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Notes:
Poetry,
to have greatest reason for existing, must be illogical. I
am interested in the phenomena of memory. An idea, a rumination
such as more or less constantly roams the mind, meets external
object or situation with quite illogical association. Poet
Lorine Neidecker said this another way: "In my own experience
sentences have appeared full-blown in the first moments of
waking from sleep. It is a system of thought replacements,
the most remote the most significant or irrational; a thousand
variations of the basic tension; an attempt at not hard clear
images but absorption of these."
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Leveling
Disguised
as what may be surprise
over the raised stem,
the ray is
all the eye's
own stirring. Light snarled, snap,
bare. Eye
wide open
to form, an apology
in the seat
of the armchair:
bouquet of earth,
sunflowers.
Ten heads
heaved to heart-height
& what
is a beautiful woman
(her face
bleeding outside
the flower's line)
& what
remains?
As if you still can hear me.
As if I still loved you.
++
Off
Berneray
i.
The sea reflected in the glass
of the book-
cases. The
rural sea.
The last page stranded, turns,
seems to unravel
her interrupted sentence.
A sea of torpid memory.
Smell of vetiver
in an unfamiliar room.
Smell of the orris-root in the little closet.
Smell of her
bedspread.
Further nicknames.
Blue tits in
the blossoming apple
tree, gulls floating on the sea like water lilies.
The body is
white.
The sleeves, too, white.
Death does
not make any great difference.
A glass of water on a green notebook,
only a few
phrases left, the filthiest,
& the taste of fingernails in my mouth.
Then winter,
snow & the lashes
striking faster & faster.
ii.
Two hands where a train stops
in the middle of the countryside.
The body is
white. The sleeves
white, too, pushing
a bicycle.
The simplest act
remains immured
as within a
thousand sealed
vessels in the blue volutes
of the morning
sea, the rural
sea. A pink congelation of sunshine
& cold,
a little simpering
laugh. I'm standing on ocean
strand, written
in half.
A book is a huge cemetery
against the
lemon fragrance
of guelder-roses,
the last page
turning.
++
Hand
Inside
For instance, the ear of a snail.
Is that a koan? Or the canal
of a chili pepper? Or the ear of Vincent Van Gogh
covered in a kerchief & meant as gift.
Terrible was his love, thou sayest.
Or beautiful.
What does thou sayest?
Do you hear a siren?
I hear a siren.
My lips start moving, but say
nothing. Is that a moan?
Or the roof of a convertible open to a sky
tossing plums?
Mourning doves pecking in the gutter.
Sounds like More! More!
Am I wrong in this?
In the world there are innumerable disturbances!
Bird song & whistle spit; green cords
threaded through trickling thunder.
The snail doesn't dream!
Inside the snail
is a snail, brains to fire.
Who needs an ear?
My hand inside
your mouth. The perfume is flowers
among crushed white
stone.
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