Timepieces

klein bottle

My first poem, "klein bottle," was an early attempt at the rhythmic and rhyme-infested poetry that I've since extensively explored. The original draft, written over the course of a single day in April 2019, was partially typed up on my phone. I didn't use a rhyming dictionary; this was before I'd discovered that. At the bottom of the document, I cite two sources of inspiration: the poetry of Edith Sitwell, and several works by my close friend V.

darkness surrounds me, the light within me

is nearly burned out by the world wherein I

sit and stay, my owner's way, the single thing my mind commands me

sit and stay, what does it mean when there's nowhere to sit and nothing to see?

what is my mind but the kind of thing

that tells me what to do?

what are my thoughts but a rambling train

that I always thought I knew?

what is this world but a stand-still stone

that transfers its moss to my mind?

what am I but a single point

that searches for more of its kind?

the single point is much too big for me and my mind to know

I feel like an abandoned glove left inside out buried in snow

do I have a hand that will fit in the glove or would the glove fit in my hand?

if I'm inside out without a doubt then what is this world but a land of myself?

pushed back on the shelf

in the back of my closet with memories and lost things and small cobweb worlds,

I now recall as the thought unfurls

that solid of mine independent of time that had no use at all but for mindless twirls

the bottle that had no inside.

thinking more than I can abide,

without bothering to look for more of my kind, I take the darkness within my mind and give the light away

for what use is a light in the dark of space, I have no use of light in this place unless I continue to stay.

sit and stay, a part of my mind

commands that I must give up

sit and stay, and look for your kind,

but none of my kind will show up.

it cannot confine me, it cannot divine the purpose of my life

but I cannot break its entwining grasp

its endless and unrelenting clasp,

my thoughts agasp and my mind in a place where it cannot divide from my thoughts

but what use are thoughts without a mind, like water without a cup

my thoughts race ahead to seek and find a way they can live without a vehicle,

finally see an almost reachable insight, within sight,

motion is relative, if the world moves,

what would it move with respect to?

if I'm inside out and the world is my self

then there's nothing else to connect to.

I cannot think of any way I could stay

or move for that matter since matter has nothing to play

with, stay with, wander yet farther astray with

as my thoughts are wandering further astray

I find that my mind has gone away.

the part that had told me to sit and stay

may have said good day.

klein bottles twirling in worlds without light

everyone trapped in their own mind

open yourself to the darkness and night

you will become unconfined