a meditation on the misplaced

experiments in poetry and images

by Crystal Gomes

This is a place where the unnoticed is noticed, and the unappreciated brought to light. This contains the musings of an archaeologist of nostalgia, complete with exhibits provided for your perusal.

This is a place where seeds are sown, secret messages are sent, and playful life abounds.

There is no ultimate, straightforward answer to the fate of the misplaced. We are free to speculate. Any stubborn assertions may be arrogant and wrong.

This is a medium through which the importance of the tactile sense may not fully be con-veyed, so go play with some cards while reading, or when you’re done. Sow them in wonder.

A body of work should create its own world, which takes on a life of its own. This world can be fantastic and surreal, but should bear a significant relationship to reality, whether in striving to resemble it or setting up in opposition to it. This is similar to Frankfurt’s dis-tinction between lies and bullshit: lies still stand in relation to truth, whereas bullshit disre-gards truth altogether.

The world in the body of work catches fire with a divine spark of truth. It can be a fun-house mirror, casting jaded and distorted likenesses back into our retinas. It can illuminate things that we dare not look at and hold us there, transfixed. It can soften the blow by showing us beautiful things that persist by grace.

Done rightly, it should sound internal silver bells of recognition and clarity.

The world can have mystery, beauty, darkness, ghosts, and passion. The world can have hor-ror and moral outrage. It can contain utopias that shine brilliantly for a few hours or days before collapsing into dystopias. It can sharpen a dull knife into a piercing fear. It can make fun of us. It can have compassion on us. It can try to intercede on our behalf to God, with unknown results. It can be vengeance and wish fulfillment. It can breathe, play, pray. It can evolve and revolve around some author’s unknown whims. It can be a book of Psalms. It can stand on its soapbox and denounce relational poverty. It can conspiratorially let us in on the joke.

The world, having taken on a life of its own, should have us frantically flipping pages back and forth to make translucent, spiderweb connections. It should alternately make us forget the physicality of the object we are holding, and then flaunt it. It should show us the vir-tues of places, times, and things we would otherwise ignore.

The window of a work in progress shows unexpected beauty. Here also lies the disap-pointment of a coffee shop that was never born. Here is one of the stages where every-thing vital plays out, the drama of inner worlds. Reflections provide a more flattering out-look than the truth, with one more layer of subjective distortion. Ethereal shadows creep over every single surface, including the sun. Pure light infuses the dreams of mystics while everyone else waits impatiently at the feet of holy mountains. They hover in oppressive fluorescent spaces, forgetting dreams and destinations amid piles of minute details. They jostle and elbow one another for better positions in hierarchies that exist only in mirrors.

Eyes go dull and blank. Identities shatter at a mere gust of wind, at the realization of the failure one encounters when trying to return to a falsely serene past by wishing on dande-lions. The seeds of hopes deferred are thus spread across fertile lands. Fully grown, their gnarled branches reach into the overcast sky in vain, where they patiently remain bereft until spring.

Recreating something requires initial destruction: you never know which s0-called vandal might actually be a creator.

The words line up in reverence, as if attending a vigil. What happens when they go astray? They venture out and return peacefully here, to a place of a new context. The wind turns the leaves and catches words, dandelion seed words, and floats them everywhere. They grow word trees and sometimes, only once in a universe, a burning bush arises.

The bush spoke the alleged words of God. Words that were proof, commands, secrets. The secrets open up like seeds, coaxed by time, nourishment, patience, and mystery. The humble sprouts become towering redwoods.

Pursuing realignment of the heart is not blasphemous, even though spiritual insincerity is taboo. Many avoid expressing doubt, for fear that merely speaking the words will make them a reality. Words have life. The repetition of prayers builds an airy cathedral around the speaker, while curses construct a hellish desert populated by thorny bushes. When pierced, their branches give forth anguished warnings.

Words lie dormant on yellowed pages until we construct new choreographies for them. Constant reinterpretations produce frenzied activity and apparent novelty, but restlessness is not a virtue.

