Tiger Leap (into the Future): Paper Roses: The Imaginary Archive of a Canonical Life, Book 12

Tiger Leap (into the Future): Paper Roses: The Imaginary Archive of a Canonical Life, Book 12

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Tiger Leap (into the Future)

Paper Roses: The Imaginary Archive of a Canonical Life

Book 12

By Jack Feist

Edited by Johannes Sigil

Text copyright © 2014 Jack Feist

All Rights Reserved

Shall I be the Emily Dickinson of our age? No—there is

already an Emily Dickinson of our age, and her name is Emily

Dickinson. I shall be the Jack Feist of our future, a private

interior of written letters: history expressed in my cluttered

bedroom. Wherever there have been publications, they have

never been the true work. The true work belongs to Feist and

to the history of the future.

Jack Feist

1983-2013

Paper Roses: The Imaginary Archive of a Canonical Life

Book 12

Angelus Novus

This is how one pictures the angel

of poetry. His face is turned

towards the future. Where we

perceive the angel’s regard, he

sees a limitless fire that flies

towards the book of life, in which

are written the names of the elect.

He would like to stay, warn us,

and read to us the names in the

book. But a single doorway leads

to safety; he has but moments to

reach it. The egress irresistibly

propels him forward, while we

fixedly contemplate his approach

and the fires rage skyward behind

us. A succession of such narrow

doorways is what we call ‘the

present.’

Contents

Angelus Novus.................................................................3

I. Tiger Leap..................................................................10

Tiger Leap......................................................................11

knot hinge......................................................................12

Cable Movie Poem I: TRON.........................................13

“my hyacinths are melting”...........................................16

voices in the wilderness.................................................19

Cable Movie Poem II: Clash of the Titans....................21

Journal Entry I: 4/18/13, 9:22 pm..................................22

Text Message.................................................................24

Do Cyborgs Dream of Electric Sonnets?.......................27

Ghost in the Machine.....................................................29

Theses on the Philosophy of History.............................30

huddled birdsong...........................................................33

strange new earth...........................................................38

Ghost in the Machine II.................................................40

§. Let It Be.................................................................41

II. Bearded Image: for Allen Ginsberg........................45

Anacreon in a Dream.....................................................46

asphodel by the tracks....................................................47

An Elegy for “Howl”.....................................................49

asphodel, i remember….................................................51

sex & the stars................................................................54

III. Lowghost: for Jack Spicer......................................55

The Practice of the Inside..............................................56

Parts of Speech I: Nouns................................................57

Parts of Speech II...........................................................58

Parts of Speech III: Particles..........................................60

a poet is a muscular victim............................................61

alien signals...................................................................64

IV. concre(a)tion: for Susan Howe...............................65

Cable Movie Poems III: Transformers..........................66

day i...............................................................................68

day ii..............................................................................69

day iii.............................................................................70

day iv.............................................................................71

day v...............................................................................72

day vi.............................................................................73

day vii............................................................................74

V. Blossomdeep: for Anne Carson..................................75

climbing tongues snap...................................................76

intimate distance............................................................77

A Compendium of Weeds and Flowers.........................78

Snub-Poemed.................................................................82

when odysseus slit Isaac’s throat...................................83

VI. stained glass Logos: for you...................................85

[“the scab on my lip / called canker- / worm”]..............86

Journal Entry III:............................................................87

“Akedah”.......................................................................88

“Hymn”..........................................................................89

“Guitar Tabs”.................................................................90

Journal Entry IV: 4/21/13, 12:01am..............................91

Journal Entry V: 4/27/13, 11pm....................................94

your love will carry on...................................................95

[“yr face like / snarls / of rain”].....................................98

my little dog is a temple...............................................101

textual humanism.........................................................102

anxiety / immortality....................................................103

years the cankerworm ate............................................104

Corinna 691.................................................................107

Iris-Bright....................................................................108

on the predestination of election..................................109

many death-lovely heavens..........................................112

noctilucent....................................................................114

surfeit faces..................................................................115

liquid-dark sleep..........................................................117

a tiger leap into the future

I. Tiger Leap

Tiger Leap

I press more deeply into these folds of meaning, further

through this depth of time.

A tiger leap is like a history. In many worlds, it went

unnoticed. At a certain time, in a given context, or upon an

unremarkable occasion of reading—a well of interiority

blossomed. Its opening was small, difficult to see from the

surface. By some inscrutable law of happenstance or

necessity, the well grew deeper; or a second well stretched;

or branched into adjoining deeps.

