Effective dimension

Effective dimension
by Dan Raphael

obscurity is not a virtue where alternative islands and lakes
harness the monster curves of watershed trees,
fudge-flake dragons sweep up the fractal hills
curdling whey streams like the blazing sky effect of an agglutinated universe
cuts diamonds into stars whose cloudy wake defines intermittent turbulence.
jets flying through mammalian brain folds percolating clusters
tame the monster knots while sponges and foam split snowflake halls
into the very substance of our flesh, the lungs bronchial trees
spread Apollonian nets and osculating soap where pragmatic chance,
from recursive to random, ferments sqig coastlines airport strips and tribology
in brownian emotion conceives a cup on the devil’s terrace,
a birth process of unforced clustering and cirraform filaments in predisturbed lakes.
the invariant translation of rivers failure to run straight, avoid polygons
and discontinue prices as lexicographic trees take the temperature of discourse
into a curdled effective dimension

we go past the immeasurable to what language can barely de-obscure enough to distort
through the door in my belly as i slowly gain the stamina to run my intestinal track,
a personal best between meals without galoshes to keep me from sneaking up on
angel headed hipsters worshipping the visible woman, knowing which neurons to fondle
& which to numb with cold drink. 64 doorbells with legible names i recognize none of:
my ancestors were thrown off ellis island and could only swim down,
where the garbage was so dilute, the fish so plentiful you could read by their fluorescent eggs clouding my antigravity hair like radioactive mosquitoes too generous to die without fallout.
as i opened the bottle a bone popped, a radius became a hemline
exposing the green palouse of my multiple thighs.
dinner was half an hour from here,
we’d drained the trucks fuel to make a hundred pounds of french fried curios—
whatever we could catch, whatever wasnt thick with feathers or excuses.
the darkest hour is just before my pancreas naps, sending hundreds of photon sized pigeons
to every antenna too lazy to change frequencies.

1 thought on “Effective dimension

  1. Sparks off flashes of recognition but remains a spontaneous generation of imagery, paradox, and puns, whose prize is how freely the poet can associate, not how keenly he can communicate. Some inspirational stuff here though.

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