The Triumph of Death at Pisa

The Tower

Time locus is in the body's person

Corpus force released at death

Sonic throttles modulates

As distance darts (diminishing) between

Pisan pomme and earth buried green

Cemetery marble name slabs

Given by the living as monument to

Living science and progressive unseen

Advance of inclining generations

All those dead,

the tower,

wanting to lie down.

Off balance wavering, a priori sight,

Tips out over, oblique and back, probes

Where shadows rain.

Reason pendulates

when death is near,

swings its

natal line.

Campo Santo Trionofo della Morte

Savage odors gaff the body's gravity,

Drive back (trip) ancestral feet.

Gay lords and gray robed ladies tilt away.

Their thin hounds turn, sniff, test the air

And Death steps forth its bare locus empty

Where understanding rights the casque of

accidence

and rat discovery

whiskers death

laps newness

that is veritas

in skull chalk paws

The visitor sees vertically sees

The horizontal dead

the fresco freckled

plasterings

imagines all that Death let stand

(master stroke, residuum in form remain)

Galileo leans

on the world's

bell and Death

spins in in

terrestrial

heresy

The blistered walls decay,

Leave unreaped fields

Perfidious in broken swatches

Slatted off continents

Viscid on moribund walls

Satan marauding among

Death's peeled cosmogonies.

Wrought studded the ponderous doors

Stand dumbly in the way

The fervid expanse of newsod lawn

Makeroom nature for the dead-in-stone

And the numbing loss of place.

Campo Santo

Wind turned now

In ice and air

The frost iron forms

Interstice of space

And framed landscape

The flight of dipping birds outside the arched windows

Beats a rhythm on the waves of the lake of the air

The river a blare of light

Trumpeting against stone

Resounding on the water's glare

The silvered flight's staggered flash

Of doom.

The textured twilight

Sweeps the tower top

Sky and cloud abloom

With moment of reeling radiance

Investing the earth's slight

Tilt with paradise and

Holy soil from Jerusalem

Sequestered in silence

For the sleep of death.

Socrates' wish: To die knowing something more.

The Leaning House of Torun

Where Copernicus was born.

Coincident vision of revolution

Of imbalance born.

Nothing but death

is the battle

No war but this

uneven cannonade.

Frontier becomes what it has always been:

historical declivity

in time.

And we depopulate the dead

To depersonalize Death.

The mongrelized dead crawl

Horizontally up the Baptistery walls

Crowd the Romanesque doors

He comes to me in forest night

Like moon beams strike with darkest light

The jagged bark of trees.

That is the way you are in scarcity

And pavid night spreads the lawns with worms.

Odor of mushrooms in fire.

It is lonely here at Death's feet

With fullness trussed in thought,

My dark hair wreathed in guardian

Care about the roots and stones,

Your back pressed against my knees,

Your head buried in my declivities.

So that thirsty nature might her wet world

Renew and fill to standing all her vesseled

Landscapes' parched desire.

Where her conscripts make the watching

Sheep, the cattled hillsides sleep.

Shards of darkness

Where Death's shadow

Moves the land.

III

Natural View

as the nearly new

awaits the further side

every window holds blue pattern

of its counterpane

the element of surprise

waits awhile within

its skies the trees

of hunter green

the cypress boughs

deeper upon the light

bring forth

their branches

their branches bring forth

red of bark

suitable to their

poise

it were sumptuousness

indeed rich reprise

to muscle more their

dignity and couch

the eyes

the eyes couch

upon the bed

of memory

here their jaggedness

alerts premonitory

residence in earth

so like the master mark

to hit it so

wide but true

tapestry

permutation

through and through

through

and beyond the blue

yonder imagination

incites the serenity

it invites

incites the mind to inculcate

its version connatural

with what we feel

we feel

innate passion

inbred love

love that we see

see that we

love

consanguinity

of art and art of love

nature the counterpart

to our desire

desert

by a waterfall

baroque thirst wander

lust among the trees

springtide

species of our grounding

brook spring pool

lake of our inheritance

genesis by doing

going

among plants animals

swiftly starring streams

watershed

of our delight

delight

below the plain I

see the lion lope

resolute

to his prey

obscured by dust

devils and drought

zebras

turn in a circle swirl

among whirled stripes

tremble

like the trees shudder

shimmer in the small hope

of wind

Elegy for a Beauty Unknown

Artemis Astarte Aphrodite

Look on stone and blend brushed hair

Spread in grey oscuro air

about the cornice of a room

She startles purity and some unwashed pain

For an affinity of endings

should not see

Fair blushed beauty and what comes before

Energy of movement against the tactile fluted jamb

augury in bones

Two days she lay among

The cottered parts of human

Hatchery

of bones and stone.