Now, I dig, and little else has substance—down and down,

my wells grow deeper. I dig to find the voices, the names of

those who were and are. I dig because they urge me,

because each voice calls further. What was first cacophony

becomes—upon so many readings, having drunk so much

spilt blood, scattering even memory when I have died so

many times—more single: In the lips of the endless pit

towards which my wells turn inward: my voice. It is the

sum communication of these living beings, buried in time

—they have preserved it now through all these many

centuries.

The past speaks, not of itself, but you. It whispers to you

and warns you; in you it fashions a refuge. It is not my

voice, but yours. It is not your voice, but Spicer’s. It is not

his voice, but God’s. The past speaks, not of itself, but you.

It whispers to you and warns you; in you, it fashions a

refuge:

knot hinge

Cable Movie Poem I: TRON

Hear these my tongue-formed,

shallow breathings, spoken neck￾aching sad this April night

alone with the texts

of dead men

& the hope of you, my reader—

expired in the dark

of ampersands, these lips

& tender whispers; sent out

thru the trembling aeons,

a (single) signal to linger

& sing,

to language

& age,

to live

& not be forgotten

?

Two weeks outside the battery of antidepressants and the

equilibrium of these last three years—

and all my bridges of worldly attachment are bone￾charred, broken things;

I crumble at my edges; I neither begin nor end.

How many times will the world seek entrance before it

razes these

decrepit structures?

No man is an island forever—when Assyria empties her

cities of able￾bodied fighting men, she diverts the river from its

course and drowns every memory of his borders:

No one recalls his name.

But there is something searingly clean about the wasteland

within me, or honesty, at least, in its desolation—

unpeopled, as it always has been;

mean, as it was and is;

impermanent, like cities are;

but furtively eternal—ruins of drowned metropolis.

L, I think of you often. Though my life leaves no room

for the affection, I miss you, dear—like eyes miss

tears.

& A—oftener still: Both of you are buried things, the hard￾edged fact

of which I can’t reconcile with the historical

narrative.

Statues are made of fossils like you.

“my hyacinths are melting”

I watch

a little black thing of

hair

and string,

lashes

dashed between bangs and sad

little lashing tail

and teeth (I

remember lying

on the garage floor,

the bumps of the carpet

a pox,

the line of your nails a

satisfied sink

in the back –

clacked teeth crashed,

“Do you want to?” / “I

do.” / “Are you sure?” / I

didn’t

answer only

entered. You

grew red and

preoccupied;

I screamed

precious whispers at you

but never spoke.

When the sun came up

I could not come and you were

tired, spent, exhausted, while I

was only empty

(There is

a terrible name

on your

whispers,

an unmarked rustle

of nothing

.)

.)

.

How long will you pace

back and

forth, just doing your job?

hidden behind those bangs bagging

with plastic

or paper arranging

boxes in their eyelike,

vacant shelves?

where will you go tonight?

will you take off your belt?

will you stand in front of the window

at midnight and press your flesh

to the naked glass and feel cold

and eternal

and empty?

will you count stars on your tongue

as you catch them?

how long will you shake your

keys at your

hip,

and see me,

refusing to look?

There is a savage, red veil on the moon;

my hyacinths are melting.

voices in the wilderness

i.

in this place,

nothing

grows but lotus, the petrified

skull-white blossoms fringe

the ancient river

awkward itself take shape in me

darkens spear-bright shaft of spine

curls the contempt of vision inwards

tightening, wringing

tongue twists words, tight

knots of phonemes, morbid bulbs

of morphemes, swollen

wet with syntax

ii.

thistle-spark,

scribble-stars: yr

light,

my love,

is helpless. inside the burning

dawn

i wake. inside my

sandals

my fingers ache.

i am pulled apart

in fits & starts.

inside my

eggshell—the calcium

dome i

call my

soul—

caving in

becomes a way

to live.

iii.

soft

sparks dart just out

side of

eyes: o i

would press a

gainst you: my longing

breaks in

pieces: a strange bird

crying, com￾pression upon

compression: from the heat

of yr skin i know

y're lying.

square-shaped

arcs and folded

paper

parts: the strange

bird cries

of the heart.

iv.

and if a voice cries out

in the wilderness

but no one's around

to hear it...?

