Vision

By: Devon Phaneuf

What light from yonder window breaks?

What fight o'er fonder men among snakes dost thou awake?

The greatest epiphany of a man is for him to maintain that no thing is mundane and that he is to blame...for shame.

Vision is the art of decision, for intention is the munition of invention...an arms race against attrition.

Thumbs

Hitchhike,

Up or down

From the crown.

Salute, refute,

Gesture, molester.

They’re handy,

Can make you randy.

Without them:

There is no plan B.

Don’t you see?

All you owe to glee,

Your claims to be free,

The ability to sip tea,

Belongs to one appendage.

No need to feel glum.

You have a thumb!

Even if it’s numb,

It’ll help you eat plums.

In absence: your life will be upended.

Ability forever suspended.

Life as you know it is owed to thumbs,

From people under the gun,

To counting stars...beyond the sun.

-DLP (6.28.2020)

Spectacular Vernacular

By: Devon Lee Phaneuf (7.30.2020)

A centrifugal horn or bugle,

Makes a sound in the room around,

Hits a wall (which we call the bound),

Bounces back to find its center.

With an ear to the ground he listens...

To hear an echo...a resound.

Through a molten mantle it uproars,

“I am the core!!!”

“The very origin of this world,

Whom without your life would unfurl.

Stars of disaster spiral and twirl,

Yet I am your pearl.”

“The gem of existence,

Your cosmic resistance.

A fight you cannot win,

Without my enlistment.”

RUSE

by: Devon Phaneuf (12.17.2017)

Rejoice! O'er the communion of your own confusion.

Long tales rust nails of truth a-fixed once to hold confession (in a booth!).

Truth?! Truth you say has no proof? Twas God who gave life, and the noose?

Find you no amusement in my voice? What about life as a choice?

No, No, No child; let not your mind wander so loose. It is unsafe to think us so obtuse. Now praise God for lighting the spark of your fuse.

I will not. I refuse. This is no crime, I'll sign no truce.

Language is to aloof to deny that absolutes may simply be spoofs.

Call your troops. Deploy your chutes. I'll drink not from the cup of your juice.

We have only one sin, the illumination of such a ruse.

One on Won

By: Devon L Phaneuf (7.11.2020)

With personality wavering,

Every bite he is savoring.

“What is artificial flavoring?”

...He asks, with brain laboring.

“Is the mind man made?”

“Like the cards we trade,

In the games we’ve played?”

...heavy are the thoughts he weighed.

“A base is a place,

(This is certainly the case),

But also cosmetic: for the face.”

...he gathered further into grace.

“A column is a pillar,

And a plow is a tiller.

If death is the killer,

Then life is the filler.”

Still he mustered further:

“Do we really deserve her?

With her ground we gather nurture,

From clay blood and lush furniture.”

“People are the mixer,

Despite their trials to fix her;

Only their absence is her elixir.

The fire has dwindled...down to a flicker.”

He then looked up as the zenith...

“One who lives and sees this,

With love for what a seed is,

Will grow to learn what need is.”

“If only I could teach it,

This thing I think a secret,

For all to learn and frequent.”

...calmly he stopped to seize it.

Mechanimal Thingdom: Part I

By Devon Phaneuf

Default is an instinct, codified, identified, and signified in time as a pervasive, invasive, investigation on what things define as evasive. Horizons a league ahead have their attention with all eyes-on; tenacious for catharsis are things denied access to reas-on.

A thing looks into itself, and exclaims: “For what or whom must I feel disdain in such nigh-sight of all that remains? Is it my aim? Am I to blame? What is this membrane, that perhaps without: all-that-is none would ascertain nor proclaim; what do I stand to gain?”

Says an Entity arriving from the Void: “All that is or ever will be extends beyond that which you see. Light traverses the empty and splices together all that envy in pursuit of a key. Central to happiness as a pursuit is the nurture of any other thing merely because it is free; and any-thing free needs no key.”

Inattentively the Thing meanders into itself: “How can all this I see simply be? If a thing traverses emptiness, then does it cease to be? Do we? Is there ever only nothing?” Plagued by the void and catalyzed by choice the thing claws at understanding as if to scramble up scree. Irreversibly driven much like a seed toward its tree, it mechanizes a mission to not agree with that it does not see.

Says an entity of the void: “It is envy that drives you unwittingly to take a knee; greed that fails your need. All that is was already given to you with a breath of life yet you seek to sustain that which you maintain? How can you keep that which you take from yourself? A personal thief, an inevitable grief, one who steals their own belief…”

Measure

Taken by parts or wholes.

Heat evolved by coals.

Life to make one’s soul.

Dirt within a hole.

Water to break the levee,

Weight to make it heavy,

Space enough for room,

Perfection of a vacuum.

City within a block,

Boats moored at the dock,

Rivers once that flowed,

Waves without a node.

Friction needed to grip,

Surface designed for slip,

Grit defined as coarse,

Material left to source.

Taking time to measure,

All of one’s treasure,

Feeling less together,

Rain drops in wet weather.

-DLP (6.16.2020)

Man:Kind

By Devon Phaneuf 1.11.2018

A numerological sonnet

(11 lines, 11 syllables per line, 101 words, AABBCCCDDEE)

All that you see laid out before you (and me),

Is not trickery, no act of forgery.

Rest assured: my efforts I make not lightly.

In this world, men remain who live politely.

You will find my intent is far beyond kind.

From my mind: you’ve only just exposed the rind.

An axe you must grind to get the fruit behind.

With me as your guide (as one in whom you confide),

A path can be lit for that which you have tried.

Despite the creatures whose hearts are much maligned,

I give you fire raging yet quite benign.

Just for the record

By Devon Phaneuf

May the grooves prove not smooth such that sound they do not lose for my ears to hear and not refuse.

Be it blues, jazz infused, or progressive one-two-glues, hit me with a tried and true sonic view; loaded with hues of do-do-ta-do's stewed together for me to sip like brew.

My how the time is few, that part we flew right through! Now, frisk that disc like you knew what to do: flip the tip and grip the lip to dip the trip in a jip, I want to groove to side two.

Jack of All Trades…Master of Pun

By: Devon Phaneuf (4.19.2019)

One who saw two three times for five or six different ways to find seven while he ate nine tin sandwiches.

A man…a fable,

A string un-strum,

A pun-un-drum,

A none solve able,

A Teutonic harmonic,

A phonic mnemonic,

A semantic romantic,

A dialectic eclectic,

All things are connected,

No thing rejected,

Just accept it...