Ambrose's Heartbeat
That there’s a
continuum: continual, ambrosial,
candied, pickled, freeze-dried,
memorialized, fossilized, and
so on: so?
continuum: continual, ambrosial,
candied, pickled, freeze-dried,
memorialized, fossilized, and
so on: so?
*
That alphabet soup
preserves the alphabet-eater
or the alphabet?
And who will
time tell [amber]
*
That unsprung steel
locations ticking moments
below ground augment
ancestral ambrosial motion
machines awaits usefulness?
*
That the fingers
keep time with
the toes against
that “pathless pulse”
between them, divideless?
* *
That “do rivers
keep time?” rivals
other questions to
put while “they”
weigh your worthlessness?
keep time?” rivals
other questions to
put while “they”
weigh your worthlessness?
*
That to have
“an impact” that
is Ambrose’s, the
“Ambrose’s heartbeat” must
seem not to?
*
That being “actually
absent from a
landscape you’d be
happy to be
absent from” [amber]
*
That artichoke field
made of ancestors’
trash they welded
onto the horizon
saws the sunsets?
*
“...that whatever is
sweet and simple
about your life
come easily to
mind, and often?”
* *
That the eye’s
aura is restored
quickly, convincingly, and
inexpensively with a
customizable contact lens?
aura is restored
quickly, convincingly, and
inexpensively with a
customizable contact lens?
*
That Canada balsam
outperforms synthetic mountants,
matching glass’s refractive
index, despite yellowing
with age [amber]
*
That the “that
it was what
it was” is
what mattered is
like an oversimplification?
*
That that lifelike
eyeball hologram you
commute through faces
you both ways
without turning to?
* *
That the false
cognate [amber] resembles
to this living
animal punctuation’s unquestioning
placeholder, undefined duration?
cognate [amber] resembles
to this living
animal punctuation’s unquestioning
placeholder, undefined duration?
*
That one role
contends with both
“likeness” and “likenesslessness,”
two one-sided and
unrelated coins [amber]
*
That the “lump
sum” they sent
over from the
Phoenix office was
Ambrose (a man)?
*
That each “that”
furnishes a Lucifer’s
perch, podium, “all
this” (his words)
“shall be thine?”
*
That renewable swallowing
silencing verb by
verb by stillbirthed
caesura’s tonguetwister’s namesake’s
edibility eats artichoke?
* *
That how much
a “hand” of
food costs costs
money to know
has societal costs?
a “hand” of
food costs costs
money to know
has societal costs?
*
That “some apples /
some others” decouples
from within, unwording
that unworded “they,”
living, unseedlike, alive?
*
That under elaborately
paisleyed skylights “they”
help themselves to
helpings of unlimited
breadsticks until 10:00pm?
*
That they cultivated
the invasive froglike
flower the native
frogflower it wasn't
likely unlike wasn't?
*
That “an impact”
that is Ambrose’s
must out-astonish the
heartbeat that is
Ambrose’s out-astonishes it?
* *
That “the specimen’s
claws were crushed
and delaminating… They
were” (later?) “stabilized” --
was I dreaming?
claws were crushed
and delaminating… They
were” (later?) “stabilized” --
was I dreaming?
*
That “the glass
eyes and the
claws were gently
cleaned using saliva
on a swab?”
*
That words give
a “specimen’s proper
right gliding membrane […]
embrittled by age”
to no one?
*
That to rebuild
the span of
attention they pay
the attention to
very little, “things?”
* *
All quoted language on this page from “Strategies for the Conservation and Storage of Taxidermy: Flying Squirrel Case Study,” poster presentation, SPNHC Annual Conference, Denver, Colorado, 22 June 2017, by Logan Kursch, Julia Sybalsky, and Fran Ritchie
That to sing
“holes were my
eyes to sing
in through” implies
versus suggests melody?
“holes were my
eyes to sing
in through” implies
versus suggests melody?
*
That I would
"pencil you in"
with my pseudonym
at your request
is my daydream?
*
That ordinary paradoxes
lose interest, phoenix-like,
in any given
host, seek newer
(never fired) photons?
*
That coup attempt
you dreamt I
made, a sniper
blind or us
paid us paid?
*
That no “if
statements” cloud experiences
unless that when
Ambrose ran the
starter pistol fired?
* *
That I carried
me above treeline,
hostile to humans
but waist-deep with
wildflowers, and left?
me above treeline,
hostile to humans
but waist-deep with
wildflowers, and left?
*
That “dreaming by
fleeing” feeling, “I
had my feet’s
stuck,” stepping in
another’s footsteps [amber]
*
That dreams nest
one or two
deep only, or
by dream logic,
“infinitely,” a shorthand?
**