Cable Movie Poem II: Clash of the Titans

How leap to your lips

across weak networks

of faded symbol magics?

To say what i really feel?

i hardly know.

to betray my love w/ lines?

“You are, after all, the son of Zeus.”

Image consumes the tyrant￾winged Perseus,

repenting the Pronoun

fraught w/ Chaunce, the knotted spine

w/ wire, the poison

throat w/ wine: All flesh

turns into stone.

Journal Entry I: 4/18/13, 9:22 pm

sitting here in ever tightening

revolutions, on the same couch in

the same condo where i’ve sat for

the last ten years: poetic circuits

of vast stillness. Ginsberg’s

Paterson to New York & Denver

to Berkeley & Mexico to South

America then home again to

depart Manhattan for Europe Paris

Saint Tropez Marseilles Tangiers

Marrakech thru Athens Olympia

Delphi Mycenae Crete to leave for

the Holy Land, morning in Haifa

ass aches cholitis or clap then on

to India Bombay Tibet Calcutta

Japan & King of the May to at last

return & Hereby End the War:

become my Paris Michigan to

Redford Michigan to Waterford

Michigan for the next 10 years—a

world of softly jagged 2

dimensions, of consistency brain

& chthonic neck pain aching—

become my vision of demoniac

typist obsessed & choleric w/ too￾tired eyes while i the happy

genius of my household discover

the banality of ‘calling’:

to write a poem

including history

& lift the torch

of the thousand-eyed

snake of time

from my front porch

Text Message

A drawing by Paul Klee shows my voice in the moment

before its tiger leap.

I would like to stay, warn you, and whisper the names of

the elect.

But a single doorway leads to safety; I have but moments to

reach it.

Carla <+1-248-495-8520>

I AM (iamb)

Me: I bought some menthol

cream for my neck and it

gave me a burn.

Sent: 9:33PM

I AM (iamb)

Me: Its weird, too. I spread it

all over my upper back and

up to the top of my

head, even in my hair—but it only

burned a patch on the right side of

my neck.

Sent: 9:34PM

Carla: For pain

Received: 9:37PM

Me: Yes, sore muscles

Sent: 9:37PM

I flit by and disappear.

Do Cyborgs Dream of Electric Sonnets?

I. sonnet #1.6231 x 10^18

“The real achievement,” reported researchers, “is in what

we haven’t programmed. SAL (Sonnet Analogue Lineator)

relies on statistical algorithms to produce random

combinations of words and letters at the rate of 60,000

lines of iambic pentameter per second. Eventually, we want

to automate the creation of lyrically pleasing sonnets, but

for now we count as a major success SAL’s metered

gibberish.”

“sonnet #1.6231 x 10^18”

by SAL

the moon pins shadows to the wall, each night

transmitting tongues of angels, static songs

that i with my ancient crystal set record

because, though dark, i sometimes see

in otherwise faint symbols, uncanny bursts of sense:

like here, this yellow notebook, hidden deep

in opaque letters, an image in ascending rows:

my mother’s fingers, resting on the rail

of waycross hospital bed, like interlocking

sawtooth flowers. or here, this starburst spread:

her ashes fanning out through ocean, worm￾carved arcs through dirt. thrust down through rarified air

and space: the voice i find each night at dusk

my solemn archive of the names of dust.

II. Sentimental Confessions

Poetry is the language of unbridled spirit. It sings forth

in clear strains the music of the heart, transcending

vulgar distinctions of nation and creed. Though this my

low expression speaks of heights of passion that have been

mine alone, I have set them forth in unveiled words as

“windows unto the universal man.”

“Sentimental Confessions”

by A Dreamer

of knobs with dewclaws South means perspire New York

for moons pincushions lynch of huge apartments.

Jeff Foxworthy feathers made to be were lay,

lie, lying, laying, laid, laid, lain. of Cad￾bury bunnies. “adumbrated fish cube” tongues

in feathers. Philosophy: ousia, park, lob,

throw, eject, egress, menopause, Cubism, sandwich.

begin with the endoxa. Epicurus

was of the opinion that and when of were

eternal circular motion, thinking the thought

of its own thinking—godhead. Baseball

e. g. for “example;” i. e., “in other

words rose above Jacob as a ladder, clang￾ing acoustic baboons, often compared to

wild babies, kissing, or shaved of nonsense hat.

