monera

monera

samuddo / ocean2014

moneracopyright 2014 by john martone

samuddo / ocean These links to print editions:

isbn 978-1-312-43841-5 (color)isbn 978-1-312-41892-9 (b/w)

[email protected]

monera

For ninety years I have heard

Nothing.

Zuiken Inagaki

6wed trap bees in glass jars

w/ holes punched in the lids

a few blades of grass or clover heads

everything was clear then

toward the end just so

9nice & quiet inside too

sextant at seamicroscope here

10

done napping

out to lake

more algae!

11

cold spring harbor in a drop of prairie lake water he looks & looks for that whaling village

12

its raining when he wakes up

this must be his childhood home

13

a globe a colony again

14

while everything else streams by you watcha cell divide

these yearstrying to grasp a nanometer

this lake-waterjelly jars my space-telescope

15

harbor bay now

distant synapse

dancing dnaing

17

their after-images when you wake up in the morning

18

these transparent bodies above & below transparent bodies whos who

19

zhuangzi just looked up from his microscope

at a cabbage-white just flying by

what a mind!

20

when you return to the microscope everythings dead its like lascaux

a page for rosmarie waldrop

robert hooke london another microscope slide

dragonfly telomeres

silesius its the baroque all over again

pediastrum chartres

22

this microbial life

maybe not so bad

23

dont hold so tightit relaxesinto focus

24

rest of your life to number the lives

in this water drop & be wrong

rows of microscopists each a drop of water no one looks up

the benthic depthsof all of one millimeter

25

youve no ideapeople call you monera now

26

after such lifea thread of ink his flagellum

27

you dream all morning youre a water drop

28

contractile vacuolesighs

you watchthe cytoplasm stream its happening inside you

paramecium too old to leavea fossil trace

29

knotting a bowline naturally amoeba

30

blue-green algaethe great sunflower

31

that rooming house room bed & pillow & windowsee-thru

in your mind on those waters

& you dont know the difference

33

an 18th century split-shingled rooming house painted blue sixteen or so windows facing the streetone is yours

34

night after night you dream of a cave city close by, like cormans matera or canyon de chelly or datdawtaung, a place of repose, quietly inhabited, welcoming. And you wake up thinking its just one more rooming house reverie, till you look around at your dresser and table and little shrine box and see how cabinets are caves and drawers are caves holding forgotten childhood things in boxes and shells that are caves all the way back to prehistory and even lifes first architecture. Then you see those gold pavilions floating in the cheap print taima mandala on the wall beside you, the thousand buddhas, each one the same like all the monera, and no one at all. Its time to get up.

35

you grab hold of the toerail a new word

36

a sailboat when he cant even take care of his body

37

only the jib still he sails

out of himself

38

un tethered

drifting out at last

become that micro

scope astro naut

39

so many sailing terms

desmid species

40

think youre nobody now just wait

41

as is sailboat doesnt have an anchor

42

tiller feels well used

43

not o

bvious

you p

ush the

cabin h

atch

forwa

rd to en

ter

just the sight of that full sailbag knocks him down

44

the head is self contained

45

sailboat cabin compact as his dream

46

pull left to go right sailboat tiller microscope slide

47

chabana

cant sail? try arranging a single flower

48

when it rained wed wait in his car

at that corner for the school bus

all youd ever want its raining & youre late

its raining there arent enough microscope slides

49

one vermeer after another this water

50

mothers blue slipper

all the waythru that storm

51

52

light surrounds the smallest life

53

if theres no more to the mind than one blue-green cell its perfect

54

all your life an unseen world

55

blue-green algaemade you

56

minus everythingits all endless

57

microscope on kitchen table how old are you

58

blue-green algaethe spiritual life

59

6 syllables spinnakerspinnaker

60

thoughtturns to

cytoplasmicstreaming

turns to thought

61

hurricanes& sycamores those roots!

62

dinghy same word that buddha knew

63

room to room bringing her silence that lantern globe

64

itll be another place

youll never get back to

65

a dinghy sailboat too much for you alone

66

sinews riggings turnscrews

67

repeat the terms till your body turns to standing-rigging

68

before & after

its always raining

69

its a water drop full of empty bottles

70

late summer youre just like everything else

71

try not to scare yourself its just

that it feels like rain this

sunday after noon &

one by one theyre leaving

72

neglecting his garden theres that microscope theres that sailboat

73

the depth changeshe goes out of his mind

74

out-dated guidesto tall ships & protozoans

75

look up the nautical term for heartbreak

76

he sits on his bed

& is lost at sea

77

its all the life

you could ask for

78

hardly remember that hurricane the lights gone out

79

any day now that dinghy sailboats blueprints

80

eyeglasses in shirt pocket walks down to the harbor already at sea

81

lucky to have seen those sailboats

82

late summer rain everything multiplies

83

havi

ng n

o

pers

onal

life

bl

ue-g

reen

alg

ae

84

those peach trees his sisters were playing jacks

85

spots of time all those nuclei

86

his final years back to high school biology

87

blue-green algaebefore him & after

88

how to fit paper bag book covers

89

little suit time to let go mothers hand

90

blue green algae youre not drowningyoure breathing

91

whatever that cell takes in becomestranslucent

92

bobbing in

a life raft

dream

a dayswork

getting dressed

thoreausame clothestoday

93

the threshold of eyesight

you dont belong

94

a clump of algae a stained glass window

afterall that

youve gother eyes

96

eye

outside in

a hurricanes

97

having looked & looked you finally listen