her hands are tied, like wings on either side of the arch.
REST AREA
Her dream was the earth being smashed by the sun.
There was no heat, but the space was filled space; every day
the sun drew more of the blue from it. The earth woman spoke first,
so that her brother/husband wasn’t pleased, though it was not
the imperfect vision of a practice dream. Drawing on her dream
gives off a small portion of what is appositional. The edge of the earth
blocks out the bottom portion, but I am not fooling with augury now.
If you close your eyes in an unfamiliar place between gardens, that space
will be reduced to the limits of her body. Or, once the sun exhausts
its hydrogen, each dream will proceed to the red giant stage.
Processing a patch of dandelion weeds which look like repossessed suns
is called the binding problem. In a sequential system, a touched object
in no sense corresponds to a sight object, the feel of petal and stem
to the image of petal and stem. She wanted a pointillist’s dream.
She sat hooded in the mist figuring how to “powder” constellations.
The dandelions looked like go-betweens.
In an ordinary drawing, you could perceive the earth and sun
as flat bodies or you could half manipulate them like her dream.
Sometimes she’ll not comprehend which is the lying sense, feeling
or seeing, according to your temperament. It would make a mission
out of looking through her things. That interchangeable subject is out
of proportion to one’s usual relation to a dream. If the primary wavelength
exists outside her limits, you’ll feel the subject always leaving you.
Her eye won’t see it, since it is going beyond the course established
for her dream: a star taking up with other stars, absorbing
the primal medium as it perishes in you.
Two Poems
Vincent Katz
RAIN-TOPPLED FEBRUARY DUSK
rock and roll died without its personages
drab garments idiotic save a turn of the century black cape
with colored sewn flowers a male singer used
alleviate leaves in single brushstroke
the buddha amitabha seated in dhyana mudra indonesia
many quiet marvels in andesite
then the great faces of Rome the respect for personality
the looks out of those worlds tempera encaustic
highlights vast blizzards of congealment
dull longviews by one of photography’s masters
gentle limewood carvings of mother and child
polychrome illusion on doweled appendages
then back to the truth of the painters who marked
last century’s end, like writers accompanied them
smiling into absinthe, they sat and heard the world pass
in a horse’s whinny, clop clop on cobbles cigarette smoke
and alcohol a tiny hovel for one’s desires, pressed concupiscence
pastel woman fading into air overviews and reflex
the look of a real person smears of paint
an immense forest dark with sunset’s final brilliant oranges
poking glimmers a disappointing mess something really great
fête galante stumping graphite chalk red and white
eagles behind pinecones nestled in glass a belt buckle
glass choker with cats tiny leaves carved in sandstone painted
dimly lit hall perfect for Friday dusk kisses beneath the heights
invocations to turn to linger slyly pushing forward inches away
a sexy pose made clearer in lines become rigid no breathing of flesh
the empty bedrooms of the grand, sickbeds ecstatic flights
rain rhythms elastic bringing in front the slide down to park’s earth
request to fly homeward rested achieved in culture frequent side accounted told
BREADS AND SWEETS
bridling with unseen
energy, listen to moans
falsifications even
friends, haircut, architecture
slide downhill where everything
meshes, better than others
I lift my eyes to sink
vocal push into physical
size, body contacted
jealous of her producers
interviewers who miss
her point completely, sorry
but the songs ascend ignorance
shyly flirting segments
imagination, flaunted
intelligence, they leave her
undented in morning
actually it is I who
misunderstand from my
non-perspective, cascades
of words, piano and voice
are the weapons of armies
bolted to past thoughts and
present perceptions, refrain
the delicate intensity forked
spread up the photographs’
frankness, I want to use her
name, but not yet, the sky
has descended, earlier
we crossed the aqueduct
I live only in my life now
the words come from the
latin and they have been
preserved, I start to write
the unexpected streams
forth, didn’t know I was
thinking, was I? in
galleries, streets, passing
people borne down
by disharmony
they want that watch
and thatch but greed
hovers, oh no, here
comes the satellite
descending, descending
heedless of desire
trees’ grandeur in shady
boulevards, the song’s
pure chant hits, evens
promised longing till
self re-emerges, washed
and inimitable, once
again able to attend
I had hoped for so much
expectation of necessity
I am outside now
September’s clear
voice, indication
that shutters will
fall and open drily
Land at Church City
Thalia Field
From a hovering point over the red clay path (a lane dusted with blistering) her eyes follow him on stages teetering, her wings that is, wet and not quite conscious, his wings really hands playing “forward” into the past fretted grabbable; a “there” tense ensemble past tense, forward of it, pushing into a path he’s grasping: all neck, all keys, into hymn.
