John Kinsella

"For if the author has been successful in his exposition up to this point, it
should be sufficiently plain that geometry of four-dimensions is capable of
yielding fresh and interesting ornamental motifs."
     --Claude Bragdon, Architecture and Democracy

The Land of Counterpane

WHEN I was sick and lay a-bed,
I had two pillows at my head,
And all my toys beside me lay
To keep me happy all the day.

And sometimes for an hour or so    5
I watched my leaden soldiers go,
With different uniforms and drills,
Among the bed-clothes, through the hills;

And sometimes sent my ships in fleets
All up and down among the sheets;    10
Or brought my trees and houses out,
And planted cities all about.

I was the giant great and still
That sits upon the pillow-hill,
And sees before him, dale and plain,    15
The pleasant land of counterpane.

Stevenson, Robert Louis (1850-1894). A Child's Garden of Verses and Underwoods. 1913.

Prima facie ceiling,
across leg mountains, traversing
motifs and hegemony; screech owls
hustling hustling hustling
and then still as sometimes counter-mania    5.

or down in the dumps, pane,
disclosed through hierophants,
synonyms, calories, insignia,
denial, drawn out of inside,
sheet lightning and the poems of Henry Vaughan,    10.

innocuous tree bark cut to the bright part,
lacerating tree-climbers,
anthologies, large and small stories
equally eager to make light,
before us, alone this hostile ailment,    15.

witnessing videos and containment - what we remember?