MIRRORS AND EXISTENCE
Each mirrors flattens what it reflects,
Eliminate three dimensions and surrounding space,
Thus centers the decentered
Into a flatness whose image is as thin as a sheet of paper
And thus concentrates
On its silver surface
A flatness that is transformed
In the viewer’s mind to a fantasy.
The viewer sees a concept of himself,
Not what is before his eyes.
The mirror image is cinematic.
The watchers of themselves feel
That the people they met
And who never saw them
When they stood before these people
Can now see them
In this mirror as they see themselves,
And the mirror image
Like radio waves or television
Spreads through space
To be tuned in by other minds.
Mirror viewer
Sustained their lives
By believing someone somewhere
Cares about their reflection.
Viewer of self in mirrors
Often close their eyes
When standing before the mirror,
So they can see
What they believe
Rather than see
What is before them,
And believe others
See what they believe.
MIRROR IMAGES
Standing in front
Of a covered mirror,
The viewer sees trees
Growing out of sidewalk grills.
Their leaves
Becoming wet tongues
Stretched over fish bones.
The viewer sees
Canadian geese
Going by the moon
In a formation
That is the shape of his face,
Flying above
The dry tongues of sandstorms.
The viewer sees
Angles in alleys
Reading allegories
Based on the life
Of the tongues of tin cans.
The viewer sees
Bonfires of burning betrayals
By tongues
That he soaked in gasoline.
WITH HER NEAR PAVIA, ITALY
A gray-silver donkey in morning mists
Sipped
Gray-silvered, cloud-whitened, sky blued water
From a silver-green rice field.
The parrot on a thin limb
Was a mist-glazed fountain of feathers,
And a mist-glazed volcano of colors.
The vague weeds of the vague stream
Were tinted a pinkish brown by the morning reflection
Of the old Certosa’ monastic, perfumed, and liqueured walls.
We did not know ourselves,
Our familiar love became unfamiliar, real.
BEING POSTMODERN IN THE SMOKY MOUNTAINS
Being postmodern,
We knew, although our knowledge impossible and obscure,
That we could not
Trust words
To present
As a presence
What our ancestral and socially determined eyes distorted.
So we stood still on a ledge and let
All those who lived by the language of lies walk by us.
We touched the skin
Of this pre-historic mountain.
We touched shapes on stone shaped like the blades of corn.
Each shape had a row of blue eyes up and down its spine.
We felt
The eyelashes of these stiff, blue eyes.
As we touched together,
We embraced,
Felt that these eyes of stone
Were the only eyes that had ever seen us,
The only mind
That understood our illicit love.
BODY AND SOUL ARE NOT BINARY OPPOSITES,
BUT TWO UNKNOWNS
INTERRELATED AND INSEPARABLE
My wine glass with white wine on white beach sand
In the noon light was scorched gold.
An eagle flew through the center
Of a parabola of angular, dark birds.
The birds’ shadows crossed the wings
Of another bird, an osprey, flying below.
I was thinking of her who now lives
On an island where every morning
Seaweed is washed in to cover the shore.
Then I remember a line from John Donne:
“Not yet a breach, but an expansion
Like gold to airy thinness beat.”
I became convinced that I am an anti-Platonist.
It was Plato who gave birth
To the language of lies that the people speak.
I knew that a body present and touched
Is more expansive, enhancing, and exalting
Than a body that is absence and a fantasy.
|
 Duane Locke
2716 Jefferson Street
Tampa, FL 33602-16200
| Announcing: THREE NEW BOOKS OF POEMS By Duane Locke
[Duane Locke has renounced print publication to publish electronically. Duane Locke has over 4,000 poems published, over 2,000 in print publications, American Poetry Review, etc. and since September 1999, over 2,000 in e zines.]
1. Published in February, 2OO2, E book:
THE SQUID'S BLACK INK,
Published by Ze books (the publisher of poetry
For only 69 cents per book)
Contact: http.//www.blquanbeck.com.zebooks. Inquire:
NOVLNymph@aol.com or Ward708@aol.com
2. Published in February, 2002, E Book:
FROM A TINY ROOM,
Published in Spain by OTO' S E-BOOKS, http.//atotos.gksdesign.com/ebooks/locke or http://atotos.gksdesign.com/ebooks/buy1.htm or
http://www.atotos-ebooks.com
Inquire: guiam@wols.es.
Price: 5.60 Euros.
3, Forthcoming in April, 2002, E book:
THE DEATH OF DAPHNE,
Contains 50 poems never published before. To be published by 4*9*1, URL: 491.20m.com. Inquire: Stompdcr@aol.com Price $5.
Order the above through the internet.
[Duane Locke's 14th print book is still in print, WATCHING WISTERIA. Order from Vida Publishing via iod@ironoverload.org. Or order from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and many others. Paperback, $9.95; Hardcover, $19.95]
|
[BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: Duane Locke, Doctor of Philosophy in English Renaissance literature, Professor Emeritus of the Humanities, was Poet in Residence at the University of Tampa for over 20 years. Has had over 2,000 of his own poems published in over 500 print magazines such as American Poetry Review, Nation, Literary Quarterly, Black Moon, and Bitter Oleander. Is author of 14 print books of poems, the latest is WATCHING WISTERIA ( to order write Vida Publishing, P.O. Box 12665, Lake, Park, FL. 33405-0665, or Amazon or Barnes and Noble). Since September 1999, he became a cyber poet and started submitting on-line, and since September 1999 he has added to his over 2,000 print acceptances with 1,195 acceptances by e zines.
He is also a painter. Now has exhibitions at Thomas Center Galleries (Gainesville, FL) and Tyson Trading Company (Micanopy, FL) Recently a one-man show at Pyramid Galleries (Tampa, FL)
Also, a photographer, has had 116 of his photos selected for appearance on e zines. He photographs trash in alleys. Moves in close to find beauty in what people have thrown away.
He now lives alone in a two-story decaying house in the sunny Tampa slums. He lives isolated and estranged as an alien, not understanding the customs, the costumes, the language (some form of postmodern English) of his neighbors. The egregious ugliness of his neighborhood has recently been mitigated by the esthetic efforts of the police force who put bright orange and yellow posters on the posts to advertise the location is a shopping mall for drugs. His alley is the dumping ground for stolen cars. One advantage
Of living in this neighborhood, if your car is stolen, you can step out in the back and pick it up. Also, the burglars are afraid to come in on account of the muggers.
His recreational activities are drinking wine, listening to old operas, and reading postmodern philosophy.
|
| |