Smog
by Darla Himeles
I went out to buy smog today
after two years away from my
concrete Pacific, my crashing
head smelling waves
as I landed at the storefront
where smog is sold
as an eye shadow color.
It is not the same
as my heavy home horizons,
but it is perfect.
–
n. mixture of smoke and fog
Smog is a kind of air pollution; the word “smog” is a portmanteau of smoke and fog. Classic smog results from large amounts of coal burning in an area and is caused by a mixture of smoke and sulphur dioxide.
Bill Callahan (musician)
Bill Callahan (born approximately 1968 or 1969), also known as Smog and (Smog), is an American singer-songwriter born in Silver Spring, Maryland. Callahan began working in the lo-fi genre of underground rock, with home-made tape-albums recorded on four track tape recorders. Later he began releasing albums with the label Drag City. He is currently dating folk singer Joanna Newsom, to whose newest album he contributed on the song “Only Skin.”
SMOG (Simple Measure Of Gobbledygook)
SMOG (Simple Measure Of Gobbledygook) is a readability formula that estimates the years of education needed to understand a piece of writing. SMOG is widely used, particularly for checking health messages. The precise SMOG formula yields an outstandingly high 0.985 correlation with the grades of readers who had 100 omprehension of test materials.
Claustrum
The claustrum is a thin layer of grey matter lying between the extreme capsule and external capsule in the brain. Its function is not completely known, although it has reciprocal connections with the cerebral cortex.
Francis Crick, a neuroscientist keen on studying the neural correlate of consciousness, pointed to the claustrum as one of the most probable key components of consciousness in his last works [1].
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5 comments
I didn’t mean to publish all of the definitions and further links related to the word “smog” below my poem; a Firefox extension I use put them there, and I forgot to remove them before publishing. Now that it’s all live, tell me what you think, reader: should I take it down and simplify the page? Or is a fun/interesting error that adds to the experience of the poem?
I think the poem stands on it’s own, but the added definitions gave it some bonus twists and turns.
I did some weeding, and I like the result. Thanks!
” … smog is sold
as an eye shadow color …”
I love this idea, using pollution as an accent to beauty.
Thank you for your comment, Michael. I remember being thrown off when I realized that Los Angeles sunsets were so particularly beautiful because of the reddish brown tint that gathers at the horizon. The sunset was dirtied, but it was still strangely captivating.
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