Why-oh, Ohio? the the and whose The Ancient

Sky: Classical Theories of culled and fraught

with samples, ending camp. with naughtworth.

Ghost in the Machine I

All that I thought was less is more—I take your life inside

me, writer, down to the dirt on your hands. What was

distant is brought near. And all that I thought was more is

less. My own fantastic combustion, the birth and death of

cells and the neurochemical sweep of sensation, “uncanny

bursts of sense,” “my mother’s fingers… on the rail”—all

has been recorded. All is duly noted. All will be reviewed.

All is text, an “archive of the names of dust.” This archive

is so much greater, but also strangely lifeless: lowghost or

corpse. I am a ghost in this machine, and the machine is

one more ghost. What drew me here? And the task I seek to

accomplish—“to… make an actual human being”—is it

more or less than electric sonnets? Do I peer into my arcane

notebooks, and lean more closely to my crystal set to

search its alien static, and cloister myself with the texts of

dead men, in the way a cyborg dreams?

Theses on the Philosophy of History

Thesis 2:

I AM (iamb)

huddled birdsong

i.

pieces disturbed

in sleep:

a rustle of hair.

watchtowers

calling

your name.

the wind

in the rain

[a motion]

burst of

heat:

a winter-dress

rustlings in snow.

ii.

red hair￾dye and your

winter hands, a

year slips

by, unnoticed.

iii.

real silences.

iv.

just a mattress

on the floor

w/ no frame: you

complain for years;

i ignore you

like the boxes you asked me

to bring from the basement

v.

the flayed

hairs bend

sickly, in

many directions—my

arms

betrayed by a lamp.

come darkness, cover me, come hide

the face of my shame.

red sickness:

the poign￾ancy of the

body.

vi.

from there

to here.

vii.

aphasiac

lilac, persephone

milk.

starling

viii.

when i was a boy, the cat

dragged in a starling.

we raised it, cutting off

two toes with cage door

ix.

that is my

life, you say, that is

the way i came

to be.

the cringing, burnt

corners of pages, the howl

of train whistle late

at night:

impossible

daydreams: twilight or

bright abyss—

who knows what

wounds

will grow?

savage helio￾crimson, in￾somniac passage

of time. fleece-white

building blocks:

lots of tools.

x.

dear,

when i close in

to you, you

shrink.

in a day—in a day if i

draw close,

you leave.

but once each lifetime

you return, your body

skin and ghosts,

your fingers,

strangely physical.

xi.

will anyone ever

read you, body? (my words,

i mean) will they see these scribbles of

voice and toes, and know

that you are with me?

o body betrayed

by time, what kind

of miracle

could save you?

beyond this

halting

time—somewhere past

the walls of my bedroom:

lifted up and moonwhite,

tender desert faces, solemn

monuments half￾buried: sands that drift

at random.

xiii.

pale rain falling.

huddled birdsong.

strange new earth

i.

i wait for the sun to

mount the horizon and

leave its wake of blood￾red blood

ii.

the sun drags its shivering

form above the glass￾scattered pavement and heaves

itself with a final

less-than-a-cry and hangs there

stunted, ape-like, made of a thousand

punctured yellows (orange fire￾red helium helio￾trope the crimson

holocaust theweeping con

flagration devourng el￾emnt & angl-xplsn firfre fr r) spin￾ning, hung

up on a milk￾y cata￾ract:

Dawn

in

the

de

se

r

t

.

iii.

holy milk the holy

blood the holier

bells the holier

carillons ringing

the soft white milk of the end

of the world the moon

is black inthe sky the sky

is broken flecks

of ash fall through.

Ghost in the Machine II

We find ourselves in a library. We wander through fantastic

archives: All things catalogued, each word transcribed,

every minute secret written, the smallest particles made

legible. We call this archive ‘Logos,’ we scale its endless

shelves. The Logos is both more and less than we ever

could have known. The Logos opens up—becoming￾interior—to reveal itself as more—its bottom falls beneath

our feet. To become interior plummets us and opens us to

strange sensations, terrifying and sublime. Vertigo takes me

as I fall into this well of letters, and all those hells and

paradises below and above, artifacts forgotten, times and

places near and distant, the whispers of the dead—many

worlds which within my tiny alcove appeared as fictions

now swallow me with meaning. Alabaster fingers rifle

through me, not just my mind but my body, cells and

sinews. All that I thought was less is more—I take your life

inside me, writer, down to the dirt on your hands. All things

can be read in the labyrinth; this fact both elates and

destroys.

