" I was alone with a chair on a plain
Which lost itself in an empty horizon" ~ Arp
Stare at any chair
fuzzy-focused logic
the leash slips
a balloon absconds
adrift in its own airway
planes in plain sight split
in-to s-p-l-i-n-t-e-r-s
shards spill heartwood
Ask the right-side
abstract answers atomise
four legs overturn
kicked akimbo
gravity pulls forth froth
stuffings spit upward
under a shapely horizontal
textured
trite as trash
By now
the knowing knower’s
gone on
alone
First in a series of (attempts at) abstract poems and shape-shifted photoart – this one inspired by Arp ‘The Plain’ – and joining Lilian @ dVerse for another Open Link Night
PoetryPix 
Loving this….most especially these lines:
“four legs overturn
kicked akimbo
gravity pulls forth froth
stuffings spit upward”
I can picture this! Kind of feel like Alice falling down the hole and seeing all this stuff happening!
glad you saw it that way – in trying to get the hang of more abstract poetry, aimed for something surreal as well as words with an aural quality
“Kicked akimbo” is a fantastic phrase!
these stop consonants have impact – thank you!
If you look at something long enough, it loses its meaning. Maybe if you look beyond that you find a new configuration of meaning.
The sounds in this are great – the alliteration, the chiming – and akimbo is a much underused word!
and if you say it long enough meaning also slips. Thank you for your appreciation Sarah – I like the way consonance chimes on tongue and cheek to cheek
Nice descriptive lines with alliteration: “textured
trite as trash”
some of my favourite ones too – must be the t sounds
Abstract indeed. This sort of left me feeling as if my brain were in a blender … which is somewhat the safe affect abstract art has on me!! I applaud your approach.
thank you – I think therefore the abstraction has had an effect 😉
Isn’t Descartes in here? The last stanza blew me away.
he could be but never likes to show himself – hence your comment caught in pending
Laugh!
Your second verse makes me think of an old chair out on the curb turned upside down with its innards spilling out…ready to be picked up with the trash. Maybe my thinking is too literal for the abstract and yet I do like to ponder on things such as the meaning of life and what are we doing here?! 🙂
Gayle ~
I like your pavement trash – goes with existential questions
“aural quality”….you’ve certainly succeeded, I read poems initially for the sounds, the meaning comes later if at all…but mostly it’s for the pleasure of how the poem sounds….and this works ! Well done…JIM
I appreciate your appreciation – and share your love of sounds – after all poems are to be heard though I draw back from the totally abstract which errs into nonsense rhymes at times!
The wonderful thing with abstract art is how you try to find patterns and meaning… only to realize it shifts with the fuzzy logic of shape-shifter
Indeed – something like I aimed for in the poem
I think you accomplished your goal and like the best abstract art, left enough hints at meaning that our minds are happy to let the storyteller rest and just revel in the sight, or in this case, sound.
thank you Christine – I could not have asked for better feedback on the poem’s intentions
I’ve always been a fan of Arp, but I would appreciate this even without that reference. Terrific artwork and poem – so many nice phrases, like kicked akimbo and gravity pulling forth froth! (Am I right in assuming that “plain” is not a misspelling in the Arp quote?)
thank you for such terrific feedback – I’m enjoying trying out some ‘abstracts’ in photoshop and exploring same in poems. ‘Plain’ is intentional – as noun describing flat land, often featureless and it gave me the chance to play with its alternative meanings and homonym