Digital art from photos
©2016 Michael Dickel
Apocalyptic Winter
i
Murk clenches around the world—
solstice, yes; cruor, surely; necrosis,
possibly; apoptosis, likely. Trees pull
back, plants close for business,
even cockroaches go dormant,
or almost sleep through the long night.
Those few flowers on a windowsill
only admonish me in the name of the
painted flood that stained last summer.
ii
Dried herbs crumble, anamneses of the sun.
I stop, though, and talk to the feral cat
whose felicitations hiss out from iron bars
on top of a stone wall that divides civic
sidewalk from exclusive parking. I would
purr, unlike this ginger gamine cat,
if I had cause enough to lucubrate.
The thalassic truth of this spot sidesteps
my yearning to swim in the desert.
Digital art from photos
©2016 Michael Dickel
iii
Absinthian coffee wakes something
harsh, chlorophylloid, but not for long, and my
bleak, burnt bones creep forth on a nameless road.
The moon climbs, someone wants me to offer
straightaway. A ray penetrates the darkness
and lifts the crux to spheres surmounting
dictionaries and thesauri that spill
obfuscations, tangle moods and modes
into articulated modifications of noumena.
iv
The cat didn’t lie, so neither will the eye.
Clouds hid the moon. An uncanny aura
spilled down from a lunar eclipse. The trees
gamboled, lifting their roots and dropping them,
a geographic gamble. Stories stumbled down
cliffs. Nothing changed in the seething
and nothing persisted unchanged, which
I don’t really apprehend. The tongue does not
construe such spectacles or words unconstrained.
Digital art from photos
©2016 Michael Dickel
If you put the mouse cursor over the links and wait a moment, text will appear over (and appear to define) the linked words. This poem appeared originally on Meta/ Phor(e) /Play as Winter Poem. It has since been published in my chap book, Breakfast at the End of Capitalism (free PDF download). You can also purchase a print copy through locofo chaps.
The BeZine 
A test of my intellectual stamina, I am sure, to read. You have quite the vocabulary Michael. I enjoyed this immensely.
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Thank you, Renee. I hope I didn’t wear you out too much…
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Not at all. Always interested to see how others use complex vocabulary in their writes.
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I love word play and pushing meanings, too.
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I always like these poems that include the links! It enriches the whole experience (and teaches me some new words in the process, sometimes!). 🙂 I, too, enjoyed this piece and really like the photos (especially the middle one) and how they not only progress to the next, but tie the poem together.
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Thank you—I’m glad someone appreciates the links! Did you notice that if you hovered your mouse over the linked words in the poem, the definition pops up? (I don’t know if that works for mobile).
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I read it on a desktop and the definitions came up, so I am not sure if it works for mobile, but can test it later for you and let you know. 🙂
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🙏🏼
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Sorry it has taken me so many days to respond to this. I checked the poem from my mobile phone and the linked words show up in red the same as they do here. However, I can highlight the red words and it gives me the options to open the link, open it in a new tab, save it or copy it, but it doesn’t automatically link the information *from* the link as it does if you hover over it with a mouse on a desktop. It only shows the actual link location (url). Hope this helps! 🙂
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Thanks. Yet. The text that pops up is added to the code, it’s not getting it from the link. Some of my post where I do it, the text that pops up isn’t at the link at all. Now I know that it doesn’t work on mobile, though
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