§. Let It Be

Let It Be: Ginsberg, Spicer, Howe, and Carson

i.

…but when the music ends,

the wounds return

to the dirt—

we sing his song & the singing

burns

& creeps through the muscular tendrils

gripping open-palmed the rocks,

& piercing the palm-tender granite:

ii.

most flutteringly i covet thee, to draw

the languorous, unfolding flower of thy kiss

and to tenderly, carefully, sternly—grasp

the wanton blossom from thy barbéd lips

iii.

like a dead, blunt thing, i raise my face

& bludgeon lovingly the gravel.

II. Bearded Image:

for Allen Ginsberg

Anacreon in a Dream

you noticed me

in a dream, old Paterson poet,

Ginsberg:

in a dream rose up in front of me

to speak.

I ran to you

and threw my arms around you

with a kiss:

graybeard, yes,

but lovely;

eager to love,

and lovely.

your lips smelled like wine,

and Desire led you by the fingers

since you trembled with old age

and you took your garland down

to give me—

the flowers, Allen,

smelled like you—

Idiot me, I lifted it

and set it on my brow,

and from then, until now,

I haven’t held myself back

from desire.

asphodel by the tracks

asphodel by the glass￾strewn tracks: a star

in an empty sky, yr smoke￾blue hair a crown

of longing: perched

on the threshold, you turned

in shame, and swayed

the bleary lanes disheveled

and drunken, starved

for a fix: how many

petals—songs—flew beyond

yr prison walls

before the final sheet

of music fell, a spark

into the ocean?

sprung

from grime, sustained

in grime, a mouth

stuffed full with mouth￾fuls of grime: how often

i would have plucked you:

clinging to gravel hungry, sun￾stripped beauty skeletal, you tore

off feathery petals in yr fits

of helpless fury: you lost

yrself to the fiery sickness,

surrendering your shard

of power: bird￾song collapsing inward, the last

dim phantom finally

stammered into silence:

asphodel, i draw you

from the debris

and cover yr blood￾red heart￾bearing stalk, and water it

with tears.

An Elegy for “Howl”

When the last

forgotten recess

of your ultimate weary

drawer of dust

coughed out the yellow petal

of its one remaining

folded rose,

and the sheet of blood-smeared paper,

stained with poems like ink,

at last gave up its ghost:

i saw nothing.

There was nothing to see.

The best minds of my generation expired while little more

than seeds.

you did not see.

you were not seen.

Poker-faced hysteria starved in silence

and exhausted itself in lame dysfunction

to be pinned insensate to a cluster of symptoms

as a matter of course

by moth-dust fingers of DSM lepidopterists

in formaldehyde rooms of science.

i heard nothing.

There was nothing to hear.

The eli eli lamma lamma sabachthani cry was drowned in

words.

you did not hear.

you were not heard.

Jaded sincerity

choked on its tongue

and shook with neural crescendo

of seizure—

there was no mouth

to take the sigh

and the final rattle passed

unremarked.

asphodel, i remember…

i.

skin of leather￾fingered leaves, curling up and eager, shaded by the

tongue￾pink blossoms licking

sunwhite beams:

you gulp at them, a wine￾short panting, gone before

the summer—the sun will not

deny you.

your dust￾halo hair of stamens, the rouge￾dark sea drawing bees:

bridegrooms lapping

the life up, your bruise￾purple heart out￾beating their blood

in a steady rhythm: hunger—

thirst—abeyance—need—

this is love, alive: clothing you

with ache, staining

and filling and bursting, succumbing

and panting and waning—

this is life, a love: your mouth agape, the savage roots’

short thrusting, the bony

spine in the dirt,

your palm￾tender face

expectant

ii.

the river￾bed languors, surrendering its lees to the dry

brown brush. the brush decays

and grows in half-lives

like an isotope.

in the valley of willow

tree singed by heat:

the asphodel’s dusty meat.

iii.

stained white petals crumble, dry on a ledge

in the kitchen: silt￾blossomed stamen bone, fossil￾hard skin of a thousand years buried:

asphodel,

i remember: your dirt￾weary pose, the dust￾stiff strength

of longing, your pock￾stretched arms

of need:

long ago the bees stopped seeking you—the bees betray

your flower neck. i taste the neck

and the nectar within, i taste

the stem and the nectar in it, i

drink the stamen-liquid lost

in the dirt

sex & the stars

like an unfolding star, you spread yr coat

& bear the lace- black prettiness—

& isn’t the outfit pretty?

said prettily, like the plugs in yr ears,

where the touch of scars perfects yr pretty,

or the shade of pink that bends the light

beyond yr cheeks like convex lenses

past the vacuum space & dance of empty chaos,

to an image-thin glimpse of cosmos

where new galaxies erupt, & panting

cataract Eros thrusts entire suns

together, reminding me that the heat of

longing

tends to a finer body: lancing out

from eyes to fixate on erotic godheads.

