this dissipationing OM
our burnishings and garnishings
are tarnishing most all every thing
and we’re just varnishing pains
through which we are wantonly staring
slumbering plunderinged morsel-lings
grabbing after gaudily painted what-nots
on dangling spangling bangling tables
over which we’re supposed to be caring
hoping they might swell-us-all-up
into sparkling little care-not-whats
they’re casting torn worn nets poured full
of porning midnight dancing shadowings
luring in patented promisory distortionings
of moldy-ing municipal adulterationings
loitering in jading charms of fading pastels
through which we’re militarily trompling on
patriotically flossing at bothersome notions
our prancing toothpic-ings are dis-sing
of a whom we’re always wanting
just ever barely barely only
always a little lessening
and never not so far
Copyright © 2017 Asili Ya Nadhiri
nadhiriwrites 
Among Nadhiri’s recent tonal drawings, “this dissipating OM” is noteworthy in illustrating how logic, rigor, and self-control are essential in the achievement of technical virtuosity. The poem that emerges from the act of reading is an OM (optical marker) that consolidates more than it dissipates; it, like the essential suffix —-the “ing” –which distinguishes Nadhiri’s conceptual innovation in poetry, obligates a reader to reflect on Nadhiri’s return as poet/artist/writer to the complex simplicity of tonal drawing. It is a noteworthy instance of a possible symbiosis of theory and practice, of a unifying mimesis. Here the poet responds to at least two primal questions: WHAT IS ART? and WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF ART? The answers are existential, and they denote the equating of what is transcendent with what is decidedly time-bound. The balance of theme and images urges us not to fall into traps of easy assumptions as we struggle to make sense, as a famous Irish poet once suggested, of the dancer and the dance.