Five Poems by Heikki Huotari

 

Ode To Equilibrium 1 

 

The state of nature is defined by those who live there and the state of grace by those who don't. The supernatural loves a vacuum even more than a parade. The burnt-out power tool and twisted cord go back into the drawer. Approximately was a polka dot. Approximately had not one tin ear. Your culinary masterpiece my reprimand, the midpoint of the radius says to the midpoint of the ulna, we went to the same high school. Into whichever bright warm hotel lobby or onto which icy sidewalk the revolving door propelled me, you would read the bible but in context. Nothing that the whirling dervish did was aimed at me.

Ode To Equilibrium 2 

 

Without a ten-hour opera cycle the millennium would never end. I took the satire seriously or claimed to to further some agenda. I said, Gather false dichotomies while uninhibited. I said, Who is my enemy. I said, How does this weapon work. A car alarm malfunctioned. Downbeats drank but thanks to seasonal philanthropy, i.e., to death bereft of sting. The attic ladder folded, is what someone on a spectrum said, so it was not a joke. My sister cities were as close as could be to antipodal. If you knew central symmetry like I know central symmetry you would be as dissatisfied as I am. I thank Zeus for what the doctors do and I blame Satan for the so-called acts of Thor. Diogenes is going after everyone who keeps a secret. There's no convex body not an intersection of half-spaces. As I have the right to speak, your duty is to listen. Moon, remove the patch.

Ode To Equilibrium 3 

 

Should old ellipses seen obliquely turn to circles and never be brought to mind, just think outside of space and time. Amenable, your cliché is a temple and a template. You can lead a deity to water but can't lead a deity on a wild goose chase twice. How many protozoa am I holding? When the algorithm says it cares for me the algorithm isn't falsifying as the algorithm doesn't know what falsifying is. In silhouette the beard is an extension of the chin, the hand the arm. In post-hypnosis I remember nothing right on cue. Tattoo me with a random name or number. In my wake there bobs a coffin or wax apple. Of a universe that's infinite the earth is just as much the geometric center as is any other orb.

Ode To Equilibrium 4 

 

Chin strap, scare quote, elements, the elements have at that which will not attach. What life form follows you may not match. The fallacy of secrecy is felt, the fibers forced together indiscriminately. As the rate of change of cake is equal to its altitude all silhouettes are those of Abraham and have a top hat or no silhouette is that of Abraham and has a top hat. One of these three deities is not small-town. If you're not rounding up you're rounding down. What the unusual is due to: Loch Ness monsters only may change Loch Ness monsters' minds. Neither forbidden fruit nor post-apocalyptic latchkey be. Expel the Mensa member from the freedom caucus. Pittances have lost their intermittence so vote early and vote often. You're not anti but between agreements, reconstruing food for thought because you can, because why not. You'll have a panacea while the panacea's hot. If you're a robot you'll repeatedly disclose that you're a robot; it's the law.

Ode To Equilibrium 5 

 

The prequel is so poignant I could not be othered more. Do you intend to nurture or to use me, i.e., how long will I hold out in that soundproof room? I'm thinking of a number between one and ten, so you won't have to. I move to amend. That they'd be classified as women drivers isn't fair. I'd have eliminated all realities in time. When in an altered state I heard what Oscar Wilde said it made sense, i.e., it wasn't fair. The rioters, self-publishing, say simultaneously, We give up. The trees are free to speak but most choose not to so to compensate for vertigo one need but spin the other way. When two or more are gathered they swim synchronously. An attractive nuisance and a bitter pill will walk into an arm and arm. To the tectonic plate step up, compare or contrast. The deus ex machina sold separately, the neck bone is connected to the ankle bone, the sinew to the ligament, the intersection of a plane and cone is hyperbolic. Be my alibi, my valentine or my denier twice.

Heikki Huotari, on a hunger strike in opposition to the war in Vietnam, was court-martialled for refusing to eat. Since retiring from academia/mathematics he has published more than 400 poems in literary journals, including Pleiades, Spillway, the American Journal of Poetry and Willow Springs, and in six chapbooks and six collections. He has won one book (Star 82 Press) and two chapbook (Gambling The Aisle and Survision Press) prizes. His Erdős number is two.