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Friday 29 November 2013

Lacuna


.

Arnett YMCA: autochrome photo by Charles C. Zoller (1854-1934), between 1907 and 1932 (George Eastman House)


..
 .He stopped going out
Stopping in was the final mistake,
..The stairs too steep

Retreated to a nulliverse
where, dwelling within
the oneirotaxia of
an out of focus twilight
and watching the flags ripple
imperceptibly

in the faint breeze that played
through the rafters of the Arnett YMCA
on the lit up screen
above the organ,
he spent his last days



2 comments:

Unknown said...

I spent part of yesterday thinking about autochromes and Rochester. (The thoughts were prompted by holiday communication with a friend visiting his parents there.) I find this poem and picture pairing really effective -- haunting and moving.

Curtis

TC said...

Thanks, Curtis. There's something in that autochrome print I find inexplicably sad. Maybe it's the flags. Maybe it's something about time. Maybe it's just me.

The stairs and the being stuck in, that's definitely just me.

It's feeling like a long winter already.

On the other hand, and searching for what I believe is known in sporting talk as "the upside", this poem may be thought of as the first in a brave series of attempts to help everyone in the cyber universe to expand their vocabularies... two words at a time.