Everyone is desperately trying to prove themselves before they die. Here’s the way up. Parsing life into jargon makes it easier to disregard the hard parts. Theories shift the blame of original sin away from us. Reaching up, out, anywhere but in.

What lies at the vanishing point of human striving?

Steps cast shadows of influence for others to covet, whether or not they are misleading. Popular opinion slides back and forth across a continuum like abacus beads, each paper a small nudge, each category and distinction a barely discernible notch.

We emerge from dark corridors to face intimidating heights. Some never begin the ascent. Many trip on the steps, get stuck, or run back down in an effort to retain control. Some await their destination, silent and contemplative, while others shove their way impatiently to the top.

Up there it must be blinding. Sometimes people stumble slightly, squinting as they adjust to the new plane of existence.

These little sentinels, on duty for many years, have been retired, now demoted to scrap paper. Despite the acrid smell, they retain hints of their former glory, however small it may have been.

Life began in the least likely of places. I cast these characters upon the stage of a scanner bed, and they told their own story. The script was muddled in my clumsy translation over time, but otherwise I had nothing to do with it.

What breathes life into the dead? We begin as ignorant gardeners, misunderstanding how to nourish new life. A little girl picks flower blossoms and plants them back into the ground, innocently unaware that she is killing them.

Nature modestly tries to veil an industrial lot, as if covering its asphalt nakedness, but we are not ashamed. Here I join the ancient women gathering fuel, and I compile fragments of stories. I must admit, they scoff at my sand castles, wondering aloud when I will secure something tangible in life. I am unsure, still exploring blurry green spaces and looking for a way up.

“Signs are taken for wonders. ‘We would see a sign!’” -T.S.Eliot

“I wondered about the relation between one concrete slab and another concrete slab.” -SusanHowe

We are about to enter a surreal world of funhouse mirrors that display vibrant, horri-fying truths and distortions about the self.

Conflicting signs have declared an ultimatum: focus on the process, ignoring the ambigu-ous destination, or else wander around lost, in opposition to the world. One cardinal rule is not to argue about the process, or in other words: do not bring up religion or politics in polite conversation.

Accidental discoveries are ecstatic and purest in the very beginning, before ego creeps in to distort that encounter with the divine. When you step back down from the mountain to introduce this wisdom to the world, your ego mutates the holy words, infecting them with a terminal illness. Bending these words to serve your agenda eventually twists their original meanings to the polar opposite, where synonyms meet antonyms.

Kierkegaard often explained his ideas in earthy examples of eros. Jesus drew lines in the dusty ground for a moment, apparently in lieu of an expected answer. We are foolish to think we can remain in the abstract world of ideas for very long. The lone figure at the summit is trying to unveil the secrets of faith in order to make his infinite resignation a resounding success. I’m telling you, the air on that mountaintop is too thin and cold. You aren’t a hero for dying up there alone. Come in and sit down at the table. Eat and drink life itself.

The signs you’re looking for? They’re everywhere.

No one can see the wind itself. We perceive only its effects, both immediate and gradual.

Personal vocabularies are built upon contexts rather than precise dictionary definitions. Using the wrong word may demolish a careful order, resulting in lively chaos. The words of God will stand forever, no matter what we do to them. They will come through.

Placeholder words preserve authenticity, while meanings shift like quicksand, twisting de-ceptively through times and cultures.

Computers will help us make connections we’ve never made before, so we translate the gospels into their language, hoping that new insights will save our souls. But even they can-not reconcile that difference between languages, cannot bridge the centuries fully, to make a seamless translation.

Our modern understanding of these untranslatable words is also built upon contexts. Let dictionary definitions and orthodox theologies stand as anchors for our explorations, not barriers to hold us in.

Reinterpreting memories can make the past a kaleidoscope you shake at will. Cast dif-ferent filters of light and shadow across the memory and feel the resulting warmth or chill all over again. Your eyes pass over the place, dull, recalling nothing of childhood exploits--the scraped knees and the forging of your ego.

