...and all points in between

It's nothing like opening a door,
more like, making a move in mahjongg.
Boltzmann could define
if for me; Dirac could simplify
the math; Frost would mourn
it's passing.
It's still not opening a door.

An open door is not a door.
Much like a broken window...
Plato could do this better.
They don't do anything.
We turn the knob;
exert a force.

The door has no story.
If only that door could talk...
Maybe it would lie.
Tell you a cat,
to quote Schroedinger, instead
of a tiger.

And, if they could talk, what rights
would we have?
Would we still be able
to go outside (the cat
subverting) the room by removing
the hinges?

Like most of our inventions
they're admirable and efficient,
but that which defines them
destroys them and only we
can revive them...
by choice.

It's a door's life
and it's its story,
and that fits.
Ours is nothing like opening one.

--------------------------------------------
First written in the fall of 1991, this and Escher were the first two pieces conceived after I'd sworn off writing workshops. Inspired by the layout of the Atlanta Hilton.

What Escher Might Have Thought of the Ball Point Pen

One hand drawing the other, both right,
both incomplete. Something like the uroboros,
but no eating involved and nothing
like my bank account which might
actually be a quantifiable thing
if the universe wasn't expanding, but porous.

I'd be more efficient if I could
smoke with my right hand, he must have been --
that's what his left hand was doing...
Not fading... I don't know. What I would
like to know is why it's quantum sin
to know both where you are and where you're going?

Maybe he saying saying you're a mirror
to your actions...? Nah! No wonder the hands
are both right and three-dimensional,
at least to the eye. If we can infer
three of them from two then how do add?
No less multiply? And the wherewithal

of a priest to speak of salvation?
They get one from three, and I get
a rubber check while Heisenberg
laughs on his way to the occassional
bank, and Escher considers a marmoset
teaching physics and living in the suburbs!

If we can prove, by math, that a black hole smaller
than a quark but heavier than the sun
can exist then shouldn't we be able
to market it as a new garbage disposal?
Why do we have to cast just one
reflection, as he suggests, instead of a stable

of forms, mutually exclusive, Freudian even--
One reading in the dark while another
plays softball on the weekend with the guys
from work. Quantum physics, cooking cajun
and mall-bashing could all be related to weather
forecasts. It all depends on the shape of your eye.

Mom once said that schizophrenia was like cooking:
You never knew what you had util you tasted it.

------------------------------------
Written in the spring on 1991, revised very little. I did a little clean up while typing it up here. This is one that should be read aloud to understand the rhythms in place. And, while I don't agree with the speaker anymore, at times I'm almost convinced by his argument, such as it is.

Ta,

Paralysis in Blue

The classifieds say that landscapers
are needed all over the city.
A dollar-thirty-six candle blues
the room as Zappa plays,
"That ol' G minor Thing Again."

From the wall a shadowed jester
glares defiant. Half-hidden
behind a half-removed beige mask.
He knows his sneer is what will be
as Zappa solos in G minor,
chromatically.

Perfect time is a statistic:
The jester will sneer until yellow;
The blueglass candle will burn
for seven days they say;
The classifieds and Zappa do
that 'ol G minor thing again.

-----------------------------------------------

Written orginally back in 1989. One of the first real successes (as minor as it may be) I had at the time. I played with this on and off until around 1998 or so. It got revised again here while posting.

Ta,