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At Passages
Letter 7
But the buried walls and our mouths of fragments
no us but the snow staring at us . . .
And you Mr. Ground-of-Wheat, Mr. Text, Mr. Is-Was,
can you calculate the ratio between wire and window,
between tone and row, copula and carnival
and can you reassemble light from the future-past
in its parabolic nest
or recite an entire winter╒s words,
its liberties and pseudo-elegies,
the shell of a street-car in mid-turn
or scattered fires in the great hall
I would say not-I here I╒d say The Book of Knots
I╒d say undertows and currents and waterspouts,
streaks of phosphorous and riverine winds
Dear Z, I╒d say it╒s time, it╒s nearly time, it╒s almost, it╒s
just about, it╒s long
past time now time now for the vex- for the vox- for the
voices of shadows,
time for the prism letters, trinkets and shrouds,
for a whirl in gauzy scarves around the wrecked piazza
Messieurs-Dames, Meine Herren and Damen, our word-balloon
you will note, is slowly
rising over the parched city,
its catacombs, hospitals and experimental gardens, I
its toll-gates, ghettos and ring-roads,
narcoleptics and therapists and stray cats
Ladies and Gentlemen, our menu for this flight,
due to temporary shortages,
will be alpha-omega soup, Bactrian hump, and nun╒s farts
As we enter the seventh sphere, you will discover a thin
layer of ice just beginning
to form on your limbs
Do not be alarmed, this is normal
You will experience difficulty breathing, this is normal
The breathing you experience is difficulty, this is normal
Dear Z, Should I say space
constructed of echoes, rifts, mirrors, a strange
year for touring the interior
Should I say double dance, Horn, axis, and wheel
Dear A. Scuttled ships are clogging the harbors
and their cargoes lie rotting on the piers
Prepare executions and transfusions
Put on your latest gear
Letter 8
(cirrostratus)
So A╒s finally, alephs and arcades,
the bone-dice thrown
beside the chained gates
And the cawing of out-there: bells, charged hearts, old films
threaded past narrative╒s lip
But what does the whir- the wer- what does the word
need╤world need to be gone╤to perform╤what
does the world
before you need
to become perfect
They are swimming below the cliff-heads and the wind
Brickworld, chimneys, when-if-not-
When-if-not-when, foam
and wrack, wheeling of terns
And aloud, unearthed
as a language of nets
Actual blue and citron
Actual grey underleaf╤so
many bundles to burn╤take them to the woods
and burn them in heaps
A╒s before B╒s
Take the versions in your mouth
H
We sat on the cliff-head
before twin suns.
For all I know we were singing
╥Dancing on the Ceiling.╙
Descending I became lost
but this is nothing new.
From the screen poured
images toward me.
The images effected a hole
in the approximate center of my body.
I experienced no discomfort
to my somewhat surprise.
This was many weeks ago
many times of days ago.
Yet as far as history goes
it was no time at all.
Many kinds of days ago
I should have said above.
The body has altered
many times since.
Has bent a little over on its stem
and shed a layer of film.
Winter has come and gone
should be remembered.
Take inside into your mouth
unearthed, all smoke, blue
and citron, actual word
for the earth and that smoke
Construction of the Museum
In the hole we found beside the road
something would eventually go
Names we saw spelled backward there
In the sand we found a table
In the hold caused by bombs
which are smart we might find a hand
It is the writing hand
hand which dreams a hole
to the left and the right of each hand
The hand is called day-inside-night
because of the colored fragments which it holds
We never say the word desert
nor does the sand pass through the fingers
of this hand we forget
is ours
We might say, Memory has made it selection,
and think of the body now as an altered body
framed by flaming wells or walls
What a noise the words make
writing themselves
Untitled (April ╒91)
La narrativa says you must paint a flower
paint a flower with a death╒s head
flower with a death╒s head at its center
center with a desert at its center
clock with ochre hands
its face a sun the sun
a multiple sun at 3 a.m.
sun of limbs and sun of the lens
flower as if it were a limb
anemone, rose, yellow marigold
gravity a word from the narrative
word that bends in the narrative
as if suns would flower as sparks of paint
then fall before the retinal net
fall into actual space
space of minarets and streets
Says, Here is a word you must erase
a word made of particles of paint
Here is a word with no points in space
The Higgins black ink has dried in its bottles
so it╒s true, as angels have said
that there are things of glass
light-gatherers, cat╒s-eyes, keys and bells
and that glass is a state of sand
It╒s impossible to hold such a key in your hand
And it╒s light you see traveling through angels of glass╤
through knells╤
causing the il- lis- les- the li- lil- lit-
forming the l╒s you╒re never to understand
like tongues of syllables wreathed in the wells,
like tongue-tied and transparent angels
The painting wall still stands
Studio at night
Everything in place
H
Yet the after is still a storm
as witness bent shadbush
and cord grass in stillness
sand littered with the smallest of fragments
whether shell or bone
That city we are far from
is still frozen, still in ruins
(except its symmetries be renewed
by sleep, its slant colors redeemed)
Nothing has changed but its name
and the air that it breathes
There╒s still no truth in making sense
while the ash settles, so fine that
planes keep falling from the sky
And the name once again to be the old one
Saint Something, Saint Gesture, Saint Entirely the Same
as if nothing or no one had been nameless in the interim
or as if still could be placed beside storm
that simply, as in a poem
Have you heard the angels with sexed tongues,
met the blind boy who could see with his skin,
his body curled inward like a phrase,
like an after in stillness or a letter erased
Have you seen what╒s written on him
as quesiton to an answer or calendar out of phase
Add up the number of such days
Add illness and lilt as formed on the tongue
╥or anything resembling it:
The hills like burnt pages
Where does this door lead
Like burnt pages
Then we fall into something still called the sea
A mirrored door
And the hills covered with burnt pages
With words burned into the pages
The trees like musical instruments attempt to read
Here between idea and object
Otherwise a clear even completely clear winter day
Sometimes the least memorable lines will ring in your ears
The disappearing pages
Our bodies twisted into unnatural shapes
To exact maximum pleasure
From the view of what is in any case long gone and never was
A war might be playing itself out beyond the horizon
An argument over the future-past enacted in the present
Which is an invisible present
Neva streaming by outside the casement
Piazza resulpted with bricolage
Which way will the tanks turn their guns
You ask a woman with whom you hope to make love
In this very apartment
Should time allow
What I would describe as a dark blue dress with silver threads
And an overturned lamp in the form of a swan
A cluster of birches represents negativity
Flakes of ash continue to descent
We offer a city with its name crossed out
To those who say we are burning the pages
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