Galileo's Dilemma

A Short Digression

2010-10-25T09:39:00.002-05:00

Though I'm still whittling away on completing Galileo's Dilemma as a complete manuscript, my reaction to the call that my 3-minute fiction submission would be published on NPR was, well, atomic.

If you're curious, you'll find it here.

to Roxanne and Cyran06

2006-09-02T14:25:00.000-05:00

spied you thrU
my sitemeether lense

bi nary bi noculars
measure, for measure

the traffic
at my door

all the way from Arroyo Grande
C A

looking for words you were
to make her see fireworks

in the sky of your fly
on the Fourth of July

jenny, jenny I've got your (IP) number
24.180.3.105

no area code necessary
these digits do the trick

you sought the Gee-Wiz!
for "poems to make her wet"

followed the yellowed-----stitched seams
& found yourself a home inside her \back pocket/

fingers spiral round the circumference
of denim clad spheres

eschewing independence that bright night
you wrapped yourself tight inside the flag of her embrace

just got word yesterday that this poem about love making
in this Googley milennium will be published in
THE SCIENCE CREATIVE QUARTERLY this fall!

arhythmetic

2006-08-18T08:43:00.000-05:00

these three remainders
you, me and her are
the legacy of simple math
and boolean logic, not so much

we have lost our ability
to add and multiply
desire sliding slowly
off the tail end of X

crossed paths in a cradle of
American comforts
so many plus signs
weighed us down

there is no magic in subtraction
a solitary horizontal bar
where nothing stays,
at least for very long

this foil between us
I lunged from the left
you two repelled, siblings
parrying behind Prospero

division is our only function
anemic lines squeezed
between fecund dots
expecting no friction

only a clean cut
which never heals
despite our common
denominators

heir apparents with no answers
still wanting some of it all

Tale of the Rake (or Ode to an Asshole)

2006-08-14T11:08:00.001-05:00

Monsieur Montreal
was vacuum sealed tight
inside his dadaist
dungarees

he lost his lucidity
once he passed fifty
the effects of gravity
evident

his lust for control
and pretty young prose
created only
impediments

crossing parallel lines
in the name of aesthetics
eyes wide shut but for unconscious
poetics

ah, the vanity of old men
who worship the pen
and grope in the dark for their
muse

is mathematically defined
by Pythagorean minds
as non-linear, impotent and
obtuse

pour poor Monsieur Clifford Duffy

Prime Numbers (for M.R.P., the poetryman)

2006-08-10T16:21:00.000-05:00

       everything is divisible

     as we grow up, and threadbare
        mistaking weak seams for durability
            heavy sighs collapse the card house

    but not in number theory

        where certain ordinates are
    invincible
            they cannot be divided

   even though ordinary men
            still pick fights
     over the primality of "1"

          demonstrating that every one
               has a primal instinct
        to shoot their own reflection

           there just may be salvation

                    in prime numbers
        the mathematician's decoder ring
                  as sexy as Salome's seventh veil
           unlocking Herod's secrets

        and a bard in Arkansas
          who leaves the restaurant
                 with Mamet on the table
        to start a revolution with a keystroke

               and reassures me
   that the power of one lies not in its division,
                  but in its multiplication

Heisenberg Sunrise

2006-08-04T12:57:00.000-05:00

the invitation
a surprise like Texas snow
sweetened my Earl Grey

gently stirring Heisenberg's uncertainty principle around
in my morning cup of tea
dissolving it like granulated sugar

sipping slowly the diluted theory that
the value of certain positions
cannot be measured

Pollock's Last Snowflake

2006-07-30T20:36:00.000-05:00

The question posed a voluptuous riddle.
Were these frenzied silhouettes
pole-dancing in black and blue
drooling the white slip
the sinewy gestures of Jackson Pollock's dribble?

The answer
coveted in a cracked glass
where crystalline veins erupt
like snowflakes
fatally flirting with windowpanes.

The anonymous physicist found
relying on African fractals
and reflexive theories of self-similarity
(like the infinite peculiarity of the figure 8)
that these calculated drips
were indeed, not authentic.

Unstrung Zero

2006-07-26T00:36:00.000-05:00

of dots and lines
the elevated quibblings of
quantum physics

my makeup is no small matter

an elegant hunch
conceived 'round midnite
when Frank was under the stylus
and Dick on top of the matrix

I've got the world on a string

how to explain
the droplets of dots that remain
when straight lines
are straightened
and snap

too much tampering
quiets the quivering

(which ironically)
(is where dimension lies)
(according to the JPL guys)
(in the instability)

that
dots have no depth
is a lie
Mr. Feynman

her atomized mess
has left deep stains

in a strikingly linear fashion

Einstein's Wife

2006-07-12T08:55:00.000-05:00

the letters arrive almost daily = still crisp from their travels

{London + Vienna + Paris}

and she s/its every one open with a whetted kitchen knife not the pearl-handled letter-opener he gave her last September with her initials calligraphied "E.E." on its filigreed cusp

a tender script heavily inked = words thoughtfully chosen

tamed beasts of burden that carry the weight of his lust
for her = once his darling mistress
now his accommodating wife
and the unsecreted "unwanted" others

{Mrs. L + Mrs. M + Margarita} who multiply

{her 20-year-old daughter, his next step, maybe?}

the Mrs. knows E likes L's aggressive posturing
the lady of the house sees E succomb to M's docile compliance
his better half reads that E is smitten with Margarita's full pout and tight ass

still they are not not not her equal

and what of his infidelity, relatively speaking? these candid epistles are not confessions they are revelations for his chosen Magdalene weightless sacrifices she is willing to make to kiss the feet of genius and quiet him in her skirted lap

the knife however she does not return to the drawer when she is finished reading the letter finished folding it twice and tucking it gently into the aero-postaled envelope finished placing it in her high holiday hat box with the others

the knife
she slips
into the
pleated folds
of her
pocket fingering
its thin
edge welcoming
the cut
(gracious hostess
that she
is) which
reassures her
that she
still bleeds

La Bonita Candidas

2006-07-11T08:09:00.000-05:00

                                                  Candidas should be

                                         the name of a "brown-eyed girl"

                                                     not yeasty fungi

Drosophila Melanogaster Disaster/2

2006-07-06T10:06:00.000-05:00

fruit fly puNNett [squares]

   tic

        tac

             toeing

                         XgenotypesY

                                   gives berth to (Mothras)

%   and demonstrously perFect Fenotypes   %

r.pn.zEL v.06

2006-07-04T11:43:00.000-05:00

much much is made of Galileo Galilei's brick and feather
but the gravitational effects of extended locks are

                                                 somethingdifferentaltogether

tress e s s s s s s        l o n g

y a w n i n g   commas   of       thoughtfully_conditioned

f 0 l l i c l e d     f0liage

too    t  h  i  c  k

to run   F t I N h G r E o R u S gh

                                )witchiswhathappenswhenyourrelockedinaroom(

brushed in waves

dis rupt  s   language

d i s t i l l s breath

press | pause

when just the right length ___ as measured by Pope

in just the right        l i g h t

                                               her

c r a c k e d whip                      commanding attention

                         promises no safe landings