by Vincent Czyz Dear Richard,
Thanks for the postcard of your painting
Thanks for the postcard of your painting
“Girl with Horseshoe Crabs.”
Sorry the health-food store in Montclair went under,
they made vegetarian chili like nobody’s business.
The quantum physicist you mentioned, who says consciousness
is mostly empty space with a few thoughts whizzing through,
a grand inner dimension that can float a galaxy of ideas
but hardly feel a dimple in its overall capacity,
I got a feeling he’s right.
What’s life like in Istanbul?
Forget about the minarets and Byzantine cathedrals for a minute,
think of the Bosporus
Sorry the health-food store in Montclair went under,
they made vegetarian chili like nobody’s business.
The quantum physicist you mentioned, who says consciousness
is mostly empty space with a few thoughts whizzing through,
a grand inner dimension that can float a galaxy of ideas
but hardly feel a dimple in its overall capacity,
I got a feeling he’s right.
What’s life like in Istanbul?
Forget about the minarets and Byzantine cathedrals for a minute,
think of the Bosporus
dividing the city into Asian and European sides,
think of the jellyfish I see,
lots of them, hundreds sometimes.
The most primitive, I’ve read, are 95% H2O,
which has got to be how life got started,
as tiny envelopes of seawater. So there they are,
our ultra-great-great grandparents,
adrift in water sloshing against the cement shoreline,
a wall along the road that follows the strait.
Circular echoes of ocean,
the ones around here are divided into four equal parts,
sea-animal mandalas spangling the water,
silver dollar to Frisbee size, milky and translucent.
I like to watch them sort of sway in the current
just beneath the surface—
they’re a good way to meditate.
This must be the lure of the lava lamp,
magma that predates even your trilobite look-a-likes
in lethargic motion,
I’m surprised you aren’t onto jellyfish in your paintings.
I guess because they don’t have shells,
no husks to leave behind,
I s’pose they just dissolve when they die.
I wish I could get them floating around my room,
they help my thoughts circulate is the thing,
they lullaby my soul side to side.
Mother-of-the-sea is how the Turkish name for them translates,
probably because they’re only 5% different from seawater,
but a five-percent difference might be all there is
between consciousness
and the vacuum.
lots of them, hundreds sometimes.
The most primitive, I’ve read, are 95% H2O,
which has got to be how life got started,
as tiny envelopes of seawater. So there they are,
our ultra-great-great grandparents,
adrift in water sloshing against the cement shoreline,
a wall along the road that follows the strait.
Circular echoes of ocean,
the ones around here are divided into four equal parts,
sea-animal mandalas spangling the water,
silver dollar to Frisbee size, milky and translucent.
I like to watch them sort of sway in the current
just beneath the surface—
they’re a good way to meditate.
This must be the lure of the lava lamp,
magma that predates even your trilobite look-a-likes
in lethargic motion,
I’m surprised you aren’t onto jellyfish in your paintings.
I guess because they don’t have shells,
no husks to leave behind,
I s’pose they just dissolve when they die.
I wish I could get them floating around my room,
they help my thoughts circulate is the thing,
they lullaby my soul side to side.
Mother-of-the-sea is how the Turkish name for them translates,
probably because they’re only 5% different from seawater,
but a five-percent difference might be all there is
between consciousness
and the vacuum.
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