This poem comes from my cloud-illustrations book, Toward a Philosophy of Perception. It takes off from Walt Whitman – “I am part and parcel of all that  I survey.” I’m not sure that’s an exact quote, but it inspired the poem below. I performed it in the 2014 Gonzo Fest in Louisville, KY. It’s meant to be read aloud. Try it.


I AM

part and parcel of

the grids and bridges of me,

the optical ILLUSIONS

of me

the feeling inside the rhythms of this as truth

part and particle of the warps of me

the cascading or retaining or releasing spills and quark oceans of the implications of me

the infinity of the past of me and

the future of the many directions of those

options of me

the virtuosos of nano shapes of me, the powerful combinations, the forceful decisiveness, the

dematerializing dimension of the creative energies of me, the neutrinos that pass through en route perhaps to the

center of the Earth, or coming from there and through, AS ARE YOU

– surveying How?

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