Detonation
By R. J. Keeler
()
About this ebook
Mr. Keeler has been published in over sixty literary journals and has won (or been named a finalist in) several contests and awards. He is currently completing the set of poems for his second book of poetry.
Mr. Keeler currently lives on Vashon Island, Washington. He is a minor Luddite, thus can only be can be contacted by email at detonation@alumni.duke.edu.
R. J. Keeler
R. J. Keeler was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, and grew up in the jungles of Colombia. He holds a BS in Mathematics from North Carolina State University, an MS in Computer Science from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, an MBA from University of California at Los Angeles, and a Certificate in Poetry from the University of Washington. An Honorman in the U.S. Naval Submarine School, he was Submarine Service (SS) qualified. He is a recipient of the Vietnam Service Medal, Honorable Discharge, and a Whiting Foundation Experimental Grant. He is a member of IEEE (technological society), AAAS (scientific society), and the Academy of American Poets, and is a former Boeing engineer.
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Detonation - R. J. Keeler
Detonation
R. J. Keeler
Detonation
Copyright ©
2020
R. J. Keeler. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers,
199
W.
8
th Ave., Suite
3
, Eugene, OR
97401
.
Resource Publications
An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers
199
W.
8
th Ave., Suite
3
Eugene, OR
97401
www.wipfandstock.com
paperback isbn: 978-1-7252-5704-7
hardcover isbn: 978-1-7252-5705-4
ebook isbn: 978-1-7252-5706-1
Inset cover photograph is from The Edgerton Digital Collections project at MIT. It is an image of the first microseconds of an atomic explosion, documented in a
1
/
100
,
000
,
000
-of-a-second exposure, taken from seven miles away with a lens ten feet long. Photographed by Harold Edgerton and his colleagues at EG&G [Harold Edgerton, Kenneth Germeshausen, and Herbert Grier], likely at the Nevada Proving Grounds, on commission for the Atomic Energy Commission; circa
1952
. Used by permission.
The Silver Dolphins image is copied from: https://www.public.navy.mil/bupers-npc/support/uniforms/uniformre
The Vietnam Service Medal ribbon is copied from: https://www.afpc.af.mil/Recognition/Decorations-and-Ribbons/
Manufactured in the U.S.A.
12/31/19
Table of Contents
Title Page
First Part: Love, et al.
Carthage, a Salted Plain
Minotaur at My Door
A Shark Is Not
My Son Jordan
Treechild
In Bed with the Werewolf
Amazonia
The Animal Communicator
God in Underwear
Amour in the Age of Viruses, Porcupines, of Immunology
Voluntarism
A Verso Likeness (Imagined, of Course) of Some Acquaintances:
Black Dirt
Constancy of Method
Gravity: It Must Be Good for Something
The Weather Inside of Us
The Universe is Simply a Sounding Drum
My Heart’s Gone Uzi
At the Self-Serve
The Christmas Concert on Orcas Island at Victorian Valley Chapel
Karen’s Poem
Trade (Among the Equilibrists)
On Online Dating
Pantoum: Meditation While Washing Laundry
Trophy
Woman Marries Iguana, Carries Eggs
To Lorna Doone from Her Husband, John, after Twenty Years of Marriage
Second Part: Death
Mud Dauber Wasp Nest
In a Hostage Situation: A Play in Four Acts
Male Sperm Counts Are Falling All Across the Western World
After Chopping off Dozens of Mouses’ Heads Suddenly We Understood Literature
The Altar Fires
Fatherland
Circling on the Edge of the War Zone
Dirty Dead Prick Fish
Strait of Georgia
After a Train There’d Be a Fit
Were We Really So Happy Back Then?
The Literal Mind Was Crushed
Meditation on a Trash Fire in My Backyard
And Pity Those Who Lost Their Grip
On the Earth of Lincoln County, Washington, on Saint Valentine’s Day, 1993
Along the Shore
Death Is Pique
Eridanus, Mythical River
Assemblage: On a South Dakota Chain Gang in Autumn, 1958—Air, Ants, and Fervid Thinking
My Transuranium Goblet
Kids Just Getting off the Ferry
Third Part: Literature
Pressure Changes at Snow Lines
A Bee in Late October
A Young Flemish Scientist in Early Contemplation of Gravity and Light
Hive
The Orb Weaver
A Compass Only Spins That Finds No Source
The Pale Wall Became the Mind Itself
Rue, Herb of Grace
Year of the Gnat
The Cow that Makes Cream
A Puzzle on the Table inside M.V. Chetzemoka Underway
Final Canticle, on the Tools for Cultivation of Our Own Secret Garden
π Covered in Whipped Cream
Symmetry
Fourth Part: Everything Else
White, Black
Flash of Beauty
House of Lords, Temporal and Spiritual
Invasive Species
Curious George and the Man with the Yellow Hat
Inventing a New Color
The Empty Quarter
The Standard Model
A Community of Whores
Window Sitter
And Just This Far from Hopelessness
Anticline
What Do Cats Contribute Positively to Universal Ecology?
Underworld Children
The Woman Who Never Slept
Notes
About the Author
For Isadora Paradise
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the editors of the following journals, presses, and contests who first printed or selected these poems:
•Alternating Current: Trade
•Atlanta Review: Meditation on a Trash Fire in My Backyard,
a finalist for their 2019 International Poetry Competition and published in the Fall/Winter Issue
•Big Pond Rumours Press: A Shark Is Not,
Gravity: It Must Be Good for Something,
and "A Puzzle on the Table inside M.V. Chetzemoka Underway"
•Curating Alexandria: Window Sitter
•Deluge Literary and Arts Journal: Carthage, A Salted Plain
•Foliate Oak Literary Magazine: The Cow That Makes Cream
•Francis Ponge Prize for Prose Poetry (runner-up): The Animal Communicator
•Frost Farm Prize for Metrical Poetry (finalist): On the Earth of Lincoln County, Washington on Saint Valentine’s Day
•Garfield Lake Review: At the Self-Serve
•Helen Schaible International Sonnet Contest, Poets & Patrons of Chicago: Male Sperm Counts Are Falling All Across the Western World,
Modern Sonnet Contest Special Recognition
•Jerry Jazz Musician: The Empty Quarter
•Mingled Voices 4: International Proverse Poetry Prize Anthology 2019: Invasive Species
•Mithila Review: Mud Dauber Wasp Nest
•National Poetry Library in London (archived): The Animal Communicator
•New Times Magazine: Circling on the Edge of the War Zone
•Orbis International Journal: