Pat Nolan


MODES OF NOTHINGNESS  
(by order of appearance)

*

Because I believe in myself
I would others likewise
(the likewise button:
equal sign topped by a tilde)

the process of processing procession
all language tagged by association
the filter through which I know I’m told

contingencies of use 
while more numerous become 
less numerous with use

language is mind in perpetual motion
as Plato’s shadow 
a silhouette of the real thing

trilling ring’s quantum presence
intense density densely intense

I live to be informed 
by my fraternity otherwise 
my life revolves around
a few who make an immediacy

is that a smile or a grimace 
(might be gas) not that it matters

the universe would laugh 
at my folly if it could
it can only quark

squeak of hinge on closing door

at my age as the saying goes
morning is always a surprise

with each subsequent photograph 
a little less of me is left 
of what once was erased by time 
in broad daylight just a death 
head skull skin and bones
a stain on the shirtfront of life
a singular injustice
I wouldn’t know unless I lived it
poetry is life prose is deadly

*

Stunned by the screen 
deer in the headlights 
syndrome amygdala neutralized
no flight no fright just
the creeping sensation I’m
in the wrong place at the right
time how my rhythms go awry
considering the frame of the page
I still think it’s more a case of 
the keyboards getting smaller 
than my fingers getting larger

that’s what I’m left with
acceptance opens the door to possibility
the immaterial materializes as a play
on words the conjunction of similar
syllables resonate complimentary colors
or notes as the imagination takes hold

almost every day is a “who cares” day
insatiable desire hints at mortality

as a teacher necessarily remain anonymous
transparency defeats reflection
be the flame by which shadows are cast

most English Majors have yet 
to encounter the 20th Century
I got too tired of waiting to wait 

how heat wrinkles the air with its agitation

after a while the din is all there is
a hiss of cosmic relevance at dust’s 
friction particulate particulars 
of matter and don’t matter

what do feather dusters do but feather dust

*

The universe is hostile to my existence 
I complicate things with my temporality

my life as I imagine it
a wooden shoe in the gears of the cosmos

truth in the next moment (promise)
increase in complexity applies to everything
as an attribute of mass the universe exists

me-telling or self-telling as a stylistic nuance
the intimate moment when it all comes to pass

“assuming we have souls to sell!”  

the state is the enemy of the poet
yet poet is like being an undercover cop
living on the fringe of a politer society

quantum of hypnogogic states collapse 
when I try to put my finger on them

long wavelength swaths of light
sweep the dusty linoleum floor

*

Most of those poets the grant grubbers
the self-congratulatory parlor poets
the sentiment synthesis sanitizers
posture queens of vapid gesture
don’t know what they at
they just playing when the shit is real
superficiality of their mental bling
has no flash worth mentioning

“well, don’t let the vinegar go bad”

to be a successful poet today 
you must photograph well

the less said about poetry the better
I should be impressed by the vast
nothingness of my being 

Anima names the goddess 
and her function as mother breath-giver
who can also take it all away

the crybaby defense men who suffer 
being men in a manly manner are fewer 

melodious stream purifies my ears 
even if it’s just the trickle of the tap
joined by Josho doing morning dishes

defined by our viruses as are we
ourselves by our viral cosmosphagic egos
doomed but in a good way

unasked again it is apartheid
judgment harsh but deserved
increase in pseudo-speciation among
our kind a crisis of adaptation
we await the judgment on ourselves
but the jury can be out as long 
as we want it to be

there are a lot of good 
people in the world you just won’t
see them on TV or Twitter

a joke is always at some expense

history doesn’t repeat itself 
it is omnipresent

*

There’s the organizing principle 
based on the binary not much 
you can do about it except 
maybe increase the bandwidth

for progress to be made
step outside the conventional
how wrong can you be

once peripheral now central
the harmony of the cosmos
a sort of knowing chuckle

the need for attention
as nourishment of the psyche
snack food for the black hole of ego

*

Morphological confusion woke 
with a start as if I’d been 
dropped from a dream cloud in 
the transition to wakefulness

constantly advised by opinions 
of those who don’t know anything 
and regularly proven wrong

there is no oppression 
greater than self-oppression

all the mistakes and wrong turns due
to wishful thinking and stubbornness
intellect bound those well-developed lobes

that part of history I’m not
yet continue in my delusion

there is some consensus that 
a triangle is yellow but 
disagreement as to whether 
blue is a circle or a square

a propensity to symbolize the most
mundane of occurrences akin to
finding animal shapes in the clouds

dust insists (as the decohesion of matter 
into its finer points) once it settles 
that it is what it wasn’t

Hermes it seems is the breeze upon 
which messages are delivered
many poems are written in the hope 
of defending any one of them

I find myself explaining myself 
to myself as if I hadn’t got it 
right the first time around

seeing people gets in the way 
of my not seeing people

judged by paperwork not purity of intent
always on the verge of literary suicide 
still an amateur anything else is cheap thrills

the abstract enfolds in its many aspects
always presenting opportunities to do nothing

whose veined hands are these that come
into view searching for the right
word the attention of pen to page

wounded by the intents of mortality
the flukes that end in desire being
a mere statistic numbers can’t heal

what I would like to say always escapes me
gone unrecognized gone as a furtive thief
who stole the words from the mouths of babes
hoarded between pages behind spines under covers
unsorted unpunctuated unreadable unconscious
babble some may even call poetry yet poetry 
attracts snobs who delight in their snubs
the muse devours those she loves 
leaving in her wake perfumed shit

*

Never end the never ending poem

Pat Nolan’s poetry, prose, and translations have been published in numerous magazines and anthologies in North America as well as in Europe and Asia. He is the author of a dozen poetry selections including So Much, Selected Poems Vol. II (1990-2010) from Nualláin House, Publishers (2019) and the thousand marvels of every moment, a tanka collection (Nualláin House, 2018). His online poet-centric novel, Ode To Sunset, A Year In The Life Of American Genius, is available for perusing at odetosunset.com. He is also the founder and editor of The New Black Poetry Society’s blog Parole. Made In The Shade, a limited term poetry document, began posting monthly in January of 2022 and which will end on December 31, 2022 can be viewed at made-in-shade.com. His most recent fiction project is Dime Pulp, A Magazine of Serial Pulp Fiction (tencentfiction.com). Pat lives in the redwood wilds along the Russian River in Northern California.

 
 

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