Tag Archives: paths

Day 21 — underground fungi & Gruen undercover

This poem is a sibling to yesterday’s in that it began as a verse in that Frankenpoem which did not fit in with the rest, but was an idea I liked & echoed one I’d been considering: a poem wherein Big O is a fun guy while making his way down to Hades. The title just won’t work though… 

*****

shroom-zoom


took a wrong turn
shimerlight lost
not even shades
wander this way
lick water from walls
but wretched hunger
will claim me first
at least i’ll die here
perhaps my psyche 
will find its way to E
only the sooty fungi
the clang of clay pots
tracking spicy spores
down into the river
at the end of the world
beginning of the universe
stars & souls & gods
all zooming by / the ache
of my internal eyes

*****

Day 21 — TIL about the Gruen Effect

the Gruen Effect

shopping malls (& casinos)
modern pilgrimage sites
fully enclosed  introverted
climate-controlled faux 
town squares skylight-lit food 
court pleasuredomes+parking
are intentionally designed as 
confusing customer traps /
disorienting / losing track 
of time & space / engrossing 
overwhelming experiences /
crammed with colour / bright 
lights / tantalising smells / to 
transport customers in/
to states of emotional
arousal / succumb to countless 
tempting desires / forget their original 
reason for shopping / make impulse purchases
because / they’re / available / & / attractive

\ not because \ they’re needed


Day 20 — Frankenpoem + poetry derived from academic papers

This poem was created using a technique I call Frankenpoeming. It’s where I take a few lines or a phrases or an image from the poems I’ve been reading each day & then crunch them all together — reconfiguring metaphors, smashing words against each other, juxtaposing ideas I wouldn’t have necessary considered, & just generally using them as jumping off points into something of my own. 

Then I leave it for a few hours, before going over it again & editing tweaking polishing, extending weird things into things that more (or less) sense. Sometime extracting the really crazy stuff altogether — or just leaving it.

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darkness treks

for fifteen months 
been unsuccessfully
screaming you home

daily flinging myself 
at the feral ferryman’s feet
heart full of terrorlove

every note forlorn forever
can no longer tell 
bat from man, from moth

seven forgotten stars
stare straight in my eye 
singing swift desolation

endless walks deep down 
permanently passing
leading from nowhere 

to somewhere worse

Day 20 – TIL that in 1974, the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis published a paper titled “The Unsuccessful Self-Treatment of a Case of Writer’s Block.” It contained a total of zero words.

With this in mind, I’d like to write a poem based on the paper.

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The Unsuccessful Self-Treatment of a Case of Writer’s Block
(a poetic interpretation)