Proto-Echo: PoetEconomist 2018

Proto-Echo: 

PoetEconomist

Five years have blinked by since I composed the first re-launch of the PoetEconomist digital space. 

Five thousand digital inquiries five years ago have become nearly fifty thousand–a gaping entry point into a new form of discourse in which the medium is, itself, massage—today: a poetry blog, y’all: poetry.

The echoes in my own mind have escaped into this wider space: a free space, a space of liberty:

Of Momentitiousness and Black Kettle, and Flag;

Of—with a big P— Poetry disguised as essaying;

Of Poetry disguised as politics, as protest, collaboration;

Of Poetry disguised as economics.

Life has changed: I’ve evolved: love has reclaimed me. Poet has tamed Economist. Holding all things constant is as untenable as concretizing—through time, through space, through medium, through the obliterations of love’s life—the meaning of a single word.

Echoes—the enduring blasphemies of brash youth—of my own making mark the genesis of this space. There remains beauty in the past which will continue to gather the cosmic dust of nostalgia. There remains, as well, the persistent time before PoetEconomist, always-already a preparation for the chronicling of this education. Many voices, many my own, echoed at first, shouting back at me. Many voices, many my own, stumbled over themselves—smashing, hadron-like, into each other from every direction—even in this same digital space.

This space has been an acupunctural remedy for a a billion zillion ideas stuffed into a tiny, always-about-to-burst sack. Y’all granted—indulged—me the latitude to hold it together even as we threatened to explode during our movement through the ether.   

Beyond the parochial musings within the breadth of pin-pricks, you gave me an inch and I’ve touched the cosmos. With you, I’ve lifted lamentations to praise: from the dripping stalactites of daily hum-drummery to the spacious, beating chambers of humanity’s promise: beyond shadows obscuring etchings on cave walls, beyond scrolls and tablets: a far cry from an echo.

If ever this was an echo chamber, fifty thousand pin pricks have burst the singularity into an undulant, harmonizing song swelling with many voices in an ever expanding system.

I would overstate my own importance were I to claim complicity with Whitman, to claim that I channel him in an electric, contemporary celebration of humanity.

I would overstate my own importance were I to claim complicity with the Jesus of the Temple or the Jesus of the Mount, to claim that I channel him in a spiritual, contemporary celebration of humanity.

I would overstate my own importance were I to claim complicity with you, to claim that I channel you in an individually collected, contemporary celebration of humanity.

Yet, their songs—and yours—overflow from me, out-beat and sing over me from within: a protest: an economy based on boundless resources: a proto-echo: a repeating variation on the theme of love that predates even the first day.

In this not-for-granted cell of the ether—this humble poetry blog—I hum with the song of modernity, the digital signals inscribed upon our DNA—vertically, horizontally, tangentially, and helixically—in words: in verse.

This is our contemporary celebration of humanity. This is our love. This is our evolution.

We will claim more chromosomes, more molecules, more cells, more liberty one word at a time: one stanza from asyncopation to beat: one leaf from sprout to peat: one miracle from prayer to feet: popping poetry from the most unexpected pin-pricks in this space in this time: in this repeating blink.

Read more of my poetry, fiction, and essays at Momentitiousness.com