Finity's One / Eternity's Coin

by  shaun lawton  

Imagine being just a fraction of nothing 

 Develop a mental image of the total cost

forming itself over an elongated sloughing 

 from the dust of stars we've been tossed 

Try to get a sense of it our recent lives 

  stretched as they appear intertwined 

 Toss a coin up before your own eyes  

   And see it fall back down in time 

Heads we're born again and tails 

  We're torn from our primordial rest

 to face another twisted track of rails 

  striving once again to pass this test 

One dash Zero dash Zero dash One 

 If occasion desires we cry out for help 

 Otherwise fuel the fires we've just begun 

  Try harder this time to do better our self  

 

distant scars

 by  shaun   lawton 

Galaxies  may be just  echoes

 of wounds  faintly visible still up

on  outer  onion skin  layers  of

 a time  long gone  to us now caught

 in  the process  of having  been 

  ever  so  gradually   reknitting 

 from  the  legendary  aftermath 

 of  accidental  conflicts and battles

 almost,  but  not quite   healed

 

QUANTUM COMPUTER

in order to store 
information after 

all's said and done).

Decentralized
Processing 
Units consist of our

a)universe b)galaxies 
c)solar systems d)exo
planets e)brains. 

Choose wisely 
or the computer 
ends up using you.

(We already built 
it in the future 
in the first place 
 

STARING BACK

 It was a scoured day: 

Windfall, crisp 

  with a polarized glare 

 to the sunset.

The scoop of blue radiated

  around the horizon  bleeding

 from indigo 

into orange-black

 as the stars 

winked open

   one by 

  one

TO THE FALLEN, WE SING

 

   for Greg... 

 Of thread, cordage and umber

our patchwork armor is grown and shed

 Woven from strands long gone under

cross bonded with others locked arm in hand

 Who must yearn to remember 

the old adventures in which they bled

 Walking through darkness in thunder

also haunted by brothers lost to the land

 This conflict, universal

conscripted or drafted in the end

 Either to serve or to plunder

the long ago promise of a reprimand

 A soldier's song will be sung

and always remembered by a friend

 When it has torn you asunder

captured in the drum beat of a marching band...

STARS

for Brian Eno 

Like waves crashing on a beach
faces sinking into the murk
amid shafts of sunlight below
thriving green stagnant ponds


phantoms of angler fish merging
into fading profiles of Maya kings
legion drown into the scintillating murk
overseen by the eye of a cephalopod


or is that a spider exactly the wind
hisses over diamantine droplets
you're just conjuring a host of names
the human heart a polished mineral


making contact along the circuit
breakers sinking like a rosary
dropped from the deck of the Titanic
the demonic wreaths of coral gardens await


O, green whale, eagle of the depths
spilling incense taking turbulent shapes
of faces mirrored along the crown of eyes
shredding into angels of birds


the Ancient of Days reflected in stellar parallax
within a quadrant of time reaching out
for the heart of a burial into rebirth staring
back from the well fed wide open hole

LESSONS FROM CATS

 First we must allow trust

   to develop.

It requires a certain amount

   of courage,

not to mention a degree

   of patience. 

All the rest has to do

   with tenderness.

Meet halfway with trust

   and a kiss.

We may suffer

   overreacting 

Having been conditioned

   by violence

to never comprehend

   what is amiss,

or we may take a lesson

   from cats.

Observe their silence

   and curious tactics

Serving to impress

   their legend upon us

and be sure to practice

   them with each other

so we may depend

   on our legacy

sailing the seas

   of companionship.

DREAM FOR US

When a tree falls in the forest

is it mourned by its standing survivors

the vibrations it made indistinct 

as the memory of a thunderclap?

Does the question become 

not whether a tree makes a sound

if it falls without anyone around

to hear it, but rather, is there even such

a thing as the ground when that appears

to be gathered from our perception?

Not even the forest suspects this much

least of all the trees, each one of whom, 

for instance, may believe they are the king 

of all existence. In whose dream, then

may a leaf be heard to fall, again?

Listen up.  Without you

there can be no story.  

A very old tree totters over 

into the wildwood far away

with a sound approaching 

the memorial of thunder

to its standing survivors.


Around the edge of the bay

outspread in their foothold

through funereal compost

melding with rotten mold 

a blue unreal mossy fungus 

spreads out and grabs hold.


Under the loam of bedrock

another microtone gets added

to the layers in the chorus 

of their growing forest song.

ESCAPE FROM EDEN FALLS

Under the ridges 
of unfurled magnetic 
schematics working their
magic in collective tides.

Rendered beyond 
the coldest fringes 
stalking the tragic on
their retrospective rides.

Sacrosanct thy presence 
in the crowned wake 
of an eternal sunrise 
on the other hand.

Of darkness let the rays 
cast down be reminders 
illumination may also 
come from the damned.

They say you have never 
seen obscurity like the lost 
ones in the caverns who 
must betray the light.

