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)
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