with and without absent lines

I enjoyed very much these short deep lines.

"Lick that pollen off your coat"

Beautiful absence.

Love the absent verb at the very end.

What's not evident is what we often feel the strongest connection with or longing for - "vacancies of old". Yes.

The abruptness of the leap from some lines to the next ones is strong and effective. They're aren't all enjambments (which I like, by the way), but they nonetheless jump or leap in wonderful ways. A punch--

...vanished / sounds...

...made / Metal-birthed...

...sense / secrets...

...believed / lick...

...coat / vacancies

I've been reading translations of Issa and Buson by Robert Hass & Sam Hamill. This poem, though much longer than their works of haiku, a rhyme with their slant on the world and language.

This poem, sounding marvelous when read aloud, strikes me as a jigsaw view where the pieces have been slipped into place. We see the "landscape" of the poem - quite metaphysical actually - at a slant, in Dickinson fashion.

Great play with language / sound here.

Strong work, Edward. Wish I'd written this piece. It's a shame I can only give one star.

***

So much space!

Quietly sublime, strannikov. The absence is very present and deeply felt.

Erika: thank you, thank you, and thank you.

I tinkered with them (title, too) after posting but retained the form of the "absent lines", which came to mind as I woke this morning (so not quite a surrealist production).
I did sketch out how the absent lines could scan but decided to forego supplying the notation, so I'm glad to hear the lines I did supply possess some strength of their own.

Thank you again, Erika, do stay well, and keep up all good work.

Dianne: thank you, thank you, and thank you.

The line you cite I stole from a neighbor's cat grooming itself in my front yard in the hour after I posted the piece, it begged for inclusion.

The more I read of Beckett's plays, the more I'm taken with apophasis and elision.

Thank you again, Dianne, do stay well, and keep up all good work.

Sam: thank you, thank you, and thank you.

First, it is supremely gratifying to hear that the piece is even capable of working so well, so do understand the depth of my gratitude for your assessment.

As I mentioned to Dianne, I've been catching up with Beckett's plays (Endgame and Godot, in that order) and may have begun to learn something of his paring and paring down, though spending the rest of my life at that task alone would never get me close to his practice.

The only Buson tr. on my shelf is the Merwin/Lento ed., so thanks for the reference, I'll look for the Hass/Hamill ed.

Thank you again, Sam, do stay well, and keep up all good work.

Agnes Ezra: thank you, thank you, and thank you.

Apart from the literary citations mentioned to Dianne and Sam, I suppose my meditations on cosmology have impressed me with the qualities of cosmic voids (additional to those terrestrial voids residing within the limits of my own cranium) that, if not substantive exactly, certainly possess "substantiality" and a structural role in how the universe is shaped. (Maybe that would help account for the quasi-surreal point of origin that I mentioned to Erika.)

Thank you again, Agnes Ezra, do stay well, and keep up all good work.

Todd: thank you, thank you, and thank you.

I had not thought of Bakhtin for a while when I wrote the piece, and I haven't read anything of his concerning dialogical criticism and aesthetics for even longer, but it comes to mind now that, because "dialogue" and "answerability" are taken to imply response(s), there might necessarily be a "tacit chirality" to all verbal communications, or even some state of chirality admitting explicit silences and absences for any completion of "semantic significance". --That's enough thinking for me for the rest of the day!

Thank you again, Todd, do stay well, and keep up all good work.

I really do like this, Edward! The economy flows so deep. I could swim in this (meant as a complimant) :)

KB: thank you, thank you, thank you for your own economic evocation.

Just after posting it, I wondered whether I'd been too clever by far more than half, clever by far less than half: you and my other readers and Fictionaut commenters have persuaded me that I stumbled into something, and although I still think one or two lines could have been altered, improved, or replaced, at this date I find it too late to change anything.

Thank you again, Kitty, do stay well, and keep up all good work.