American Poetry
Page 31
Indeed it is.
Now fifty rights have given no sweet choice.
Was change reversible?
Explaining and expecting are not yet the same thing.
The air has no center.
When a Chinese diversion covered this wooden floor with leather, it discharged all that birthday excitement.
Does this go there?
There a piece is always admitted.
Is there always a disposition to be penetrated?
Not at some temperatures.
Some have always been penetrated.
What is the difference between desertion and breath on a looking glass?
That is certainly cautious stubble.
That whitening changes the design.
Is emigration reversible escape?
A little stubble established an interruption.
For some dispositions at certain temperatures, gamboling will be necessary.
A reduction of current between those plates penetrated her painstaking preparation for more alleviation.
What burning statement outlined that harmony?
There in the corners is some strange writing from a time of sullen negligence.
Shouldn’t the location of those plates be exemplary?
He has been relating his speech to every spoon.
Will the motion of the four taller chairs make for discrimination or, indeed, stupefication?
I doubt that.
This is there all the time.
Supposing one has a certain disposition toward resignation, why should she be pale?
Is resignation a color diminisher?
Why is there no roof?
Is there a stable resemblance between use and means?
That is not what I mean.
Lengthening last evening was not an evasion of the equator’s separation.
Quarreling is disturbing the center.
Why that sound of obligingness?
Certainly obligingness is an excellent coloring for a cautious little escape, but is it reversible?
Is stubble stubble?
Where did she establish that outrageous interruption?
Mentioning the temperature of that sample of the mixture was necessarily a distracter there.
My disposition resembles that stairway.
The ingredients of this preparation will have more use in the morning than they did the time before.
And as ends, they’re not related to any established trouble.
Supposing there is some more silence, does that establish something?
All this fast playing would not establish a lighter time when cloud cover came.
The description of a piece comes from its sides.
This shame table no longer feeds our arrangement.
Withstanding the establishment is more than intending and not like resignation.
Monday means silver if not used for a four-day birthday.
It frequently used to indicate an even smaller likeness.
Everything is plentiful and curly in the daylight.
We’re quarreling over an expression!
Education is an exercise in change.
Isn’t it singular that music gathered the ancients together?
Whitening a cake certainly changes its design.
There is no anxious charity in my statement.
It is more of an experience not to have more color.
A case may capture a lap if there is not any clinching now and no more extension.
Invitations make the chair of authority secure.
Asparagus is a choice ingredient in declarations and summer hats.
If it is the same, it has not yet changed.
The border is wider in the center.
Establishing a cover, the author in the center of the smaller table comes to that rubbing piece with a suggestion thought simpler than exaltation.
I suggest that the conclusion of separation is separation.
Changing a use is charming.
There is surely more substance in four.
Why is a feat that much smaller asymmetrical?
A construction that is not always necessary is no cover.
Always establishing her disposition and always changing, she supposes some lives to be freer than hers.
A paler connection made them separate.
Attention has no color.
Is that bather choking?
Why is everybody there given one evening paper?
Anything righteous is likely to be there.
All wholesale curtains are white, and yet seeing the equator is always downright incalculable.
Empty dishes shade a monster.
Once slanting time is clinching someone’s suffering fingernails, is there anything that shows the weather there?
Even the church and righteous slippers aren’t enough.
Isn’t one Asian occasion trouble?
Does anything establish silences?
Something does.
Withstanding drowning with resolution is a preparation for temporary singing.
The Chinese establish acquaintance with astonishing resignation.
Resignation there comes packaged in a funnel.
Establishing that the weather is not wetting is like not mentioning that evening is lessening.
Establishing a store there would line up everybody’s tables.
This shows that mourning is not altogether a disgrace.
Looking with one’s ears has often marked the current climate there.
Does all the powder there establish anyone’s rights?
Translate every detail there.
Translate all the mistakes?
The whole thing, even the willow slippers.
Are Chinese acquaintances always resigned?
Astonishingly, a line establishes a nation.
Resignation only arises on the way there.
The whole stubbly cape is there.
There, attention is certainly dimmer.
This does not mean that the sound of obligingness is not the same there.
Is it the case that there’s no roof there?
Use means lengthening there.
Last evening at the equator, separation excellently evaded quarreling.
Is such changing a little disturbing?
Why is the center so cautiously obliging?
Coloring stubble’s a reversible escape.
STRENUOUSNESS NEVER LEAVES THE CONCRETE UNTOUCHED
[Stein 50]
Strenuousness may seem inadequate and narrow throughout our years of worldly perplexity but need not be separated from powerful admiration.
We understand explaining convictions but not understanding itself. Opportunities for our own last vocation may be beginning nevertheless and come to preside. We would do best to observe this with impartiality.
Dounor realized that recognition of her work never touched its concreteness. This promised to explain her helpless nature’s constraining perplexity so that she might understand everything. She always showed the same shyness in relation to every teacher. She learned to engage the meanings of both beauty and abstract ideas.
Sometimes Hannah abruptly guided her through and beyond any course and through a great range of arguments. She seemed a strangely devout friend through many springs. Earnestly and deliberately she formed even her health so that she became content and continued to be. From her customary chair she changed things she’d felt in her youth. She learned that she who would labor must first know the walls that confined her between which she’d been thrown and that not every attempt to look at nature was loved. The puritan’s interest did not extend to some of nature. Powerful forms of perplexity needed worldly explanation and understanding.
Neither convictions nor understanding gave her any opportunity to begin her own vocation.
Impartial observation did not preside. Dounor realized this. She recognized that work never leaves the concrete untouched.
POINTING ALL GLAZED ELEPHANT
SEASONING
[Stein 111/Titles 8]
Pointing all glazed very program.
Clean that very place pleasure place very purple closet black.
Very places.
Elegant charm gray plainer closed that gray pieces cloister.
Spark only plan.
Plan change many particles slender.
Black very present place.
Place only pink place that.
Away particular all scarcely very particularly blaming.
Practice only place all that very placed alley places rosy pine.
Climb practices tiny purr plate that many peeled.
Black.
Black.
Very plain.
All that praying place!
Place feathers away pigeon!
Claiming claiming bury Pole blinder.
Read they pink glass what?
Very present gliding mean they pain blazing meal many.
Pleasanter all means gray pocketfull all than tray.
Perfect plain reason many plan cloaking really very.
Piercing all weather only protection all place easy.
Precisely all chaining only place all orange very.
Pint closed change.
Very procured alone boat tiny post.
Placed plaster holy path all meadows.
They pet slam.
Nearly play puff please near.
Very particular glees chalk play pudding slender.
That they pea all leave only.
Please please away!
They piece play that they place black meant very place all that.
Very pleasure all chair they put all that they plain.
Plain that very pink plentiful chance away penetrated.
Cleaned that they place place chair very plates floor.
Plainer relying placard climate that tray place slanting slanting.
Very pen clergyman chamber very principle cloud change very.
Place all than only pecking elephant seasoning very.
Program clean that very place pleasure place very.
Purple closet black very places
Elegant charm gray.
Plainer closed that.
Gray pieces cloister.
Spark only plan.
Plan change.
Many particles slender
Black very present.
Plan change.
Place place.
Only pink place that.
Away particular!
All scarcely very particularly blaming
Practice only place.
All that very placed alley places rosy pine.
Climb practices tiny purr.
Plate that many?
Peeled
Black
Black
Very plain
All that praying!
Place feathers away pigeon!
Place claiming.
Claiming bury Pole.
Blinder read.
They pink glass what?
Very present gliding mean they pain?
Blazing meal?
Many pleasanter.
All means gray pocketful.
All than tray perfect.
Plain reason!
Many plan cloaking.
Really very piercing!
All weather only protection.
All place easy precisely.
All chaining only place.
All orange?
Very!
Pint closed change.
Very procured alone boat!
Tiny post!
Placed plaster holy path all meadows.
They pet slam.
Nearly play puff.
Please near!
Very particular glees.
Chalk play pudding.
Slender that they pea.
All leave only.
Please please!
Away they piece play that they place.
Black meant very place.
All that?
Very pleasure!
All chair they put.
All that they plain.
Plain that very pink.
Plentiful change away!
Penetrated cleaned that they place.
Place chair very plates.
