Extensions Of Crash - Strophes For Frieda Kahlo Poem by Warren Falcon (2011 poem - see 2018 blog essay on this site)

As with love
also the bellows

Strophe 1


no stopping here 

to flare out 

dry paint 

the dryer flesh 

peel down

to bone 


sexless skeleton 

skull no longer 

mustached


skull and 

nothing more 


curved calcium 

forever reliant 

upon canvas 

upon what is 

congealed there 

to fan and burn 


a 'cauda pavonis'*


*Peacock's Tail (Latin, an image in alchemy) 


Strophe 2


Calavera - the Future 
stands hand to mouth 
fingers to forehead
unfolding before still 
instatic shapes 

framed perceptions quake


Strophe 3


to come to terms
with what happens
repeatedly

16 years of age
piercing metal violates

turns into something
utterly astonished

livid

burns to vapor


still each canvas
backward falls

cruel alchemical
vas splinters
unrelenting nerves


encased steel-plated Virgin
takes a cyclops for a lover 


Strophe 4


Discovery of the always 
heavy Zero - only Absolute 
of merit 

births multiplicity 
arms grown beyond counting 

the better to carry 
unforgiving densities

Gift from Arabia 
the non-alloyed Zero 
unmeasured by mass 

better names for god: 

thermal history 

twisting vector 

ghostly mirage 

prima materia


in spite of or within 
Metallic Matrices 
blacksmith heart 
hammers verdigris 
chambers ventricles
shapes Newton's 
grave conjugations 

more names: 

timed solidity 

hardened Presence 

dilute rendering 

base metal


Strophe 5


'Chaste plutonium wire 
bear the blunt Presence' 

volcano born she
turns into conjugal 
vessel 

Quetzal plume 
conjoins to Serpent 
skin rebirthing 
extensions of crash 

and a returning God 

boat and horse 
delivered from 
the red beard of 
the bloated sea 
confronting yet 
one more deity 
requiring blood


Strophe 6 


only a swaying bus 

careens yet again

repeats collision 


Virgin's hymen torn 


amniotic Host a 

Lover forever dividing 

concealed antlered 

uterus


anvilled annunciations' 

apparitions strung 

on coniunctio 


destined to see 

deities through to 

the end beyond capacity 

to smell necrosis 


to see the exit wound 

of soul coagulate 

disguised as skin 

muscle sinew canvas


Strophe 7


Circulatio 

arrive again upon the 
threshold 

the bus once more stops
at her stop 


carries her forward into Legend