At last but faithfully abominable. Her eyes make tiny dervishes on the parched silence, fully parted to let loose a vowel slack in overexposed noon, scratching at opened seeds (he dances without prints for her) so that neither dares count prints, or lay them to lip in seasoned glare. His dance a pilgrim of patterns glaring too holy to mistake for mistakes.
A billboard becomes Seraph the highest angel six, whole wings of calendars open, one for each day fluttering the rocky lane like anything red, like anything she can say mistakes are like, though he’s the red one.
One mounting. One receiving. A bird forgives the beating up the entrance, as he could pardon the mention of the seventh missing day. This time holy places gather in permanent redemptions up the canyon turned off from familiar. No amenities. No public utilities. The population is bliss freak, and church.
The town above hangs for him now above, and slightly high that way. High an ordinance of loss. High an anticipated beforehand. High the genetic unfinishable. High the deepest kissed past tense. Roof of unapproachable fire escapes. That nest of churches, for lack of a better word, huddles high in his sight, on its undamnable burning seat, and hers way behind and tipping.
&n
bsp; It is left for her to hover atheist and downward glancing. Not a single communion broached with binoculars loaded. Were eagles approaching a mile, a mouse might collapse to a print. But her wings bulk in balancing itchy devotion to “whatever,” in doctrinal “whereby.” Feathers aren’t muscles, yet oiled for repelling a rain not coming for nine hundred ninety-nine miles or years; same thing, she thinks, same thing.
And below her his knees at the gate lips of ground meets kissing. Avenue the churches or blocks and street churches, for lack of a better word, every structure a church, every never his heart repelling tourists of grace for his soon expiation, turning back a cherub, second order angel on a self-same map, a winged child mispronounced.
Out of stairs he could dispense his own suffering. Churches, for lack of a better word, bow upright to foundations set to poverty, to lift of thrice-born melancholy. One coupon of atmosphere wealthy, a bountiful vulture. How a town consumes with lacking better words than churches, yet only consumes churches. Welcome the hagiography of reflected celebrity.
His head lifts to the altar, for lack of a better word, another rumored virgin, what he’s lost the chorus sacrificed, losing denomination in their say-so. Churches, for lack of a better word, fake the orange cones at detours consummating. Welcome to your very raptured transcience of patterning. Each church re-animates eternity for a slim visitation.
Once he gains, for lack of a better word, a body’s drunken messenger, wax-wings instantly fathered, his better word falls toward offering. Tar-stained hands fly stones at one heat unimpeachable. Dust red prints wait in the tense of his tentative printing. Still high and hungry, one afflatus a scalding sunlight numb despite excessive longing. Each sweet translation of relics, cloaked in stained glass, balances skeletons before his each translation tarnishes the last translation. These sentences reflect attachments and wide glances from a sky profane of blue, as blank of believing in churches as his city is full. She believes in them on his behalf from a clueless, senseless perch.
Sacred aims at blood detachment contains mortal layers of systems. Sins patched of pine tar, mosses which don’t come this rain. Plant the animal kingdom, or any small landing. Cycling bundled roots congest with slippery stasis; an alibi lane in the depth contraption.
But high up in Church Town, for lack of a better name, a stage looses shadows inside the mission, a town unwieldy with churches, for lack of a better word, burdened with them and yet undeniably justified. Shadows and temperatures take umbrage in the testament, kneel beside dusty jubes, rolling beneath carved pews, his attention clots for shadows faithful to permanent dwellings.
His feet are likely and pious approaching scriptured ongoings. His ongoings unblamable statuary, the furnishing of flesh made undiseased. Flight as she thinks her sanctuary in motion, digging from wings into a small repeated phrase, trembling at his faith.
Or put one last way: without these churches, for lack of a better word, many denominations force face to city landings; wingspans irrelevant or wholly threaded, he would fret away the last full upholding, undo his fullblooded erection, wait: there could be another anunciation, interrupting flight.
Invisible blanks hold the doors open, they’re double and stand barely parted, but do part upon curious muscles. One body makes a street a multitude of church buildings: assemblies and abbeys, apses and mihrabs, cathedrals mandiras monestaries chapels stupas temples. He is aching in worship, and with hands that strive to forgive the height of churches, for lack of any word for faith in height, or what passes unending, she hovers too close.
Not Egypt
John Taggart
1.
Turned sideways
window turns into pillars
shadow pillars and shadow porches
deep red valley in a valley way down in Egypt land
shadows and habitation
of the dead
Egypt
not Egypt nor Hernando’s hideaway
turned back
into window in my room
all’s green
the leaves of the trees the corn field beyond
grasses around the pond some of the green
some obscured by books
testaments of the dead
testaments of the unwrapped dead.
2.
