Goddess Gone Fishing for a Map of the Universe - Excerpt

It was as though The lifeline on her palm

Had fallen between the cracks Of the impossible and the arbitrary

GoddessGone-SheriD.indd 1 12-01-24 10:48 AM

Also by Sheri-D Wilson:

Books:Autopsy of a Turvy World (2008) Re:Zoom (2005) Between Lovers (2002) The Sweet Taste of Lightning (1998) Girl’s Guide to Giving Head (1996) Swerve (1993) Bulls Whip & Lambs Wool (1989)

CDs:Re:Cord (2006) the sweet taste of lightning (2001)

Edited Works:The Spoken Word Workbook: inspiration from poets who teach (2011)


Gone Fishing for a Map of the UniverseGODDESS

The Poems

Sheri-D Wilson

Calgary AB


Copyright © 2012 by Sheri-D WilsonAll rights reserved, including moral rights. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording, or any information storage retrieval system without permission in writing from the author or publisher, or ACCESS copyright, except by a reviewer or academic who may quote brief passages in a review or critical study.

Book design: Neil Petrunia/Epix Design Cover Image and design: Peter Moller/Egg Press Author photo: Mike Roberts

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Wilson, Sheri-D. Goddess gone fishing for a map of the universe : the poems / Sheri-D Wilson.

Issued also in an electronic format. ISBN 978-1-897181-60-7

I. Title.

PS8595.I5865G64 2012 C811’.54 C2012-900256-9

Frontenac House Media gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We would also like to thank the Government of Alberta Multimedia Development Fund for their support of our publishing program.

Printed and bound in CanadaPublished by Frontenac House Media Ltd.Building B1, Suite 136, 2451 Dieppe Ave SW, Calgary, Alberta, T3P 1G9, CanadaTel: 403-245-2491 Fax: [email protected] www.frontenachouse.com


Contents

Hyperlink: The Cartographer 11Ode to my Microscopic Life 17

Part I – Preamble: 17Part II – Ode to my Microscopic Life: 18Part III – Self Portrait: 20

Dancing Off the Side of an Urn 24Monterey Bay 27

Passageway I 27Passageway II 29Passageway III 30

Primordial Women Riff 31Euphonic Sketch I – Saturn 31Euphonic Sketch II – Jupiter 31Euphonic Sketch III – Mercury 32Euphonic Sketch IV – Mars 32Euphonic Sketch V – Venus 32Euphonic Sketch VI – Moon 33Euphonic Sketch VII – Earth 33

She was a Water Sign 35Goddess of New York City 37Gypsy Madonna from Florence On the Opening Night of Lorca 41Ubiquitous Google Goddess 45Three Dick Pix 48

Part I – Phallus Photos 48Part II – Mixing Cocktails with Ego-testicles 49Part III – Tele-dildonics 50

Geek Love & Skin Diving 51Fish Tale 53Aphrodite’s Aphrodisiac 55Why Calliope Loves Poetry 58Plotting a Plot 60Ffraid’s Cadarnhad – Cyn She Siarad 63Thrown Out 65Speaking Fans 67The Barcelona Bakery of no Return 71


Heart 76Telling Hearts – Apart: 76Hearts are Body Parts: 77Follow your Heart: 77Wild @ Heart: 77Hearts for Sale or Rent: 78Heart Failure: 78Heart of Lost Letters: 78Ghosting Heart: 79Heart of a Poet: 80Disguising your Heart Throb: 80How to Test the Heart: 80Heart of Sticky Notes – The Real Test: 81Love High Tech Hearts: 81Robot Heart: 81Hearts in Space: 82Reflections at Heart: 82

Incredibly Realistic Gypsy 84In Search of a Metaphysical Rock Star 87Sister Mary 91Baubo Exposed 93Accident Prone Goddess 96When the Goddess Isn’t Looking 100Extra! Extra! Read All About It! Shakti! Shakti! News Flash! 102The Hair Piece 105Dance of the Sparrow 108Why Goddess? 109


11

HYPERLINK: THE CARTOGRAPHER

If the Universe is a woman and the woman is a cartographer and the cartographer creates a map and the map is of herself then she, the Universe, could recreate herself, by imagining herself as she might imagine herself to be, therefore designing or divining a new way to be seen.

And as she reinvents herself, to mark her transformation from Miss Universe to Miss Multi-verse, she reboots to set her new default name as Mama Mappa Mundi.

And when she laughs, stars explode from her stellar mind, ten billion light years of knowing atoms, water-based life what happens after death, and if there is a God flash in her every breath. She thinks: I’m expanding exponentially maybe I should go on a diet more exercise. Then again I like being quasar-esque, painters plead to paint me and what could be better than that?

A macrocosm in a tear, yes.


12

She charts a hemisphere where dreams reside, so to interpret herself from the other side, flip side. Plots a new discourse, tongue & groove fresh attitude, new angle on ancient territories, hidden stories—she’s on the move, weaving new cloth out of old voids.

Opus to the impossible.1.2.3: Ahau

5.6.7: Cumbu

Abracadabra. She thinks it and it appears, duende— she finds a map buried somewhere in a lost shop, in some forgotten alley off an unknown street; and this cloaked shop is a virtual galaxy brimming with curiosities, like collectable skeleton keys to nowhere; jails that no longer have bars; and Miss Multi-verse returns from afar to earth—tablet in hand, no words to describe the lost and forgotten land. No mental map could include, exclude, conclude or preclude where she thinks she may have been to discover it.

A microcosm in a breath.