Floor plainer relying placard climate that tray place slanting.
Slanting very pen clergyman chamber.
Very principle cloud change very place.
All than only pecking elephant seasoning.
POINTING DIFFERENCE ILLUSION PLACES OCCASION PLATE DINNER
[Stein 109/Titles 6]
Pointing difference.
Nickel breath handsome leaves question place piece reckless.
Calamity makes redness question painful pin necessity.
Cleaning illusion places occasion plate dinner.
Pack strangely glass necessity discolor permitted mixed occasional final.
Dress necessary monstrous place width such arrangement necessary.
Necessary occasion piece oil occasion occasion makes.
Places decision peace light necessarily because.
Roses curves addition pearls little lace treading.
Please necessary revision pounding midnight nice strange steps.
Suppose artichoke pinching linen exchange entangled shows suggestion.
Occasion pealing distinguish because clearly means.
Earnest assiduous purple single second remains.
Thirstiness became division principal.
Light recollection tomato makes suggestion exterior potatoes.
Dispute succeed pleasanter hopes famous vacation.
Place silent pocketful pliable makes necessity disappointed.
Perfect singular sack strange makes necessarily.
Decision place singularly luck separation crossing.
Witness question poison wide receptacle soda.
Pheasant loaves occasion purred cider succession.
Salad beefsteak suppose question.
Please with faces.
Salad dressing.
Suppose question placing lighter accomplishing relating shows.
Chinese erection please with mice because satisfy suggest.
Question perfect time decision separation division.
Spoons position plain hill much always lives necessary.
Everybody passed little success vacancies shows.
Varnish question place visible face always trees.
Causes decision pre-occupation discloses much strange.
Shows furnished ponderous plainer single section.
Vacant shows dishes location principle with occasion.
Arranged lacks rights occasion place wideness occasion pleases.
Please cleansing question place piece reckless calamity makes.
Redness question painful pin necessity cleaning.
Illusion places occasion plate dinner.
Four Poems
Rae Armantrout
PHRASING
1.
“Let’s really show the world
that we’re getting warmed up.”
A certain ambient
despair
washes the stomach gently.
“Let us disguise
eternity
as a survival
drama.
How will consciousness
be organized
when material grows scarce
after the death
of stars?”
Into flaps? Pulsations?
Shell-game urgency
of the news-hour.
What pumps to the surface
is all empty
circle-skirt,
a scalloped
white-pink thing.
The trick is to turn it
inside out?
2.
What are words for?
To be put in order,
time disentangled from space.
So when I get there,
there’s
no one around—
just a phrase
somewhere,
hearing itself
think,
whistling up and down
its forecast
of a scale
while twigs make
minor adjustments.
“I’m in between
two states
and can’t be interrupted,
between two points
and can’t be found,
waylaid
OUR NATURE
The very flatness
of portraits
makes for nostalgia
in the connoisseur.
Here’s the latest
little lip of wave
to flatten
and spread thin.
Let’s say
it shows our recklessness,
our fast gun,
our self-consciousness
which was really
our infatuation
with our own fame,
our escapes,
the easy way
we’d blend in
with the peasantry,
our loyalty
to our old gang
from among whom
it was our nature
to be singled out
BOX
Pulling up to the minute,
think, “Mental detritus.”
Picking up speed,
the craze for useless crazes
is a joke about something—
but what?
Bird rides wire—
a probe
in the cold stir.
Falling asleep, I hear that
“only one hill works.”
We laugh
to accommodate death.
Dream someone’s placed me
in a red, plastic box
from which now I pop up,
clown-like,
into consciousness.
A time when we agree
the present does not exist,
has never existed.
Black puffs drift
in front of salmon smears—
sky going white beyond.
I’ll be called up
from moment to moment
to decide
what’s plausible.
It is terrible
to die—
but for a thought
not to be thought?
SOLID
1.
To produce the consistency of experience,
each night
the program toys with the idea
that the picture might be doctored:
it’s the false monster in the lake
known as George Washington.
What “lake?”
*
I submerge
because I enjoy
waking up,
arising
from chaos
bit by bit
again.
The “ness”
that is nothingness,
but seen from within.
2.
“Nude activists in Berkeley