6-30-2014

Suspension of Disbelief

Then there was the time that my older brother
asked me very earnestly, "You want to become
an Astronaut?" It was 1964. i was another
month from being five years old. This zero gravity sum
game was my fervent daydream. Forever a 
wish-fool American dreamer, "Sure!" was my lemming 
reply. "All astronauts need to go through a plethora
of training to prepare them for long stints in dark, hemming 
space conditions. This aluminum trash can will be your
command module," he cheerfully announced. "How long shall
i train today?" my reply. "At least 'til lunch, maybe more."
"i'd better pack provisions," i said, and readied my Space Ghost pail.
Later, i knew, after sitting in dark space for hours on end, 
the folly of choosing glory over going out to play with a friend. 


 

6-29-2014

Make the words dance 'cross the pages

The truth of laughter resonates like well-tuned piano
strings. It is hard not to be moved by the sound.
Still, the simple lilting cadence of vox humana
also brings waves of delight unbound.
The passing words of nearby folks in daily tasks
exchanged to share the plainest thoughts 
strikes chords as orchestrated as Basque
folk circle dances: where each man shifts left and squats
with arms full-locked then flips each neighbor 
on the spot and wows us all in silent gasps
so beautiful to behold; such skillful labor 
stuns the beholder and lifts high humanity
So "Dance, dance, wherever you may be."

Thanks to my friend Geoff, who invited me to Yugoslavia to see the International Folk Festival in the summer of 1980. 

   

6-28-2014

If I had a rocket launcher, i'd be on their side.

Quitters like justice dressed in fine retribution,
because they lack the patience required
by slow resolution and prefer hate's pollution
to the ecology of forethought God desired.
"Crush the opposition before they you!" And we
never think about whether being opposable
is such a bad thing all in all. Darwin found it handy
and gave it the thumbs up. But suppose a bull
sits in an arena like Ferdinand in the children's
story? Well, then the patrons would demand their money
back for lack of a dose of death's daily requirement.
But if a bee buzzes, there's sting nearby; perhaps even honey.
To change the whole justice paradigm shall we try Paul's epistles
or fling another slew of stingers or patriot missiles? 

6-27-2014

Satellite Radio

When i heard Laurie Anderson's soothing suggestion:
"This is the time." followed by her unsettling equation:
"This is the record of the time." Without question
something snapped like an old conception or day's ration
of matzoh. So frail is our perception when compared
to being. Still, as tenuous as the weakest forces are,
the distances that prevail are unfathomable. Yet there'd
be no super-string glue without them. And what matter
if we let x=x, when one woman stares at the sparkle 
in Orion's eye with hidden tear inside as she gathers
herself to hear the Mercury sound the almost dark will
bring her: "You broke my heart and you made me cry. You said that i couldn't dance.
But now i'm back to let you know, that i can really make romance."

6-26-2014

Rockets vs. Origami 

I used to think that there was danger in missing God's message
But now i know that it is not so rare a thing that i need
to strain to hear, since God speaks so steadily with clear
insightful sounds and is usually nearby like when i walk
my dog and the caretaker of a neighborhood lady of advancing
years stops to tell me how smart crows are. She fed one bread: one slice
and it picked it up and paused and put it down and cawed
and folded it neatly in two before it ascended and yawed
ever so slightly. It made me think of the eloquent device
Madeleine L'Engle uses to explain spacetime concepts by dancing
deftly around the math and using something like origami talk
to tesseract the moment and paper airplane the thought 'tween dear
Meg and Charles Wallace and children in other times. Indeed
maybe an airplane's not it at all, but a floating swan's mirror image.


PS. If you wan't to make the swan follow this link: How to make an Origami Swan 

Be sure to see the swan egg submitted by egegwrh in the comment section. It shows that with brute force sometimes a result can be achieved.  

6-25-2014

Your Day in Court
The line is long and the waiting fierce,
Like pickup time at daycare, or soccer practice
And the choice of being is not so clear,
but choosing is part of the lesson's advice.
And God knows this and wants you to judge
yourself as if your friends put you on trial 
not for you to stay stuck and not budge,
but to understand what went wrong without denial,
and bestow the mercy of that understanding
when you take them to court for justice's sake.
Perhaps on that day you'll opt to forego upperhanding.
The greatness or smallness of whatever mistake
comes down in the end to kindness, restoration and grace.
Pogo said it best:  "We have met the enemy and he is us."