“Sometimes I arrange...snippets as if they were a hand of cards, or inexpressible love liable to moods. I like to let them touch down randomly as if I were casting dice or reading tea leaves.”

--SusanHowe

My pedantic little birdman has met his alter-ego. They observe each other so long that their identities shift, cross over, fuse, and split again. A frantic horizontal motion visually demonstrates this. Looking into the mirror for too long may have a similar effect, as your brain attempts to merge multiple interpretations of the self into one. Present reality col-lides with memories and dreams. The old sentinels have risen from their slumber to dance across this stage. I cast them like tarot cards, read them like tea leaves, and transcribed their staticky poetry:

I. Societyproblems of ethicsdead and alive.a book of graphical rences.a dialogue. bookshop random title.

II. ethics in Re- press.Pro edit age of conduct series:the meaningof readingsethics in re-label ondies,

III. the language of ductthe meaning of gooeconomicorala, Ab, B

IV. we live byethicsReceived [and]MoralityStudies

The fields are ripe for harvest, but choose carefully: you may happen to reap what oth-ers sow.

Before you protest the unfairness of this, and of life, remember that fairness means you get what you deserve. Demanding absolute fairness is akin to insisting that everything become the same shade of gray. There would be no more light, shadow, or texture, no grace, trial, or growth. All the stories would be destroyed, and yet another attempt at utopia turned dys-topian.

Those who have survived a famine sometimes remain hungry for the rest of their lives. They ignore the banquets now offered to them, starving because hollowness now feels nourishing, and weakness feels like a secret strength for an elite few.

A frog kept slipping off, but it never thought it was failing at being a frog. Then it fell below the surface, entering for a second into another world.

Still flailing in shock, it found itself greeted as an honored ambassador by all the dignitar-ies of this underworld. They flocked around asking frantic questions: “What is it like up there? How do you find the light source? How do you get it to stay?”

The frog’s answer: “It comes and goes.”

Disappointed, they turn back toward their temple, the place where light most illuminates the murky water. Other creatures keep unauthorized shadow epiphanies to themselves and swim away to meditate elsewhere. The frog regained its footing above the surface, and croaked ancient fables to its children.

They listened very carefully, but they still passed down the fables with unintentional altera-tions and personal embellishments. Now, so many degrees removed, are there still echoes of the original stories?

Yes, it is the same story, heard and told differently.

The water is murky with dangers and warnings, but if you look closely, reflective with possibilities beyond the scope of your immediate perspective. Great heights and distances level our egos, bringing us from masters of the universe down to the level of the smallest creatures.

Instinct propels creatures forward. They usually lack the luxury and curse of deliberation, so they live recklessly, unplagued by abstract fears.

Voices and sounds overlap, and at their intersections, a momentary confusion gives way to slow recognition.

Words sting with tiny pincers, immobilizing their victims with a peculiar poison. A true identity is lost, another one cast into the refuse pile.

Gazing on the people we have abandoned to this wasteland should fill us with regret and sorrow, but instead it is a source of reassurance: at least I’m not there. At least I’m not like that.

Wielding social disapproval can render us myopic and hypocritical. These termites gnaw at the foundations of every house and every temple in the world.

Call the exterminator.

Youth is transient and beautiful as a flower before the vast, barren expanse of adult-hood. If you compartmentalize this too completely, it’s your loss. Grasp the fence and look back. Finches perch in each link, taking messages back to you. Watch them carefully.Abandoned parts masquerade as logs. These are not biodegradable. These words remain as still as possible, trying not to breathe, in order to retain the apparent neutrality that casts a euphemistic glow upon business transactions, making them more palatable.

“Iamassemblingmaterialsforarecurrentreturnsomewhere...Thousandsofcorrelationshavetobesliced and spliced.” --SusanHowe

Walls of self-deception issue inaccurate time estimates. The right words can deal them a fatal blow, only to recede in dismay when faced with an entire labyrinth.

Bricks and dust crumble down, a stack of books collapses and cascades to the floor, and we finally can face former enemies with newly opened eyes.

