The Coming of Winter










Day by day
a denser fog
envelops the core
edges overlap
outlines lack
acuity
meanwhile
the woman in the mirror
hides a shadow in her eyes
a reflection of the darkness
that lives within her mind.
She pricks her finger
I bleed.

(Image: John William Waterhouse; Boreas, 1902)

On Mandelbrot's Fractal Geometry of Nature


Why is geometry always described as “cold” Wind blown clouds and “dry?" One reason lies in its Stretched into wisps inability to describe the shape of a Water filled cloud, a mountain, a coastline, or a tree. Clouds are not spheres, Sinking into mountains are not cones, coastlines are not circles, and bark is not smooth, Penetration of nor does lightning travel in a straight line. More generally I claim that Mountain peaks many patterns of Nature are so irregular Sacred rite and fragmented, that compared with Euclid--a term Shrouded in a used in this work to denote all of standard Veil of fog geometry--Nature exhibits not simply a higher degree but an altogether different level of complexity. The number of distinct Act of Nature scales and length of natural patterns is for all practical purposes infinite. The existence Climaxing in of these patterns challenges us to study these Lightning bolt patterns that Euclid leaves aside as being “formless,” to investigate Water birth the morphology of the Mountain streams “amorphous.” Mathematicians have disdained this challenge, however, Pines ferns and have increasingly chosen to Condensate waters warmed flee from nature by devising theories unrelated In sunlit glades to anything we can see or feel……at first glance such Evaporate rise misbehavior looks most bizarre and even terrifying….contrary to rumors Reborn in that analysis is a dry subject, these fractals Wind blown clouds tend to be astonishingly beautiful.

(Text: Mandelbrot; The Fractal Geometry of Nature)

Minuet










angels dancing
on the head of a pin
one step
forces another
silver surface
delicate feet
we watch
eyes held by amazement or
hope of mischance

toe dance shoes
add instability
probability unknown
and now the angels
take their bow
will it be final
or end in an arc of glory?

look there on the left
a bit of a wobble
and we wonder
which will be
the first to fall.

(Image: Fractals, julia set)

The Trickster of Seville

Quand Don Juan descendit vers l'onde souterraine

Et lorsqu'il eut donné son obole à Charon,

Un sombre mendiant, l'oeil fier comme Antisthène,

D'un bras vengeur et fort saisit chaque aviron....

(Baudelaire)

At his passing
Don Juan proffered
a subway token--
fare for the boatman
on the River Archeron.
The boatman accepted
with an enigmatic smile
and served the Don
no more than he had bought--
a bottle of cheap red
instead

of the glass

of Forgetting.
Don Juan offered thanks
and closed his eyes ---
willing the
the embrace of the fog.

Don Juan's hell
was a fine old wine
made bitter by the
reminiscence of
past loves discarded

the rue and regret
of too many roads taken

the realization that his life
held less substance than
the alchemic cloy
of a funerary rose.

Eternity to pay
for the passionate sadness
in Doña Ines' eyes
and a token given in jest
to the boatman
on the River Archeron.

(image: La Barca de Caronte, Eric Martin Contreras)

The Red Wheelbarrow--
William Carlos Williams

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens







Gone










nothing much depends
on a red wheelbarrow
fallen to rust in
the dust blown field

one thousand acres
of unsown wheat

abandoned barn
home to none but
the dry rattle of barn swallows
and the ghosts of American Gothic.


(Image: Steve Fitch, Gone: Photographs of Abandonment on the High Plains, University of New Mexico Press, 2003)

Solitaire











Cell phone rings
nobody there
everyone's talking
I talk to dead air--
an urgent to-do list
loud quarrel with a friend--
better than standing alone.
Society sees matched pairs
makes invisible
losers and loners
who clutter public squares
chatting up the birds,
who dare to occupy park benches
that would be put to better use
by lovers.


(Image: Therese Flanagan on Flickr)

Tempting Fate

Always there were stones--

the wrath of the gods

unheeded--

the crowds thought we were golden,

the crowds thought we could fly.

Tossing aside the lessons of Icarus

we leapt--invitation accepted,

destiny opened

her great grinding maw

and took us down,

an easy task--

heavy as we were

with the weight of stones.

(Image: Georgio di Chirico, Ariadne, 1913)