David M. Schulz
What More, Now?
What more, now, do you need to know of age
and event that you cannot see yourself?
Dark truth extracted from the Moon, fourth stage,
new, is easier to procure than help.
Did you not watch that fallen star explode,
reduced to frozen ash and then a myth?
Black winding way of that road ahead closed.
Fresh air in empty space filled with warm breath.
Blossom, wither, beck, and call whispers screamed
cymatic undulations, plucked the tight
strands that wove through our impossible dreams.
Starlight called on me to dance through the night.
A brief, bright glimpse reflected in the snow,
blinked away, maybe not for us to know.
_______________
David M. Schulz writes from the northeastern corner of California. Some of his recent or forthcoming work can be found in Shooter Literary Magazine, Songs of Eretz Poetry Review, Young Ravens Literary Review, Sage Cigarettes Magazine, and Dark Dead Things.
Author’s Notes/Backstory: “What More, Now?” first appeared in my notebook on January 17, 1991. That first day of Operation Desert Storm found me alone in a chaparral woodland looking for anything beautiful in a cold, dry world.
Sandwiched between two other poems and a reading assignment from the professor of my Survey of English Literature class, “What More, Now?” existed as an untitled sonnet in my archives until recently, when I began compiling and revising my older work. With this poem, I knew I needed to make some adjustments, and this final form owes much to excellent insights found in Elaine Scarry’s book, Dreaming by the Book.
In the quest to strike a balance between capturing what moves me and making something beautiful with written words, the study of craft forces me to work as a translator of sorts. To this end, I spend considerable time revising original thoughts with an eye and ear toward incorporating imagery and/or motion to better convey a feeling or a sense of place.
Editor’s Notes: A Shakespearean sonnet in decasyllabics. “Cymatics is the science of visualizing sound and vibration, showing how specific frequencies create intricate geometric patterns in mediums like sand, water, or powders on a vibrating surface. Coined from the Greek word for “wave,” it’s a subset of modal vibrational phenomena, demonstrating how sound shapes matter, revealing hidden patterns and resonance, and is used in art, education, and even alternative therapy to understand sonic harmony and structure [www].” The image of a dense field of shamrocks (by soramang from Pixabay), though a still photograph, produces a motion by light intensity variations. This gives me the sensation of motion and complex geometric forms “appearing” here and there.