Chorogonia

In the first place
there is no first place.

In the second place
is third place.

In last place
holding forth algebraically
is a scalpel hanging from the sky
incising water

on which floats first turtle

inside first carapace

echoing....

[E. A. Costa 22 August 2013]

Children's Nocturne

                   "From night emerge and merge again...." 


Night never falls except on stage.

Night never fades in as a shade is drawn.

Night never rises rosy-fingered like the dawn.

Night is wise as gliding owl and clever as a hiding cat.

Night billows and flows like ink in clearest water
teasing grayness into black.

Night lives as mites in lightest air
now thronging and now going again her separate ways
to allow the day's allotted dream.

Night is fair--she is as unseen as what may have been
and never is never there.

[EAC July 2013]

Haiku X + 2 (Melville)

Opinions voicing

like seagulls over ocean.
Below waves white whale.

Voces volantes
como gaviotas sobre mar.
Abajo ondea ballena blanca....

(EAC copyright July 2013)

The Japanese Bicycle

Moon is a slow door's feline and languorous eye

curving silently.

Moon is a panther glowing ivory in sky

robed in white fur.

Moon is silversmith's crescent and luminous sheen

in labyrinth's light.

Moon is the rower of an obscene scull of dream

gliding out of night.

Moon is unseen wheel in the bright drum roll of sky

riding the daylight.

Moon is half an arc of palest soft green earthshine

echoing dimly

echoing echoing echoing echoing

echoing dimly....

(EAC copyright January 2013)

Captain Swan Song's Atoll (To Van Vliet)

Captain Swan Song's Atoll (to Van Vliet)

To start in words about words is to throw oneself in medias res.
One makes a mark or two....


Ese hombre escala muchos picos

flares flares flares

Ese hombre escala muchos picos

flares flares flares

Ese hombre escala muchos picos

like a brown trout in the desert

flares flares flares

Ese hombre escala muchos picos

like a trout in the desert air

flares flares flares

Ese hombre escala muchos picos

flares flares flares

pythagorean

now about to hit the fan

goes around returns

flares flares flares

Ese hombre escala muchos

hoe hoeing his own

going around and returns

flares flares flares

brown trout

vanilla crew

flares flares flares

in the desert air

black swan

vanilla crew

gasping

flares flares flares

in the desert air

black swan

grasping

flares flares flares

in the desert air rasping

flares flares flares

pónganse truchas

Ese hombre escala muchos

flares flares flares

rasping like a brown trout

in the desert air

rasping like a white crow

in the desert air

flares flares flares

pónganse truchas

Ese hombre escala muchos

flares flares flares

rasping like a brown trout

in the desert air

rasping like a brown trout

in the desert air

flares flares flares

pónganse truchas

Ese hombre escala muchos

flares flares flares

rasping in the desert air

rasping like a brown trout

in the desert air

flares flares flares

pónganse truchas

Ese hombre escala muchos

flares flares flares

rasping like a brown trout

in the desert air

basking in the hair

by the prickly pear

rasping like a brown trout

flares flares flares

rasping like a brown trout

in the desert air

basking in the hair

by the prickly pear

rasping like a brown trout

Pónganse trucha, huele a chota

a brown trout on mesquite

a brown trout in the chiquita

a brown trout in the desert air

a brown trout in the desert hair

a brown trout by the prickly pear

in a sharkskin suit

a brown trout in a sharkskin suit

on mesquite

in the chiquita

in the desert air

in the desert hair

by the prickly pear

it can happen here in the desert air

it can happen here in the desert air

flares flares flares

rasping like a brown trout

in the desert air

basking in the hair

by the prickly pear

rasping like a pythagorean

now about to hit the fan

goes around returns

flares flares flares....

[EAC copyright 2010]
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The Ballerina (Ode To Zárraga)

"It is not that words are imperfect or that, when confronted by the visible, they prove insuperably inadequate. Neither can be reduced to the other's terms: it is vain to say that we see; what we see never resides in what we say...."

Michel Foucault

Mutt Descending

"What were the grounds for refusing Mr. Mutt's fountain:

1. Some contend it was immoral, vulgar.
2. Others, it was plagiarism, a plain piece of plumbing.

Now Mr. Mutt's fountain is not immoral, that is absurd, no more than a bath tub is immoral. It is a fixture that you see every day in plumbers' show windows.

Whether Mr. Mutt with his own hands made the fountain or not has no importance. He CHOSE it. He took an ordinary article of life, placed it so that its useful significance disappeared under a new title and point of view – created a new thought for that object.

As for plumbing, that is absurd. The only works of art America has given are her plumbing and her bridges."

[The Blind Man 2, May 1917]