Writing On Paper (Draft 1)

Writing On Paper (Draft 1)

I remember how much
you used to love my letters

Touching things have gone missing:
a digital age feels itsy bitsy
without ink on paper,
the primitive’s refuge

Perhaps I shouldn’t read
paper books any more if
their subversive rumination ink
flows like veridical blood upon
capillary pages waiting for the
extravasation of truth, but

the pain of veracity is
like a paper cut acquired from
handling an edgy sensational plot

If there are no paper trails
to follow into the forest,
would the scent of the pine
be lonely without a nose

If there be no object to touch
is one nonsensical or itsy bitsy

The object of the spirit
seems fleeting into an empty ether
such a lonely dark matter to consider
without sails or voice to carry it across

The soul in the body
can be alone; it is
tolerable in a way where
at least there is the corporeal dialog:

the ego speaks to the fantasy
sensual things happen between the two
who fool each other into thinking

the other is real, and then maybe
both are not, or there is
one soul that will carry on
like the scent of the pining pine,

but what if after death
it is thrust into a distant galaxy
with no body to reincarnate
no houses or trees to haunt
no gods to worship like objects

Is this the cosmic loneliness
when one can not be two
even for the moment of a dream

How could it be I’d
be thrust into a distant galaxy
with no useable matter
with no bodies for reincarnation
no light, no sun,
no spirits great or small or petty
no discernable benevolence but memory

I wonder if I will be less than ash or dust
just one who has no papers, no letters

I’m so sad all my papers have turned yellow, and
I’m not even sure if they make pens anymore, but

I remember how much you used to
love my letters and cherished the one
that I dropped from
the cruise ship of loneliness
into the ocean like the
twilight node episode with
the glowing message globe
looking like
a crystal ball from outer space that
lit up and spoke to the shy lady
at the edge of the surf, addressed
“to the loneliest person on Earth”, but

you are too lovely and kind to be that
and I don’t know why you wrote
a reply to someone who is silly enough
to throw bottles into the ocean that
many mock as pollution, but I
shouldn’t have had to pay a fine when my flotsam
was so finely written in script for
the loveliest person on Earth who
would stand on the beach
and retrieve me from a bottle

but there are more cosmic things
outer space things.

Remember to reply again
if ever I am one alone
stranded in a distant galaxy

because it takes two
and I wouldn’t mind
if you were a goddess
or a human on the beach

— Douglas Gilbert

Writing on Paper (retro-Draft 0) [took something simple and made it difficult…]

Writing on Paper (retro-Draft 0; making something worse& starting again)

There is no object to touch
when one is nonsensical

The object of the spirit
seems fleeting into an empty ether
such a lonely dark matter to consider
without sails or voice to carry it across

The soul in the body
can be alone; it is
tolerable in a way where
at least there is the corporeal dialog:

the ego speaks to the fantasy
sensual things happen between THE two
who fool each other into thinking

the other is real, and then maybe
both are not, or there is
one soul that will carry on,

but what if after death
it is thrust into a distant galaxy
with no body to reincarnate
no houses to haunt
no gods to worship like objects

Is this the cosmic loneliness
when one can not be two
even for the moment of a dream

How could it be I’d
be thrust into a distant galaxy
with no useable matter
with no bodies for reincarnation
no light, no sun,
no spirits great or small or petty
no discernable benevolence but memory

I wonder if I will be less than ash or dust
just one who has no papers, no letters

I’m so sad all my papers have turned yellow, and
I’m not even sure if they make pens anymore, but

I remember how much you used to
love my letters and cherished the one
that I dropped from
the cruise ship of loneliness
into the ocean like the
twilight node episode with
the glowing message globe
looking like
a crystal ball from outer space that
lit up and spoke to the shy lady
at the edge of the surf, addressed
“to the loneliest person on Earth”, but

you are too lovely and kind to be that
and I don’t know why you wrote
a reply to someone who is silly enough
to throw bottles into the ocean that
many mock as pollution, but I
shouldn’t have had to pay a fine when my flotsam
was so finely written in script for
the loveliest person on Earth who
would stand on the beach
and retrieve me from a bottle

but there are more cosmic things
outer space things.

Remember to reply again
if ever I am one alone
stranded in a distant galaxy

because it takes two
and I wouldn’t mind
if you were a goddess
or a human on the beach

— Douglas Gilbert

Circulating Images

Circulating Images

Not stomaching the day,
tuna fish can empty.

The canvases
were spoiled by ugly reds, and
gloom was fed
the last crust of bread.

Doomed he brushed another,
painting a fish for trade.

He gave his
masterpieces to her
a supermarket manager
who risked it to a gallery, and
gave to him a fish.

She’s auctioned it,
sold it for ten thousand.

Hanging is the painting:
fashionable wall,
upper crust ball. The
picture’s picture is in the paper,
a public promotion growing

He’s moved:
a studio in the woods

The canvases were spoiled again,
a crust of bread so moldy.

Doomed he brushed another,
painting a lamb for trade

For lamb chops
he gave his
masterpiece to her
a farmer’s wife who
sold it to the banker.

The auction went well,
a sale for a million.

It was hung on a wall
for a mansion’s hall
with guards and velvet rope.

As good as gold
a “Fish” and a “Lamb”
were made
a collection piece.

He’s moved
to a hovel
painted an abstract.

To paint the rosy picture well
the syndicate’s issued paper for
the Greatest Artists’ Corporation.

To market
to market, the
art stock and bond

Home again
home again
he’s eating a frog.

He’s moved to the mountains
to look at the stars

The stock market has crashed
and so has he.
— Snerd Lee Limbaugh