Indigo droplets 
form for all those 
who enter the void 
and escape into night.

The minimal bead has
captured the inverted 
sky and mirrored it off 
our own blackened eyes.

The multifaceted compound 
flower of panopticon 
stares into itself 
at every focal point.

Drowned into a yawning 
crevasse unzipped along 
the stepping spine 
of its own device.

A factory's evolution 
of reassembled parts 
can never reach a true
symmetry of outcome.

Over the fallen 
waves receding into
the rhythmic imbalance
of periodic ice.  

MIRROR

behind the veil
of stars we can see
hides the night
of eternity among
these folds remain

the very ones
we can reach out
for with our finger
tips with eons
left before they
grow to yield
their sentient fruit

that light the shroud
of a ghost that has
found itself yet
to be born

THE HIDDEN HUSH

If there is any such thing as silence
Where on earth would we find it

So long as we remain alive here
If not inside the deepest, darkest cave?

Even nestled down within a lightless cavern
We'd mistake the colossal subharmonics for quiet.

And Death itself will not offer us this complete peace.
By that time, we will no longer be listening.

THE OTHER VOICES

for Al Attanasio

 the mirror-people escaped 
from their self-portraits

   individual droplets 

comprising a much larger wave

   creatures of a greater dynamic
whose crest disappears when examined

  the waves of a myriad individuals 

so long as they do not interfere

what breaks down 

into a higher order
 
   the reduced forms who peer

 over  their own event horizon

growing into a greater array

   to look back from whence they came

  broken down from an ionic compound 

and reconstructed by electrostatic forces

  the electrically insulated beings 

of a highly conductive experience

  the few freed electrons of a greater surge 

that made it through the slit

salt to sparks

   sparks to salt 

STARCROSSED

From high above the earth I've seen
a shared view with the eagle's keen sense 
of focus a darkened tower of cloud bank shining, 
& beneath its bower prosaic beams of sunlight 
engrave an inscription of steam on the land 
underneath unveiling a dream whose vision 
bequeathed to mine eyes held aloft 
of the glorious scrying, the difference between 
those living & dying, though seemingly occupied 
on the same land and on happenstance meetings 
intertwined by the hand are in fact in a fleeting 
transition of fate whereby sharing the meadow 
on each other's date is entirely besides the point 
as of late, for each bending vista that reflects 
from their eyes is a seperate world under 
differing skies and the dream shared between them 
an illusory lie as they whistle together hand in hand 
down the path oblivious to the contact in defiance 
of the wrath of the moment illumined by the Sun. 
The intergalactic contact is over the moment
when our clasped hands come undone.

SITTING IN A WICKER CHAIR IN MY BACK YARD IN SALT LAKE CITY UTAH

for James and Franz


The peach sapling in front of me
personifies a defiance behind which
more flowering trees gather.
An old oak that long ago lost its leaves
grows a new white branch reaching upward
with capillary fingers for a blue April sky.
The white cloud above that assumed the bottle 
nose dolphin shape is now a boxing glove
slowly becoming a human brain.
Various bird songs blend with the wind
creaking the wood slatted fence
our neighbor's maple grove leans upon.
Never mind the sound of passing rubber tires
or the commuter rail train clanking by.
I have tried to make the best of my life.

SILENCED

Winter's light
through clouds, March
and curtains reaches
our room 

A weary traveler 
after so many
miles you'd think

But no, the light
remains as easy going
and bright as it ever was

Even if its voice
 somewhat muted
 dissolves away 

BLINK BLANK

I speak from a land unsane
projected from the blossoming
terrain unfolding in shudder
lapse mutation for our beautiful
camera's observation so the heap
of history happens once buried
beneath strata crushed under avalanche
how to escape this inexorable advance
we pray until our grins become permanent

MINOR CHORD

beyond, beyonder
ridiculous concepts
there exists nothing
but the current moment
even these words
written in a sustained 
note remain absurd
notions for any who 
happen to view them

BAT COVE, MOAB

for Zane  and  David 

Leaves tremble, fronds wave
River flows, clouds pass

Birds call out, lizards scatter
Day bleeds, trees darken

Bats hunt, eyes open
Night sets, we awaken

Moon floats, stars appear
Rain drops, fire licks

Steam hisses, flames reach
Out like hands and taste the evening

EVENING KEEP

On the wasteland of our dreamscape
erecting campsites in the middle of 
the night.  Supplying another spot on 
the line of wavering dots.  Our flaring 
campfire barely altering the timbre 
of our star's voice.  Of the sparks flung 
our way from the dark, do you remain 
impartial?  Down here within these stone 
walls we can't help but wonder.  

BY THE WHARF

A carnivore fed only once, it said
"Dream me," while it ate a mouse
and afterward, the bones were scrapped,
cat-scratchings under the pylons now
dissolved in the moonlight
playing on the black surface 
of the water rippling amid
undulating shadows