Steven Schroeder | Seven Types of Ambiguity
In The 1940s to Now, my mind
is an impure abstraction
that wanders back to waiting
for an oil change this morning
while an on air personality on
a television I am trying to ignore
chatters about women’s safety and
an app that makes your cellphone call
the police when you take your thumb off
if you do not enter a secret code
within fifteen seconds.
A woman intent on the one in her hand
walks along a white wall where a curator
has lined up ranks of framed color and form.
She stands between me and the painting
I have been contemplating for a long time,
thinking of Empson typing on his
long march to Yunnan,
but she does not block my vision. We are
one well ordered collision, more or less,
among others, no more conscious
of the work on the wall than
oil finding its way
on solvent soaked canvas
incidental to the cyborg dance
of the whole in which this place is a moment.
from one well ordered collision among others | 2019
