Toward the Blue Peninsula 1951-52
Joseph Cornell

Dream (for Joseph Cornell)

©Monica J. Brown

I.

These magical boxes create universes, crack imagination.

What dreams live, grow, transgress, manifest? What memories

are evoked within the whispering annals of ocean white fluff?

Of all of the glittering magma, where lies the immense opening

into the other side of possibility stepping off into the unknown ether

of the one dreaming, the one dreamed of…

Untitled (Pharmacy) 1943
Joseph Cornell

II.

Within these tiny capsulated jars are held the whispered

secret, the unspoken wish, the magnified realm of star-glinted

machinations upon this filament of flowering cloud wisped

past the illuminated sound of heart beat, last breath gasped,

left and lingered past the representation of love lost/gained/

restored/repaired/reciprocated…

Object (Roses des Vents) 1942-53
Joseph Cornell

 III.

Telepathic insurrection of dreams left uncharted/untraveled, bursting

with the velocity of volcanic magma,       of black holes sucking

through the chasm of hope,       clawing through the syncopated rhythm of

heartbeat unclenched against this weather-beaten stroll of leg & foot against

pavement;          walking towards a future initiated by each heel, ball, toe

away from this makeshift canopy of awake…