6-24-2014

Stick This When The Sun Don't Shine           
Your face shows wonder, no, perhaps dismay                       
at the note i stuck you with.  I thought you'd see               
how tired i am of presenting me in resumé                        
form. A list of buzzwords, amid tooting horns aplenty.           
The brash cacophony of business being well done                  
with the most modern and efficient processing of papers.         
Less environment, more cya. So that no one calls you clone.      
This stock exchange of stock ability vapors;                     
This shuffling of desks and cubing of talents                    
disgusts me to no end. Obviously, since no one is stirred        
by my CV: not a single reader risks a call and                   
asks to interview me. For questioning, it is an odd word.        
Though it suggests a shared view, most often a bored room thing  
is what it is. May as well just announce:"I'm generally amazing."                                                                  
                                                                                                            
                                                                                                            
                                                                                                            
                                                                                                            
                                                                                                            
                                                                                                                                                     © 2014 Pluto Corsini                                         

6-23-2014

When Pigs Fly
There are those who base a lifetime of trials 
upon the premise that form follow function, to which
i offer my counter example: pig whistles. 
Made of the same basic stuff of plates and such
that offer a lifetime of ceramic utility
upon which we place our daily bread
and bow to the concept of ready civility.
And that's all fine. China and blessed 
table companions form lines of connection
worth every penny for the rite of passing
the gravy boat. But imagine a pig whistle section
in an orchestra playing Appalachian Spring!
i say: "Let the clay pigeons fall shimmering
to the sea off the lemming cliffs in Gadarenes."     

6-22-2014

Blue Miracle
As i search for a subject today, i think of you
in Ireland traveling the pilgrim's journey 
as you have done for many years now. What dew
clings to blades unseen as intrepid seekers yearn? "See
that over there between the holly and the ivy?"
A butterfly once rare, now everywhere: like Christ
for those who choose to see. How lively
the Holly Blue flits from leaf to vine in mist
of jade morning only Ireland can boast. A friend
once told me how modern church buildings had lost
for her the sense of God's wonder. But, not to offend,
I think God never meant for us to build monuments of stone
to house God's glory, King David simply tossed
the wrong corner-pebble; thereby rippling that cathedral tone.

6-21-2014

Have a Day.

The Worst Day Wishing
The thing about keeping a sense of humor
in the worst of circumstances is, no matter
what comes along: taxes, death or tumor,
someone has a joke to make it better.
Finding the someone with the right joke
at the right time is trickier by far. 
If i could present it at a funeral
(preferably my own) i wonder which star
would twinkle, if any. Would (ephemeral
as such things are) it dissipate with the crowd
With no reflection in the sea of faces? 
And what Mach measures the speed of wowed?
But perhaps for all my without-a-traces
life loomed largest within a misplaced rhyme's smoke.

6-20-2014

Falling Water

Sculpture, when executed well, gives life to solid form.

As Rilke pointed to in Rodin's panther:

Caged, but no more so, in its tense, warm 

bronze moment, than as a soul-crushed dancer

pacing the cage in a Bruce Cockburn song.

Perhaps that's why i like fountains: for the rush

they bring of a seer's spirit as in C. F. Meyer's strong

depiction of a Romanesque fountain: measured and lush

lines fall easily as water in a cistern worn by time.

So restful and soothing to older visitors is the sound

of Wright's Falling Water: tiered and nestled sublime

in Penn's Woods. But the children splashing in pool-like basin

laugh and taunt the guard in me; so out of the spa, i'll chase them.

(I'll probably slip like a keystone kop, as i do so!)

6-18-2014

True Blue Blood

The ebb of the reporter's voice leaves me at low tide;

and just when i think our meddling in foreign soil

is about to reap what we sowed in Iraq; (We lied, 

after all, about the efficacy of dousing fire with oil)

a rise of another voice reaches out to me and buoys

my hope anew: "Although they look like helmets lost

on a watery battlefield, the horseshoe crabs rejoice

in a yearly dance numbering forty-five million." What cost

they must have seen daily to keep up their dance? 

