Unsmooth

(from an interview with Benoit Mandelbrot re: fractals)

Q: And you were studying the unsmooth.

Mandelbrot: That’s right. I soon came to devote my life to phenomena

that may belong to very different organized sciences but have the

common characteristic of being irregular and fragmented at many

scales. Like the weather, for instance. I could not possibly anticipate the

level of complication this youthful choice would bring to my life trajectory.


Today let’s try to play
right at the fragile edges of attention –
attend to those dissimulations
that disguise appearance –
camouflage the ragged
beat and meat that seem to need
to hide to ripen, open, bloom

into the feat you want to see and be.
Today I am exactly that faint burp
that just reminded you
you ate a garlic pickle
sometime earlier this afternoon.
Today I am the rush you
feel when you remember that

warm stranger’s inadvertent touch –
soft brush: his hand
against your hand as you were
standing in the subway car.
Today I am the strangest
part of moonlight – weaving
like a rivulet between the clouds:

becoming what you are
when you’re asleep at midnight
and you turn and hug your pillow
like a funky lover, breathing in
as deep as you can stand it.
Today I am a dark delicious habit
you indulge in one last time

before, reluctantly, remanding it
to your most bitter judge and jury.
Today I am the living
pulsing absence of all fury:
beyond all cognitive retention.
Today let’s try to play
right at the fragile edges of attention.

.