free write

Reading poetry of Robert Haas—stumbled on an approach he addresses, briefly, an implication of layering images, the stanzas as interlocking boxes, each inside the other; told as in transition, a camera angle moving forever inward, beyond the microscopic into deeper levels of alternative dimensions.

It is important to dig deeper for the source, shovel back the ash and silt of the past, moving beyond the layers of recognizable history—fall into fictionalized realms—Elizabeth I pulling back a section of her blouse revealing a mole under her right breast, —and further inward, below the surface impression of the text, in the closet a doll sits, holding a box, within the box a castle, within the castle the moon.

Layers of rooms, because stanza = room.

Layers of Dante’s Hell or Dante’s Heaven.

Spiral staircase leading upwards, or drilling downward.