I ponder the report of their kool-aid blue blood 

humans harvest to use their immunity enhanced

by half a billion years of fighting bacteria. Their hoods

and scales are not the strongest of their armor.

Our thanks go out to you, O ancient, unasked donor.

http://www.marketplace.org/topics/sustainability/ancient-animals-blood-modern-medical-miracle

6-17-2014

A Whisper's Burden

It's hard for 21st Century Americans to keep
(Much less explain to their children) the burden
of a whisper in mind, in times when all expect a beep
to say their dinner's done. The best is a lured-in
method taught me by my wife when Helen was in
kindergarten: "Ms. Allen says when she has something
important to say she lowers her voice, akin
to telling a secret." And that resonates for me: Ding!
Like when you lay dying, and i lost my job.
I sat with you like Jonah under a sun-shading tree:
Angry and for my anger hard of hearing, but God
kept softly saying: "I'm sad, too. You can hear me
sob in the short blossom-space of a rose, or a hand's trace
across your streaming tears. Just be glad we ever spake."  

6-16-2014

Kleinste Weltveränderung

Ein Freund hat mir vorgestern doch gesagt,
"Hätten wir der zweiten Weltskriegs verloren, 
So sprächen wir Alle Deutch heute, nicht?" 
Obwohl ich nicht zeigt, daß solche Spruche bis an die Ohren
habe, erwiderte ich, "Wir sind glücklich immernoch
English als die Müttersprache quatschen, eben."
Dachte mir selbst also später, besser gesagt doch
hätte, wäre: "Denkst du das wir hätten den Krieg erlebten,
wenn ein jüdischer Nachbar, dem Schicklegruber Knabe
Ein Hündschen für seinen siebten Geburstag schenkte?"
Aber hilft solche Gedanke, um die Öpfer jetzt Gnade
nicht leisten. Und manchmal Solche man zur Verwirrung lenkt.
Besser also spazierte ich heut' morgen gern
mit meinem eigenen Hund und betete zu erlernen.

Ides of June

No Third Troy

Sometimes I wonder if God tires of repeat

performances of human drama with changes

of actors. Like the self-imagined hero who reads

the Iliad in comic book form and tempts danger

by Trojan tactics at a party of enemies who

recite the epic by heart for fun and substitutes 

a pinata for the horse. Does God peek through

fingers and wince the way i would or (being astute

and omniscient) calmly observes, looking for ways

to salve the whack wounds after the last adieu

of the party-goers. Eons pass and better days

and yet we don the mask and strut on stage anew.

And what God waits for we question and fret

And somewhere another Odysseus isn't home yet.   

6-14-2014

Sonnet No. 9
(Lines composed waiting for the bus stop at 34th and Vine)

2 x or not 2 x. That is my text.
Oh ex. Oh ex. Oh ex. Oh ex. Oh ex.
Oh ex. Oh ex. Oh ex. Oh ex. Oh, next?
No ex. Oh ex. Oh ex. Oh ex. Oh ex.
Oh ex. Oh ex. Oh ex. Oh ex. Oh ex.

Oh ex. Oh ex. Oh ex. Oh ex. Oh ex.

Oh ex. Oh ex. Oh ex. Oh ex. Oh ex.

Oh ex. Oh ex. Oh ex. Oh ex. Oh ex.

Oh ex. Oh ex. Oh ex. Oh ex. Oh ex.

Oh ex. Oh ex. Oh ex. Oh ex. Oh ex.

Oh ex. Oh ex. Oh ex. Oh ex. Oh ex.

Oh ex. Oh ex. Oh ex. Oh ex. Oh ex.

Oh ex. Oh ex. Oh ex. Oh ex. Awake?
Oh ex. Oh ex. Oh ex. Oh ex. Oh! Next!

