At this hour My shape increases By the second. Who will I be What do? In which form arrive At fullest light? How Now runs round The fording thumb– It can’t be caught Ya silly rarebit, Might as well pin moths To beat themselves dustless Gainst morning’s corkboard. Mind morphs outta maelstrom So resistant to solid (per dream per diem perchance) Wonderland Oz & Moscow All left under the pillow Thus forsaken for socalled reality– Shrugging off sleep. Here I yam Hands, nosetip, knees Feet way down to find the floor Also shaping in the Now Why then do I feel so lost? This is me not me The me you see Goes thru these waking motions Stoops to don this sorry skinsak Dance the day dance Blush the face with bright red rounds Foldover in a mock reflection More youman than you, man– Counting down the Now till Then When once again I become a mannequin fog Faintest trace of Earl there is In nightshirt nightshroud Upstairs down Scratching at the window branches Unlining this confining sketch Under dark cover to auto-annihilate Ah, & barely be a memory! Till next Now dawns The call receive– Be more me more me more me Brightness contrast saturation Coming thru High Definition Such an anguished incarnation Longing for the salad hours When our abstract supped On vegan sweetmeats.
This felt like waking as an act of incarnation—being pulled back into a body, a name, a “sorry skinsak,” after briefly belonging to something less fixed. The poem is restless, playful, and uneasy at once. I especially liked “This is me not me / The me you see” because it holds that familiar morning strangeness so well: the self returning, but never quite arriving all at once.
so elusive this now and self
I lurve this! “This is me not me
The me you see
Goes thru these waking motions
Stoops to don this sorry skinsak” —but everything else just as much.
I lurve that you lurve it!
This felt like waking as an act of incarnation—being pulled back into a body, a name, a “sorry skinsak,” after briefly belonging to something less fixed. The poem is restless, playful, and uneasy at once. I especially liked “This is me not me / The me you see” because it holds that familiar morning strangeness so well: the self returning, but never quite arriving all at once.
Early morning is the only time I can write poetry. Any later in the day and I’m too fully formed
Too fully formed. This is hilarious x