“Suppose you go now while it is still
day, for there is no denying it is still
day.” (They all look up at the sky.)
“Good.” (They stop looking at the sky.)
— Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot.

My program is simple: to surrender to
the city and survive its inundation. To
read it, and in reading order it to read
itself. Not a doctrine, but a public notice.
— Stephen Rodefer.

Part One:

A city as though
a woman
closes its eyes
all at once.
Its life a language
cast into echo
reverberates intensely—

“March along now you fours you twos together in mystery in sentences of love.”

But the city refuses to awaken & be kissed.
Its dream (a camera) pictures a camera leonine at crosswalks.

[What is the word? What is the value?]

Love's blonde Stradivarious
sings doo-whop at curbside
oh yea // oh yea
both cranes approaching
its singleness—

 

Part Two:

In the city is circular
comes drumming
out of trash cans.

One river-light
distraction
intuits the throng.

Its glare—an anguish,
pauses over populace,
haggles over contours.

 

Part Three:

On camera a city
is a page is a boy
sent on an errand.

His alms of neglect
suffice intermittently.

On visits to the park
he snaps over shoptalk

arrives alone

in decadent
circumstances.

 

Part Four:

& filed under:

Instructions for the Application & Interpretation of This Text in Urban Corridors—

six televisions impeach parochial sexuality on notice on fire & on Saturdays
growing ultimately a second brow a third set of lips a first death etc etc.

Just one flight up the city remembers its moniker.

& in the bath
language slips its silken night clothes off
moves swiftly through—

late August—
shell fish crabbing open
a poem

 

Part Five:

While dreaming on one leg.
“Man” is vehicle of.
Writing is charted & charting.
In a good place.
In a bad tenement.
Non-events get underway.
Suppose the m( oo )n of m( a )n many.
Both at once.
Language a slot of.
The same as ever I shall.
Assume.
Poems = Person.
The language is clear.
Isn’t clear. The words’re “paranoid.”
& “ampersand.”
The entity it serves.
Manacled to “boy.”
Kisses blunt.
Contemplates nuclear.
& certain of spoken charms.
They look up.