A revision of an older poem from 2015 that was lacking a companion image while I compile a manuscript for my second book.
Method of Divining by Seashells Who is to Blame
Begin by placing a conch shell to your ear for a few moments
Arrange in a circle thirteen cowries
Do this on a square glass mirror without frame or backing
Pour the phial of anti-sense in the direct center and remember to regard the magnetic chirality of the Earth
The glass will shatter
Carefully tune the polarization refractors until the shards produce holographic rainbows
Place three crushed sand dollars in a beaker of indigo in acetone
Apply gentle heat to transmute
Spin three times around and throw your hands up facing the direction of the Pentagon and scream “Ayiyiyiiii!”
Exchange the cowries for a Bangladeshi garment worker slave as in Africa in days of old
Set the garment worker to alphabetizing your books according to the Hindi translation, and with respect to their Turing-completeness, then free them
Throw the conch shell as hard you can against the brick wall of a bar that has exiled you
Throw one virgin hedge fund manager into the ball pit at Chuck-e-Cheese
Examine a trilobite in a museum, then steal it
Pour the dissolved sand dollars into the overturned trilobite within the squalid home of an independently wealthy junky
Take the junky’s hand and stare deeply into her eyes
Pirouette
Examine the pattern of the rainbows of the shattered glass of earlier
Flip a silver dollar high into the air until it comes to rest on the glass
Unless it lands on its edge the blame will rest on [fill in the blank with the first word to come]
Full Featured Image:
Lost in Mist 