Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Crumpled Paper
-Inspired by Wallace Stevens: Thirteen Ways
of Looking at a Blackbird
I.
Crumpled and torn the paper's fluidity,
like a loincloth draped against breasts,
stiffened, becoming jagged, rigid, recyclable.
II.
Performing gymnastics, a piece of plain white
dropped from a vibrantly checkered hot-air balloon
wouldn't crumple. Unmatched agility, nimble
and silky, tumbling through the air, correctly
catching wind and landing without a corner
bent -- earning a perfect ten.
III.
Made of native wood, the antique cigar box
contained a pamphlet of slanderous propaganda
against "Negro-kind." Attempting to crumple
the paper, it crumbled to brittle flakes.
IV.
Orphaned idea, will you be retrieved
from the waste and your fibers
pressed back to faithful fruition?
V.
Immaculate geometry! Buckminster would exhaust
into dust calculating your perfect irregularities.
Crumpled sheet... soft dunes; your antithesis.
VI.
Children bat a crumpled ball
avoiding the teacher's lesson.
VII.
Crumpled sheet, you are the pantomime
of tragedy. Like nirvana, you must seek
to be extinguished. Fire be your refuge.
VIII.
Shaped like a heart, a human heart,
the college-ruled reds and blues are veins.
Scribbles: the path of cells flowing.
Crumpled euphoria. Crumpled foregoing.
Crumpled nostalgia.
IX.
Poverty evokes curious creativity.
Gorgeously anomalous; spray-painted and glittered,
crumpled paper balls transform
into Christmas tree ornaments.
X.
Those whom avoid the can,
a graveyard of crumpled warriors,
continue to describe eucalyptus
and all its scent.
XI.
Unfolded, the crumpled sheet resembles
the cracked face of an elderly Navajo.
XII.
Air between the inside walls is a springboard
allowing the tightly crumpled mass to bounce
inches high.
XIII.
Better than a cracked eggshell for an artist
to interpret light, the plain white
crumpled then unfolded mountain-scape
consummates contrast.