Here above unknown

What shall be known beneath.

Rain stains gray stone

Spreads downward from her hair

Fan matted in vibrant grass

Green darkens the cenotaph

Above her corpse because

She could not wait her own.

Then to rattle in the sage surveyed dawn

Matched in lime

Stretched fire

Forms in cloud close bodies

Gather to rightness

Execute for loss

The grave gathered lot trampled

Nodding and later

redburnt the glowered

darkness

acacias in lustre

flourishing halflight

Blind even for Death

For the closed heart

Whose burning fondness for centricity

Residue of Iris in mind

Bridges the chasms that deepen in mourning

And falter after famine filled

Galileo lucky even in his numbers

4 9 10 15

Proportion of the degree of speed

To arrive by chance at the parabola

Of gravity that serves nature's need.

Toute mort doit estre de mesmes sa vie.

Nous ne devenons pas autres pour mourir.

Every death ought to hold proportion

With the life before it.

We do not become others for dying.

Montaigne, "Of Cruelty"

A hushed propensity for weariness

Weighs heavily on my mind:

Stoneweight

Lifted by a flight of birds.

Death that comes late is never tardy fare.

Morte cavent animae, semper que priore relicta

Sede, novis dormini vivunt, habitantque receptae.

Souls never die, but leaving one dwelling

Are received into and inhabit a new.

Ovid, Metamorphoses, xv, 158

The Triumph of Death:

Hell Mouth

Spoteyed arms, greedy Beelzebub gathers sinners in harvest

Into his Hell Mouth, gaping bowels of eternal gestation

Damnation of endless peristalsis to emerge,

Impaled on hooks.

MauvaisesTerres/The Badlands

An eye through the window

looks of caught-in-the act

deep embolus moves

somewhere among the ease of living

a hidden space unfurls

solicitude of diminished

capacity

mark of evil eye

one white brow and lashes

constellations of raised white mesas

calluses upon elbows

and a fan, spectrum of green,

band of the iris

still within the unclosed eye

entrains radial chasmic light

In London once off

Russell Square I saw a frail

White hand with age

Spots push aside

A white worn curtain

At street level as

I passed I

Was unable to see

More and fear

Coursed with the knowledge

There was no more

That Death let us

See what is small

Weak and diminished

And an arm entering

A coat sleeve once

That I held stayed

Stayed my mind

At the disembodied

Crook of it

The inference of this wedded arc begins

In paleo-springs of an under earth

Transcends her moist designs

The vicinity of a circle

Timor mortis conturbat me.

Death the Taker.

VII

Mutability

A simple augmentation here

Descends as the moon a path

Of memory a shaft of light

Sends across the sea.

"I am as I was,"

The visitor says,

"Peninsular and

Perishable as the day."

Risk of the wave to rise again

Against the land and think:

"This all moves for me.

I am God of this

Individuality. I think

For all. No happiness

Must be but one I see

Irrevocably entwined

With thought of me."

The day amends and

The small sea wave

Bends.

VIII

Easeful Death

Wetness is upon the air

Wet color is in the air

And the brick seep turns dark

To the wall that shudders

Before wind and light

That lust carries prominence

By shape, transcendence

By vertical flit

Or the remnant landscape

To death. To light. The birds

No longer wing but harder strike

And buffet among boughs

The breath wreathes form

To sight, clarity of winter order,

"Send out the flame

Of your desire that it issue forth

With inner mark impressed."

Paradiso, Canto XVII

That season seize

Heart and head

Their inventory seal

By fire of their selfless grace.

Special Relativity

Light glitters brilliant chits on confetti

Scattered waters estuary a diversion of

Light and smooth steel blue surfaces

Three dark figures converse form

Triangle of ease and occupation one leans

Back elbow on top wood grained railing

Another right apex gestures

Rolling circular motion his right hand

Turning stirring his information

The third leans long back straight

Stands listens to events

Mutely unfold tour boat

$5.00 CRUISE yachts in background

Peaked lights triangular chance caps

On concrete posts stately line

Dock a box of pink red white

Geraniums add foreground

Perspective diminishes to figures

Foreshortens through coned lights

To three thin smoke stacks across

Harbor before faint blue mountains

Behind buildings beige and orange

Bright blurry clouds above

Skiffs tatters white shards

Two street lamps wrought iron gate between

Pigeons bob shallow depth of field where

Occasional gull hover suspends the seen

Theory of the Present

An Asian woman looks into the distant

Ancestral moonrise and shining bamboo

Waters on the wide river shimmer moon dance.

