science has this passion

to discover,
or re-discover

it depends

on who is looking,
what is personified.

but,

when being the butterfly
(or chuang tzu?),

feeling the metal pin slice
through dried wings,

and the suffocation of
entrapment,

that is, having to be a ‘thing’

as on a shelf, labeled, glassed,
obtainable,

found a niche,
now perform well…

if you are a butterfly under glass,
then play dead.

takes the fun and the
joy out of the science of

discovery, out of the
playtime of role-play

and temporary assignments,

exploration, even quantum theory.

we all know nightingales
like to be free, as do

butterflies and whispers

poems don’t love

to be scrutinized nor analyzed
for their psychic material

poems are more like butterflies

than psyches, more like butterflies
than like freud

than like rorschach,

than like LSD.

a poem is not an neurotransmitter,
nor a stimulated receptor, nor the electrical stimulus,
nor calcium

but it can affect you.
social media affects dopamine,
like crazy!

check your ventromedial prefrontal cortex

maybe a non-sequitur, but all things
have namable parts that don’t add up
always, but are still whole processes,
like healing
rarely makes any sense,
exactly

albeit the words are happening

thick, fluid, magical,

ungraspable.

untouchable-tangible

symbols have not 1:1
correlation-symmetry
more like 1: ad infinitum

we, who need to be free
take our freedom

in the moments of our breath,
use dashes, and make dashes,
or take our time,
on purpose.

find truth in
chuang tzu, in

freud, even, if necessary…

poetry as word
isn’t fake, nor outrightly
understandable.
it doesn’t have to be beautiful!

not all poems want to be
delivered with song

but you can see an internal
frequency,

even a trapped butterfly

may effect chaos theory
for theories are more easily

affected than are

the winds, with the momentum
of, say, a hurricane numbered 5.

my prayers were heard,
even when i didn’t pray

the way, i was expected to, with
the authorized format, given to me

by those who would punish me,

by those who would punish anybody,
by those who do not know self-love.

chuang tzu is not my god/goddess,
i reject capital letters right now
except for this one,

Process –

but even so, i yearn for another
language, to facilitate this meaning

***********************************************************************
This poem was written in the attempt to recover the creative adolescent
archetype, when expression was honestly exploring and feeling like the systems of the world were restraining forces, rather than assisting and engendering forces, a great questioning. It’s about being awkward, and being as a poem at the same time. When poetry didn’t have to be about rhyme or song, tradition – nor be didactic in any way. When poetry was about experimentation and “finding oneself” in the world. When poetry was about the journey and not the destination.

Also, this is integration work, and not meant to be viewed as a polished piece, final product, or current commentary. This is art-in-action.

Finally, once I found a coffee-shop, where at the readings, the host’s poetry sounded surrealist/da-da, and I felt like I fit in there at times.