#Ding

6-13-2014

Another Icarus

In the background Ben Folds croons: "they drop like flies
from the bright sunny skies," and i wonder what Brueghel 
would think of the photo on 13A and how many sighs
the daily readers produce until their breathe-fugue will
reach the ears of the new poet laureate. Does Mr. Wright 
flash as i do to a statue of mercy in sunny
Philadelphia where the liberty bell takes its toll all right.
And does he sense it as well: that funny
feeling that war has changed venue now
from Dover to Manchester with the enemy
camouflaged in our children's brows.
And how much of the budget will be
allocated to save us from ourselves
and line the library of congress' shelves. 

6-12-2014

One of the great things about shopping in small establishments is getting a chance to witness the passion of the owner for his/her craft.

When i was in Montreal in 2011, i had the good fortune of being reminded of what it means to believe in what one does for a living.

The Drop of a Hat
"You know your Boston President's to blame 
don't you?" he chided, looking like history's croupier.
At once my casual window-shop visit became
judgment day in his Montreal haberdashery.
The visor of his fedora making its case 
by pointing down at Exhibit A: the ugly american
sans chapeau and what's worse: bald-faced
and no hat in hand and, too, no cane
to quickly shuffle off to Buffalo!
(The worse for no wear and tears of remorse.)
Then he hat-boxed me in with: "That long ago
inauguration set in madcap course
your country's bare-headed conflagration."
So, Dad, thank you for your boater as my new ration.

6-11-2014

Putting in my twenty-five cents for June 11th, 2014

--Pluto


The Formula

At two o'clock AM after a Triscuit gorge
clogged my esophagus i knew how you felt
so many years ago when you made George 
vanish before our eyes. The absent coin dealt 
us awe (unaware at first of your deep surprise).
Until with silence fierce and pointing flails
you revealed the trick had gone awry.
A heimlich flurry and gasping wails
no refund of the magic could arrange.
One trip to the ER and hours hence
You got your quarter back with change:
comedy  = tragedy over (time and distance)
plus 25 of anything in oral abyss.
Sometimes medicine shows are worse than disease. 

Sonnets Forward

Welcome to Sonnethesia

It is hard for me to pinpoint my inklings of love of the spoken and written word. Likely it goes back to some evening when preparing to go to bed. The soothing sense of being seated in my Mom or Dad's lap while her/his voice embraced me with a bedtime story. My hope is every person who reads this has at one time experienced that and if not will choose to pass it on anyway. 

Some of you may say, "Ok i get the book/lore thing, but why sonnets?" Why indeed?

All i can say to answer that is although i did not always realize why i was drawn to sonnets, drawn like a magnet to steel i was! What follows is the best i can do to explain it: for me the sonnet is the best literary form for combining imagist and narrative traditions. 
Most poets strive to distill experience into compact phrases whose purpose is like the frame's relationship to a painted picture. Part of the imaginative journey within the artist's painted rendition occurs because the viewer fills in the world outside the frame with the mind's eye. The world suggested by well crafted poetry is no less of a high definition experience for those who choose to read carefully and often.

From a 20th-21st century viewpoint, the happy accident of the similarity of the border of fourteen lines of ten syllables per line to the frame of a Kodak snapshot has struck me. And in the hands of Shakespeare and other accomplished Sonneteers, the progression of the Elizabethan form through three stanzas of exposition tied up in a couplet bow more than provides the beginning, middle, and end we learn to love in a parent's lap.

So it is with this introduction i open up this blog of sonnets in hopes there are those out there who have had (or will have) the exact same attraction to Sonnets that i have.

Pluto Corsini 
June 10, 2014

Parade
You hand popcorn to me and say, "Recall
what you will of marching passers-by today,
but heed this, son: never converse with the tall
one--the drum major (knees high) while on his way!"
It gums up the whole works when you do. No crash
from cymbalist as she boxes helmeted ears! An "Ow"
follows when the trombone slide pokes her in the sash.
The oboist, now too familiar with the horn guy and "Pow!"
One tooth gone with the wind in the reed
broken off: and all for your major exchange!"
You domino the entire scene and we feed
until a jumble of 76 unpopped kernels remain.
Before we know it, here come the sweepers;
and far down the street the big bass boom whispers.