How does her map depict—Island Place of the rising sun? Island The sun is hidden and nothing can be seen? Island Beyond the flight of birds?


13

It is a map of every possibility every pinpoint, every landmark named and unnamed, and it is blank— terra nullius. And when our cartographer unfolds this map she’ll never have to refold it for it will unfold and fold itself memorizing its own creases, an automatic map which knows its own limitations embodies its own contradictions.

The way the elements of the landscape fold into one another.

It indicates patterns of birds and animals and clouds and spheres and sand in the rocks between tides counting extremophiles, the flow of reptiles and groves of trees of life, orchards and canopies forests, ocean winds and seas and all movements of water. It indicates every essence of every being whoever passed through its waypoints, and all stories all sounds—time simultaneous and all history, all fanciful frippery sub-atomic to cosmic mystery practical and impractical D-mercantilization D-nationalisation all at the same time at the same distance as if circumnavigating light.


14

With infra-red telescopic eyes Miss Multi-verse peers deep into her own space. Some would call her a navel-gazer, an omphaloskeptic

But Miss M-verse knows she’s just a multi-core worry wart so she continues to muse: filling omnipotent shoes, the terraforming of Mars with a multi-infinity intensity the parallel multi-verse, divinity subterranean habitation, the Copernicus revelation unplugged into twelve-dimensional hyper-space being bugged, Genesis as Utopia, exoplanets and what will LISA’s baby pictures tell her about the instant of her own creation?

She retweets a self-proclaimed mathematician’s joke: The Universe is a hologram projected by a microscopic disco ball.

She thinks: Yeah, and I’m a mapper rapper!

And she tweets: Off to do some vacuuming.

Then, she signals for her Hippogriff, Oceanus and she disappears.

Dust.


15

To read her directions—one must first learn to read the mind of the maker of the map, Einstein. What data did she include, omit? One thing’s for sure, her map won’t colonize or control, for the spirit of one small Universe among so many Universes must be free to explore the whole.

It’s all in the spectro-scopic eye. If something’s forgotten in the asteroseismology of stars does it continue to exist? And how does the creator depict: The flight of birds. The extinction list.

If the cartographer sees a depiction of wind, will there be wind so trees might grow, if she sees Sun, will there be Sun Moon, Moon Light Light?

Musica Humana. A microcosm in a scale.

<<<<<<<<<A fish scale>>>>>>>>>

If you put a fish into a Zen garden pool, will it become Zen?


16

<<<<<<<<< Biospherium>>>>>>>>>

Trust the Multi-verse a virgin dimension, matrix with no border-lines atlas of endless possibility etheric—her-metic with all routes in, through, around and about breath.

<<<<<<<<<Gills>>>>>>>>>

They say poetry allows us to see what is too large for our vision: If I look through a magnifying glass she thinks, there is nothing too small for my mind.

Orbis musicae theatri et cathedras circuirent circuitu donec requiem cum in orationibus divinis feminine.

And so on— till the cows come home.


109

WHY GODDESS?

Fishing for a dream— a bumper sticker stuck on the fender of a carbonless car reads: Isis Isis Ra Ra Ra

the Earth chants, the trees talk and the sea sings

every poet brings new meaning to duende,

the statue of the Vierge Noire was not created by human hands, she’s found in trees, groves lakes, streams and natural springs— if you try to take the Goddess away or remove her, the place will no longer exist the tail of a comet

and fire, the fire within expression of fire-lines leading to the cave over a lifetime and again go fish!

the feminine divine teaches all humankind how to wish for the first time, explains what it means to come true

a small dog named Violet with an ultra big heart who loves beyond reason


110

with abalone eyes sees into the blues reds and greens and white and black and brown and yellow of gold—and colours unseen—keyhole to meditation and worship—where supernatural powers of the statue are kept—indestructible she always returns to the temple

the gypsy lament to the moon and her retrograde vision and the swing sister sweet resonant chariot, fanciful feet in whimsical power boots magic lingering and quirky and kooky space suits finding restful places to tie a fly mother and witch and virgin and whore all opening doors and holding them open long enough for everyone to come in to drum for the womb, past a dualities tomb dissolving like sugar and spell-binding the room into one, at one with nature

look under a stone

Goddess, is a basket of sweet wild berries fresh picked among spiders left at the door with a bell ringing once

and languages, all ways of seeing and telling with the intention to bless and therefore be blessed,


111

midwife of all Marys transformation past the hunger of time with eglantine and ivy omnipresent, into invisible texts evaporated by knowing

Goddess of dreams, or astronomy, or comedy or idyllic poetry, Goddess of sacred or choral music and dance or romance, epic poetry or history—one Goddess by all names for we are all one, poetry and flute and lyre one body—all rare—Vitruvian Woman flower petal to the metal up the fault line of no regrets, ancient trees, dancing naked in the rain as a blue bird, shakes tail feathers free as goldfish memory evokes of all those who came before and sang till the feathers at our feet fly

Goddess is Goddess and that is that, and that is why the magic number is one and none, aleatoric

a Goddess creates great beauty, as minds open books, and hearts let the tongue be free in sanctuary Goddess is praise of the Goddess and the map is never finished


Sheri-D Wilson Poet www.sheridwilson.com

Artistic Director Calgary Spoken Word Festival www.calgaryspokenwordfestival.com

Director Spoken Word Program The Banff Centre www.spokenwordworkbook.com

Twitter @SheriD Wilson Facebook


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Goddess Gone Fishing for a Map of the Universe - Excerpt