A gasper, a screamer,
a dog’s cock, say
the old type-setters,
frozen at point.
But it’s older than
type, old as a dried
stalk trembling on
the way to earth,
a mud-dauber tube
like a tuneless flute,
the trail of a slug
down the moss face
of a cliff, a severed
finger packed in ice,
a No. 2 pencil pocked
with toothmarks, a
snake made of sand,
a microphone hung
from the ceiling,
the fossilized thigh-
bone of an extinct
sauropod, a string
of drilled shells
used in lieu of
money, or a
gas flare on
an oil field
at night.
Legend
says: the word
joy written vertically,
in Latin, a big letter I
balancing on a
full belly.
OTHER POSTS IN THE SERIES
- Ab Ovo
- The Origin of the Exclamation Mark
- Screw
- Cursor
- Shark’s Tooth
- Acorns
- Book Match
- Toenail Paring
- That Button
- Stone
- Thorn
- Knots
- Knob
- Fulgurite
- Coin
- Sugar Pill
- Peach Pit
- Eyecup
- Asterisk
- Bullet Casing
- Nipple
- Indicator Light
- Salt Crystals
- Asterisk (videopoem)
- Fish Hook
- Oak Apple Gall
- Pearl
- A Thumbnail Taxonomy of Rivets
- Wingnut
- Baby Carrots
- Computer Chip
- Thimble
- Lentil
- Blastocyst
“Full belly”? How about “unicycle,” instead?
“Unicycle” would work, but “full belly” scans better. Loved your imagery!
Read this originally on my cell phone so it took me awhile to see the shape. :) I like the sound of the unicycle and the look of the full belly. Go figure.
I was wondering how this might appear on mobile devices — I don’t have a good handle on which preserve formatting and which don’t. It seems you and Larry are of opposite minds about the closing image, which is of no help to me whatsoever. :) But thanks to both of you for commenting.
I love “gas flare on/ an oil field/ at night.” Somehow it made me think of lit-up long dashes.
Love this.
balancing on a
full gut
perhaps also might work. Great fun, especially “a severed finger/packed in ice” and the wonderful gas flare.
Very tasty!!!
A perfect ideograph, this further limns the “experience” of an exclamation point. The images as well as its image on the page (an ideographic aspiration appreciated on a sensory-impresionistic level) is itself the objectified experience, or the poem. e.e.cummings used this device successfully in “1 (a”.