A Monument of Time

The job of the poet is to write and recite, that of the listener is to read and listen.  But meaning is something that each person derives from the experience of the moment, the actual impact of the words as they unfold in time.

These poems have multiple "themes" and perhaps multiplicity itself is the thread that unites them.  You know that in the next few minutes or hours information and experience will bombard you from diverse sources from all over the planet.  How do you survive all that without fragmenting?  How do you keep all that from burying you in anonymity?

By writing, by reciting, by reading, by listening ...

Listen:

If Mount Rushmore, The Great Wall of China, or the Pyramids at Gaza are monuments of space, Clutter is a monument of Time.  And like the Fresh Kills landfill site on Staten Island, which is the largest object on the East Coast of the United States and can be seen from space, Clutter is a monument of cast offs, subjective impressions gathered together in identically formed units, each composed from the happenstance of the day in which it was formed.

Numbers and Dates

Clutter is composed of four phases of 108 poems each.  The number 108 has been revered in a variety of contexts and in many cultures, so much so that it is assumed to have divine or esoteric qualities, which enables it to serve as a portal, or contemplative entity, with the power to open into other domains of consciousness.  Is this true?  Maybe or maybe not, but I think that as one pursues these chains of significance, the number itself leads us to consider, accept or reject, layers of meaning which expand one's knowledge, and maybe even one's awareness.  At any rate, this number was used in Clutter, as a scientist might use a microscope or a telescope, to reveal possible connections between what might otherwise appear to be disparate things or events.  I used the sequence 4 times so that the poem might cover, not just the days of the year in the individual poems, but also embody the 4 seasons of the year, as the work encompasses both smaller and larger units of Time.

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