One Leaf

[rowens]

One Leaf




I

The Screen


Filters of time and knowledge check
my innards and my mental collection
becoming another, so I can see
what is seen, a sense of is.

What self do I have, from moment to moment,
but a dead invocation,
a ghost well-defined?

Invention breathes through the slits
the familiar accessories. 
God-given rights. Biographies to choose
an image for each occasion.

Man stands on hill,
looks out, bearded, on the green
wind sunned by blue and cloud.
Such as it feels. I am the man.





II

Love the Archetypes

"Nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn."

Weep for the Fey,
Yahweh, Sango
and Count Dracula.

The Family Romance
and the mysterious woodland gang.
The complex wind at night.

Simplicity has no goal but 
the welfare of the simple. 

Stick to that.

Rattlesnakes in old warm tires.
Rocks stacked in small mounds for fun.

Stick a Warning on Halloween costumes
that aren't Nurses or Army Men.

Stick Warnings on Comics.

Let the 'eighties metal records dig their own graves. 

Matter of Fact,
neglect graveyards.





III

Anima and Peace Mandala


Genius is the wholeness
before the I became a star and
a show became the show. 
Plato's only myth is his cave.

Each story,
among many diverse
ones, and variations.
Jesus and Brer Rabbit.
Who begot who with who in Greece.

Plato's only myth is his cave;
every other legend 
is caked, like forgotten candlesticks,
on walls. 

Let us walk from the theatre
and feel we're in the movie.
Those following hours until the spell
is broken is a life.

A finished world wherein walks
a man not dead nor other than
he is.

[Wjames]

One Leaf




I

The Screen


Filters of time and knowledge check I think this might be better without 'check'.
my innards and my mental collection
becoming another, so I can see
what is seen, a sense of is.

What self do I have, from moment to moment,
but a dead invocation,
a ghost well-defined?

Invention breathes through the slits
the familiar accessories. 
God-given rights. Biographies to choose
an image for each occasion.

Man stands on hill,
looks out, bearded, on the green
wind sunned by blue and cloud.
Such as it feels. I am the man. This stanza's a nice vignette, the realism brings the thoughts of the earlier stanzas to life.





II

Love the Archetypes

"Nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn."

Weep for the Fey,
Yahweh, Sango
and Count Dracula.

The Family Romance
and the mysterious woodland gang.
The complex wind at night.  This sentence is perfect.

Simplicity has no goal but 
the welfare of the simple. 

Stick to that.

Rattlesnakes in old warm tires.
Rocks stacked in small mounds for fun. 

Stick a Warning on Halloween costumes
that aren't Nurses or Army Men.

Stick Warnings on Comics.

Let the 'eighties metal records dig their own graves. 

Matter of Fact,
neglect graveyards.





III

Anima and Peace Mandala


Genius is the wholeness
before the I became a star and
a show became the show. 
Plato's only myth is his cave.

Each story,
among many diverse
ones, and variations.
Jesus and Brer Rabbit.
Who begot who with who in Greece.

Plato's only myth is his cave;
every other legend 
is caked, like forgotten candlesticks,
on walls. 

Let us walk from the theatre
and feel we're in the movie.
Those following hours until the spell
is broken is a life.

A finished world wherein walks
a man not dead nor other than
he is.

Hey rowens, there's a lot really good stuff here. I especially like that sentence - it is a phrase that I think can stick in the brain in a lovely way.

[rowens]

There's a '90s persuasion to that word, 'check'.

The sense I want is to stop, check yo self, and all that, and also checkmate or stop the natural flow of the game, to look for something in my memories that I'm capable of being that's appropriate or that fits a situation.

You can come to that conclusion without 'check'. But, then, thinking about it, it might cause you to stop, too, while reading the poem. So, maybe that is a useful effect. Or tactic. Or gambit. 
A technical-half-slang.



My particular definition of love that I work up over prose and poems and life along with the quotation in the second section is meant to question maintaining a sense for the archetypes.

---

This filtering checks not only what I am and what I can be, but the becoming, as well. So I can see as I am. And this is a trap.