The light of many moons dragons,

Legendary Phoenix, thousand cranes

Happiness. Her garment of the same device,

Silken thread of rich gold sheen, colors

For godliness, longevity, prosperity.

The forest's jade reprise warbles in the hillsides

Across the river. Her primary color blue,

Blue of her vest, blue of her robe, gloss

And glisten of the kingfisher deep in her eyes.

Her eyeglasses rim the fiery reflection,

Red Viper at her footstool, her view

Of sunlit clouds her husband behind her

Oblivious to her vision and the Mongol hordes,

The passersby ideal theory of the present, the here

And now, god of commerce and industry,

Ledger and account. His green pen moves

Across red lined page, of jade its justification.

TOE

Theory of Everything

The early method by lamplight and curious swirls

Of dust and steam rising from the cup heat

Flows currents over the glass chimney darkly

Smoked genesis of pattern and generation

Of convection turbulence and fluid flow

Dynamics of creation entropy and order

In the universe heat charged thermo

Dynamics and subatomic quantum

Mechanics of motion and unpredictable

Uncertainty of time speed and location

Planck's constant and the drift of stars

Planets in cyclic duration the still cold moment

Of the heart and unknown matter in circulation

The blood clogged vessels waiting abiding

In genetics and heredity their proscribed time

Dwelling and habitation in the drift of things

Human and transcendent metaphysics

Of the molecule astrophysics of the atom

Early and late aboriginal dreamlines

Tracery of patterns of the soul

Geologic striations body markings

Information pouring from the surface

Lip of the black hole electrochemical erotic

Stimulation and emotional vector of the mind

In the morning sunlight steam arises

From the earthenware coffee cup on the glass

Topped table in the spacetime checkered kitchen

XII

GUT

General Unified Theory

Dexterous bright movement

Among hidden parks

Of dark imagination

Figure in a landscape

Shadows her idea of

Isolation and necessity

Fear of motherhood

Womb distended

Origin at term

Of fetal information

The buoyant weight

Of mystery engendered

Rock and tree

Dark companions

She acknowledges

Sustains in fear

With graceful gravity

Her steps impress

The soft warp

Of pine needles

Organic matter

Compost of death

And generation

Unknown desire

For procreation

Progeny to belay

Time's incubation

Forces weak and strong

Bind these generations

Their oscillations

Damp and amplify

Uncertain fetal

Movement other

Worldly synchronous

Parallel observation

At the close of day

These feelings both

Known and unknown

To me I feel their

Proximity in and out

Of time movement

What movement does

The future hold

Bold stroke of genius

And star intellect

Or narrow confine

Of limitation

The same mind

Stamped in human

Kind symbiosis

Of genetic pair

Or pear shape I

Wear the cosmos'

