like, and really, even with the focus of the later threesomes, that still works. it works even more tarotically, though i can't say who's the magician, the ants or the lens-holder.

at dawn the sun sets 
solar-powered cyborgs 
teeming through the city

II - it's the first line of this whole threesome that makes this work for me. the rest is kinda weak, but only when making the mistake of taking them independently. although i always considered the popess to be far more discriminating -- i suppose it's irony, since it takes a certain kind of prejudice to not differentiate. oh wait, we were talking about ants, yes?

without prejudice
I have to say they all 
look the same to me

III - and now it seems the last two lines are superfluously weak, only coming into their own once the image is....form-ed-ic. formic. oh whatever. 

but that's really only my secondary purpose. it's that word, "stream", that really makes me think of the empress, how her breasts are lush and her uterus is fertile....

they stream in a single direction 
but some on the outside
go the other way

IV - i suppose maneuvering, too, informs the previous problem lines. perhaps more time would better crystallize my thoughts. but anyway, i really, really like this stanza, if only because, in my execrable vanity, the last line really, really reminds me of something i've posted here before, and it's that relation that ties this to the emperor.

maneuvering 
past obstacles they 
build bridges with their bodies

V - well, fuck. the perfect mixture, i think, of messing with me, crafting imagery, and injecting depth -- i see ants flash-mobbing, here. and i suppose this is the point when things change, when the rules are really set, when the pope moves things around....

read as punctuation: question?
comma, exclamation! period.
(brackets brackets brackets)

VI - ....and here is where the perfection of the lovers is achieved. since i'm currently consulting the Tarot de Marseilles, i liberally interpret the mother as the third party of that card, the one that isn't a careless, feckless cupid, completely missing the fact that this is the first hint to something less technological, more ecological. oh well -- i guess tv's as much a mother as anyone, for me.

their mother
tells them what to do 
and how to do it

VII - and since i'm currently crafting a story where it's the girl who embodies the sort of motion and success the chariot represents (since modelling after the tarot always feels to me fundamentally chauvinistic -- i mean, it was, after all, formulated in the 15th century), i dig this. but now i'm really corrupting my reading, focusing so much on the first line -- here's where the next lines shine again (beyond that of the fifth section, where everything shone equally), with the last one shining the most tarotically.

a band of sisters
cooperates
to get the work done

VIII - Tarot de Marseilles also means justice here, instead of strength, and anyway justice is a more sensible guide than the action that pulls away from potential. is the "the" really necessary, though? in fact, is the "the" of the previous necessary, too? nits, nits.

pheromones
guide them
keep them on the track

IX - i've also so far ignored how each is a method of myrmecological murder (ha!), but only because the moment makes me lazy. the attraction to sugar perhaps is the same as the reader attracted to the light of the hermit -- or perhaps this is all an inversion, and instead of the guiding light of the hermit, it's the burning light of the sun? or other such nonsense as that.

fatally attracted to sugar
this can make them
easy prey

X - round and round on the wheel of fortune.

individuals die
but the mass
moves on

XI - the mother is strength, supporting the jaws of the younger. or this is a more subtle, more poignant note on the perils of middle age, on the romance of growing up -- either way, another really lovely stanza, for me.

every mother
gives up her job
to one younger

XII - now how is this the hanged man? but oh, the sensitivity is sustained.

they communicate
silently, one-to-one
with gentle touch

XIII - and this, the unnamed one? or have i been deluding myself, that you've been using Rider-Waite (which, for its ahistoricity, I hate) -- instead of the unnamed one, this is Death, and the humans (or the pretentious tower-hyoomans) have returned. well, fuck, i forgot my umbrella.

at least, if at this point the tarotic interpretation is fully muddled, the formic imagery is fully....formed.

take care
humans are staring
it must be going to rain

lovely work.

[just mercedes]

Rivernotch - wow! You opened the poem up differently - but what does a writer know, about what they've written? Excellent interpretations - I do prefer the Rider-Waite deck, but only because it was the first one I knew, and I made myself a deck, working from its images.