So many so many stones
stone wall
limestone and zigzag mortar
the land silt loam so many wagon-loads of stones
stone wall of Jacob Ramp’s stone house
stone wall
stone foundation
so many wagon-loads of stones
dusk
dusk and dark along the road past Ramp’s stone house
to my house
white flowers of the Russian-olive
white flowers by starlight
wind
exhilaration of the fragrance of the flowers
by starlight.
3.
Side-road shortcut secret road
up through the woods
behind my house
up through the woods
perhaps made by Ramp perhaps made by his son
behind my house which was his son’s house
to the sweet cherry orchard
no longer there
not one tree of the orchard left to shake
mossy overhung with vines secret road to what’s there
to see in secret
to see the secret family crest in all around me
high up
on an ascended plane
kept alive.
4.
A good sign
the old redbud is dying
canker and wilt after last summer’s drought
all’s green and the heart-shaped leaves are gone
wilted and gone
good a terrible thing to say
sign
that the turned back remains turned
bad sign
all over behind my house all over redbud leaves emergent
heart-shaped leaves among the ferns
native tree
heart-shaped shadow
native tree and tree of betrayal
sign
what remains native among all the native green.
5.
Like a plow
cold-rolled iron shaped like a scoring-out plow
tempered point
a tool like a plow to make the mill-race
tool and tools
ahistorical pick and shovel
tool and tools
to move through depths of a valley
from the creek through another woods under another road
through another woods to the creek again
mill-race
made by a number of men with their tools
by their labor
which is my labor also
a labor of ecstasy
considerable labor of ecstasy.
The Interrogation
Renee Gladman
His friends are waiting patiently in front of a popular cafe—waiting because they love him, he thinks. This walking, he will say to them when he arrives, was difficult for me. There were obstacles in the street—though I can’t prove it. Every time I hit one, falling on my head was the result, and by the time I had recovered from the fall, there was no accessible memory.
Seeing them—in their glorious postures. He wants to yell encouragement, but is too tired to say the words. These are good friends, though. They know how to wait. Soon I will arrive and we’ll eat. Then he trips and falls into a pothole.
When twenty minutes later he reaches them they are having an argument about eggs:
Monique is saying, We have to think seriously here … the signals are always scrambled … what we have to do is figure out their corporate hours, then go in there and fuck em up … no, this does not support democracy, but we are beyond that occasion. While Stefani shouts, Yeah, let’s lay em all out, during M.’s ellipses.
&nb
sp; He thinks, this might not be about eggs and perhaps I’m not supposed to hear. But these are my friends! They’re smiling at me; one has his hand on my shoulder. They want me to ease into this conversation when I have been struggling to get here, when the worst things have happened to me.
His best friend F. is among the group, and has his hand on the newcomer’s shoulder, trying to involve him in the conversation: So man, what do you think? Turning to him. The newcomer, with fuzzy head says, I just want to eat. I never care what it is.
His friends appear to agree with him because three of them have walked away with the purpose, he presumes, of securing a table. This is the warmest day we’ve had so far, he says to himself as Adolfo tries to kiss him. He shakes him off and a minute later the others return. They stand around him, smoking.
Stefani says, Monique, what’s this? Leaning on F. for assistance. I have made some diagrams, she answers, of the inner labyrinth, so that we’ll know where to place our men.
Don’t be so—he snaps, exhausted and hungry, So—
Freddie finds the group a table. It’s beautiful today, he says with some hesitation. Are we sure? I’m sure, the newcomer blurts. This is the perfect spot for me.
After a few minutes of silence, Adolfo turns to the newcomer and asks, So what happened to you last night?
To the newcomer this is a dream. For a moment, he looks inside. This is what I was hoping for. They want my story. When I was young, in the summers, this is what I imagined. A group turning to me, members with a cock to their heads. Awaiting—me. Not like the time I almost fell into the fire when Freddie was searching for more wood and something in that search kept him away for hours. As I lay there. And our other friends, who are now long gone, wandering in their drugs—
He shakes his head, These are not my memories. Shakes his head again, more violently, where are my memories?
Then he locks on to a series of aerial images.
Birds don’t fly that low, he observes with growing paranoia. What’s that? Then a mosquito buzzes by. He moans, what’s that? He turns down a concrete path, slinking away from the bird: got to get away, but quietly so the fly does not notice me. The path runs along the periphery of this memory, which could just as well be outside, except that it’s not. Even he suspects it, yanking at the leaves from passing branches and shoving them up his nose. Real leaves of a real outside have a distinct and dirty smell—
Stefani zips his sweatshirt shut and pushes him out the door. No more memory. Outside the cafe, he looks around. The light is low, as after a storm or shortly before sunset, or as a result of wearing shades, or some doom is coming. He feels his hand flapping around on his face, looking for shades. Decides to ask, Stefani, what’s on my face? She says she can’t report if she’s not looking at him. Well, look at me! But you said not to!
American Poetry Page 29