One hand reaches across a vast expanse, somehow.

We’re misplaced here, perceiving things fuzzily, when we are used to trusting our own perceptions with all confidence and certainty. Being human, you have to change your at-tributions. You have to find grounds to dismiss stimuli as unimportant. Into the schemata wastebasket it goes. Here, let me show you: jellyfish are fireworks.

Each spark glows for an instant before fading into smoke, and each movement is sharp be-fore yielding to the fluidity of the next.

It is dusk, and the people grasp desperately on the ground to find answers in the reced-ing light. When night falls, the lamp still gives only the occasional flicker. Each moment it illuminates shows the people trying to avoid stepping on sharp rocks and broken glass.Miraculously, vines still bear fruit in the dark to feed them. They utter faint prayers and tend to others’ wounded feet.

The light flickers and they look up, searching for the dawn.

A breeze blows through the land filled with bitter fruit, carrying with it a message of grace.

Who can bring back life into these old, dusty bones?

What’s done is done.

“As I prophesied, there was a sound, and behold, a rattling, and the bones came together...and the breath cameintothem,andtheylivedandstoodontheirfeet.”--Ezekiel37:7,10

The sun sets and sets and sets. Theologians cut through the air tirelessly to keep the gods separate, fenced in, and safe. If we ever allowed them to escape, it would erode our autonomy, divide our loyalties, and inflame us with passion. Anger flares, flashing on the horizon for one last instant before that celestial eye closes.

I

these form a list of abominationsand counterfeit virtues:

the human city cannot save itselfeven in its exilic conditionreligion steps in to ease away this resentment,of communities that fail because of disordered passions.

rebind and rediscover.sacraments are heart turns-

he falls off the ascentmakes promises he cannot keep

he orders all other sciencesto see what happiness is

to be loved without these pitfallshe needs to turn away from the mutable world

II

after all that a reflection

nobody would haunt that outsidein the past supplement brown-dark complexa council awkwardly awakenednever appear outside

refined pirouettes of the truth appear unfocusedderived from glass broken in the groundonly continuationonly restonly broken

extraordinary

The queen’s mirrored self enjoys the chaotic company of her subjects from a dual per-spective. We have rehearsed the aesthetic of careless art for hours, and the first production took a mere ten seconds. The process and the result seem to be artless, due to lack of delib-erate effort. But a random result cannot ever be recreated, even with the most painstaking effort.

The goal is to understand our lives in a form other than narrative.

I am indebted to the following people as my mentors and friends:

Grant Matthew JenkinsDavid Goldstein

Glenn Herbert DavisEvelyn NoellKatie Felts

Matthew Matlock

curtain call

Bibliography & Acknowledgments

p. 1 Auster, Paul. “City of Glass.” TheNewYorkTrilogy. New York: Penguin Books, 1990. (9.) and Frankfurt, Harry G. On Bullshit. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005. (61.)

p. 6 Eliot, Thomas Stearns. “Gerontion.” Poems. New York: A. A. Knopf, 1920; Bartleby.com, 1996. www.bartleby.com/199/.

p. 9 The Genesis 1:1 chart from theWestminster Hebrew Morphology is part of the West-minster Leningrad Codex, maintained by the J. Alan Groves Center for Advanced Biblical Research at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, PA. It is a handout given to prospective students during a tour of the school.

p. 6, 13, and 18 Howe, Susan. TheMidnight. New York: New Directions Books, 2003. (115, 76, 85.)

p. 22 TheHolyBible, English Standard Version® (ESV®). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway,a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. All rights reserved. ESV Text Edition: 2007

The old catalog cards are from the McFarlin Library at the University of Tulsa.

This book was printed by Lulu.com in Hoefler Text, Regular and Italic, 14 pt.

All photographs (including the Polaroid) and scanned images were taken by Crystal Gomes.

These poems, as well as some other material in this book, have previously appeared on my blog, www.dashdashexperiments.blogspot.com.