Vibrant open state

Periodic pulsing

Of our hearts

Independent but

One in time our

Sum of histories

To create a single

Path in human time

The past contains

The future holds

All my complex

Ethos pathos

In this child

Not all mine

Or mine to say

The hieroglyphic

Of the day

Daily life's

Determination

This cool evening

Quiet shadows

Are mine are mine

And his in present

And future space

And time diminished

To a single point

Of consciousness

That does not exist

As ever it is before

The wake of awareness

Closes upon thought

Imagination plunges

Forward dolphins

Playful cross

Cut the bow

Before the mind engenders

Ideas caught

In a net of stasis

Spume of recognition

The flying scud of time

While oblivion

Cyclic history

Concede the error

Repeat locked

In closed space

Curvature of womb

And placenta

Loops like veins

Of both hearts

Beat rhythmically

Arrhythmically in

Personal occlusion

Shared experience

Of blood flow

And Ur-darkness

This palpable

Darkness in liquid

World where sounds

Transfer to heart

And lungs breathe

Vibrant quake

Proximity of voice

Surge of blood

Flow the swish

Swish wish

Of harmony

Patient foreknowledge

Of birth right

Human hegemony

Spiral of spacetime

Action at a distance

Motherly love

As intermediary

Why should she

Not love me I

Am hers as ever

Determined secondary

Cause and effect

Of primary motion

Of God's intention

His idea before time

Absolute expression

Timeless intervention

No time before or

After creation

At what precise

Place does this happen

Where sperm

Penetrate ovum

And the whole cosmos

Dances in motion

Anthropic question

From anthropic

Interrogation

Power of symbol

Abstract thought

Analogy and metaphor

Beauty and strength

Of graceful line

Curve of horse's mane

Color of ash

And ginger

Iconic power

Over nature gods

Spirits and Other

Exists without within

To enforce the Self

Presence permanent

To ornament

For recognition

Of place status pace

To conquer time

Time is change

Measure indifferent

Than was and now

Ornament and tool

For human use

Human declaration

We have therefore

Always wanted to

Make a useless thing

Something out of time

Existence without purpose

Without meaning

Que buena! what

A good thing life is

Voices without shout

Voices within confirm

Validating our event

Horizon in time

History of our place

Our effect on others

Though times change

Moments falter and

The bright green waves

Crest ever in motion

Though nor shore

Nor wave is ever

The same wave

The same shore

Shifting forever

As new motion

In the mind of God

We are all equal

The small sweep

Curving on the sand

Expending the galactic

Whirl whose starry

Outliers spin

Wheel about the still

Center holding

Elusive illusion

All things in balance

Dark matter

Antimatter and all

Possible histories

Converge join

Form the time string

Space possible for

Only this then and now

Beauty engenders science

Engenders vision

Who ever heard

This is an ugly equation

All fact is abhorrent to me

Accuracy is folly

Yet uncertainty rules

As uncertainly we

Cluster and breed

Among the minuscule

Inside the Big Bang

Circus evasions and eons

Past kenning

Our weak anthropoid

Yearning ego

Centric posturing

Wild blue wonder

Cosmic expansion

Quantum contraction

The Ice Age not even

In collective memory

And no one to talk to

The Aboriginals dreaming

The quipus unraveled

Destroyed codices

We guessing at their meaning

Holding the elephant’s tail

Following the dinosaur’s

Trail from cataclysm to

Environmental discharge

Lately the evolutionary

Morning lengthens as

The evening darkens quicker

Quietly we ignore

Our demise the African

Sunrise of our origin

Dark matter sustains

Me and the universe

Asleep in motion

Reckless wonder

Of creation the chance

Encounter of mind

In matter glorious

Light scattered

Indiscriminately as seed

In cosmic wind

Star storm sunspots

Galactic explosion

To us unknown before

But after perceived

As received dogma

Of energy in mass

Velocity of light

Ultimate limitation

For the physical

Though thought

Takes us places us

Where we will at will

Without limit except

By definition of self

Restriction of vision

Self-imposed imagination

Delimiting regard

Subconscious occlusion

Otherwise we can be

Or seem to be at place

And time of volition

At will with death

Our great exception

Delusion of Being

And Seeming in

Synchronous confusion

Confessio amantis

Confession of love

A loving concession

To authority and author

Auctoritate et autor

In one person

Divine inspiration

And origin

Ultimate authority of

Personality ego

Sum proliferation of thought

Reason that governs

And holds bold

Thought in place

Out of time

Out of mind

Time out of mind

The eternal a-historical

Our weapon of choice

Discovery invention

Momentous endeavor

Specializing the past

So the future remains

General unaccountable

The smooth rounded stone

Stippled granite of glacial flow

Steady in the swift stream

Wearing but resisting

Holding the delusional

Hope of rising up in time

Of need and crisis

To block the flow

Stay history and human

Genetic code counter

To avert life’s path and

Reverse biologic clock

Time is of the moment

The moment past

Redemption of white

Clustered dogwood blossoms

Resplendent in sunlight

Location and chance

Encounter with earth's

Proclivities and geologic

Inclination and declination

Of the planets

Angle of the Ecliptic

Winter and summer solstice

You are as a burning

Moment pivot of

Light and dark

Centripetal pulsations

Of the pure heart

Momentum of mind

And body celestial

Constellation of memory

Mythos of the dark wood

And ancient gods

Chthonic by origin

Ruling by proximity

These feelings exert

A powerful attraction

Manifest by moonlight

The shadows speak

What they know

The trees tell

Guardian spirits

Secrets my sentiments

Derive garner

Deep well-being

The purple rose

Of contemplation

(WIP--to be continued)

Frank Cebulski

The Triumph of Death at Pisa