lost 33 percent age scribbly gum
we cut nature up. humour me, predict when caravans will fly; it’s a test, eggs laid between layers of old and new bark, the tracks of her gravid roaming revealed. words in wrong and senseless combinations, pacific plastic patch as big as texas; still the frantic crawl collide and crash headlong into the walls of the tract, head-butt into each other, push on past, stop, swerve a little, hit each other from behind. words beginning with /b/ in every language involve explosions, birth and loud noises, zigzag tracks. prey plankton, fish eggs, sea skaters, larvae of the scribbly gum moth. light flimsy flakes. tunnels whirl, accelerate and decelerate. scribbly gum moth, slang-worded as soon as she hits bark, the. gnomonicity by a percentage of pavement; self-similarity in upside-down scale. as in fractals the bark falls away– no practical obstacle now to the creation of an efficient index to all human knowledge, ideas and achievements―to the creation of a complete planetary memory.
if ‘nem’ were a size, what size would it be… 
small; small; little; little; little; little; little;
small; little; little; small; little; little; little; little;
little, of course; little; little; little; little; little; little; little; small;
small; little; little; medium small; small; small; little; little; little;
little; little (size of a mouse); little; little; little; little;
little, n implies negation; small; small; small but not tiny;
med-small; little; little; little; little; little; little, little, little; little;
little; little; little; little; small; small; little;
little; little; little; little; little; little
or maybe medium; medium small; med-small
or maybe
big; big; big; big; big,
neither, na, both
Found poem based on the work of Margaret Magnus, http://www.trismegistos.com/MagicalLetterPage/
(Photo:foramin, very very very small, maybe nem-sized.)
If you are interested:
Poetry Parnassus interactive map: a verse from each olympic nation…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/interactive/2012/jun/26/poetry-parnassus-interactive-map?fb=native
Two poems, a longer one and one nem-sized:
Many of us know Rick Black as a haiku poet and publisher but here is a lyric poem from Before There Is Nowhere to Stand, an anthology of poems arising out of Israel / Palestine. Rick is a book artist and poet, and the founding editor of Turtle Light Press. He lived in Israel for six years, studying literature at Hebrew University and then working as a journalist in the Jerusalem bureau of the New York Times..
BOUGAINVILLEA
Candles are not yet
aglow like sapphires,
the braided challah is still uncut,
quiet beckons
and the last #18 bus
is packed.
People are returning from Mahane Yehuda,
the outdoor market of Jerusalem —
inhale the scents of cinnamon, cardamom and curry,
piled high in mounds,
the barrels of pickles, sour and half sour,
the pickled herring, creamed herring, matjes herring
and piles of fresh dates, smooth and sweet,
and chocolate ruggelach and babke, oval sesame rolls
challahs with raisins, and hot pita
and crowds shoving, bustling, hustling, bargaining, shouting, mobbing,
elbowing each other, shuffling along beneath the bare electric bulbs
hanging,
suspended like the lights of the George Washington Bridge
above the ducans,
“Melafifon — 40 shekels.”
“Tut, tutim — fresh strawberries. Pilpale — peppers.”
Dressed in streimels, flowing robes, silk skirts, pushing
baby carriages, shlepping plastic shopping bags,
speaking a mélange of tongues — Hebrew, Arabic, French, English and German —
shoppers ebb and flow like waves rushing and receding
from shore,
from one merchant to another. They gather like flocks
of seagulls, then disperse past the green-leaved clumps
of garlic, bulbous clumps, dry, hard like the noses of passersby,
bright, shiny eggplants, globular. Go ahead,
imbibe the scent of fresh cut oranges, tongue the bits of halvah,
gently press the avocado skins and squeeze the tomatoes
at dusk on Shabbat,
and taste the loaves of challah woven into the prayer shawl
of our people’s history.
Emitting plumes of black diesel smoke
the bus leaves the market, stops at the Central Bus Station
and chugs up Mt. Herzl into the ethereal, blood-soaked air
of Jerusalem
and there —
in the fading, tarnished light descending
on the city and the Jerusalem pines —
just past Yad Vashem —
there,
the bus, its red and white sides gleaming,
clinging to the hill stubbornly
and climbing it like bougainvillea,
there
the bus explodes:
skewering flesh, shattering glass, shrieking in the quiescent streets,
and sobbing,
there
overturned like a beetle
helpless, writhing, unsilent
there
like a crushed violin
its mangled strings
twisted
notes
shrieking in the sky
and the ambulances wail
“Holy, holy, holy!”
and the pines
in the golden, Sabbath sunlight,
(for candles will soon be lit),
glow ineffably, more beautiful
than ever,
and God remains
in his own way, silent.
We are near Ein Kerem,
Ein keloheinu, ein, ein, ein…
There is no
God
like our God.
There is no
king
like our king.
There is no
redeemer
like our redeemer.”
And the angels cry
and the ambulances wail
and survivors lie on the pavement, wounded,
having fallen back down
in the Vitebsk street,
a violin’s strings
broken. But, if you listen
carefully,
perhaps you’ll hear wind
in the pines,
perhaps you’ll see
starlight glisten
off shattered glass,
and off bougainvillea petals
that are still climbing,
reaching up
in prayer.
New Rooms
By Kay Ryan
The mind must
set itself up
wherever it goes
and it would be
most convenient
to impose its
old rooms—just
tack them up
like an interior
tent. Oh but
the new holes
aren’t where
the windows
went.
Source: Poetry (July/August 2012).
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