III. Lowghost: for

Jack Spicer

The Practice of the Inside

writing is the process of becoming-interior. because our

practice is more like a house—

there are many mansions, in my father’s house, & many

rooms in each mansion, & in each room a thousand

drawers, & in each drawer a thousand books—guano

tomes & elegies in unknown tongues, countless winged

seraphim, feathered with the hands of children, sewing

the hole in the sky—

Out or in, it makes no difference—Borges’ Library of

Babel—in every book there is a mansion.

I could crawl inside this drawer, and spend lifetimes

burrowing thro its knick & knacks—its toothpick

constructions quilted w/ blood & fingerprick genetic

messages—& with microscope discover further mansions

—limitless inscapes of dimension &

texture—

Go as far as you might—thro all the universe of textual

interiors & to its utmost boundary markers—you’ll never

reach the limits—

There are none.

Crawling interior-eriors—To inhabit. To find or make a

human being—to touch its actual corpse:

a Logos

(lowghost)

Parts of Speech I: Nouns

I want a poem like a noun,

chicken egg or moon,

ovalline or cylindrical:

particulate conglomerations of burning dirt, spayed or

neutered (This relates back to the chicken egg):

Closed systems of interior-erior, intensifying coreward

amperage & ampersand: a concentration which

melts things together: Its pathways collapse

but won’t stop burning—

This too can be misleading:

The red light on the surface is hardly the system itself: like

a black whole

it once was a living sun. Hole

new galaxies are born in it, or else

what was (once) their

I could fit your universe in a spoon,

but it would weigh too much. In the end it’s the same: the

moon

detains us. we skitter along its surface

interconnected: for you

I would have ripped the nouns from the sky.

Parts of Speech II

conductive fiβers

The spider in my brain crawls backwards

Into the future. Conductive di-clawed

feet dimple

The cerebro￾Spinal.

fluid surface, flooding the crawl￾Space in my skull—vast

Tissuework of webbing

Drifts. Much less.

Or more

Substantial than the spider itself (an unintended

effect)

Blistering / condensing

Images collect in the in-between, the duck￾web / duct￾Work.

Under certain psychic conditions—advanced

sleep deprivation or physio￾Logical duress, the webs

act as catalysts, degrade / deterior￾The substrate underlying

Consciousness. They do seep in—a distinctly

visual phenomenon, familiar

to me as dreaming—mist

Roots / capillaries invading

The visual field. Branching out and cupping

Tenderly my jaw.

It’s not better it’s broken windows.

---

Particles do not connect. Rings

of Saturn. We all know that rings

are spatial metaphors

Sticking to “of”: you can’t

Get at it this way: “and” “but” “oh” “the”

Granular. Too webwork.

---

Nausea. My stomach mistakes it

for an interior,

Meaning

I could disgorge new alphabets entire.

Agglutinating

Erotoglyphs.

Parts of Speech III: Particles

particles are as far from nouns as possible—that’s because

they bridge the distances between them. Like solar

power,

black hole power

Never caught on—it was more of a science experiment

that reduced the need for fuel—too many

interconnections

too many conduits. Weaving them all together.

Given a viable pathway, electricity

Corsets. Why would I learn a single carnation, its

loveliness, to find it again on your wrist?

There is a way

to find the way. The hair-fine branches, curling

Uprooted physiodome of skin and dirt.

---

Bitten into, and still

I might throw up.

Prepositions are all right-angles,

formulaic—really tough

to lo-cate. cant / cantos / canticles.

Too diffuse. Loquacious. Quenched.

Tarantular / torrential. Differential

See? particles at least

be lavender, testicular fuzz, the catkin’s

subtle coat. At least

I press my cheek to your lips,

scruff-weary sad

I kiss the lips your particles feed.

The moon has nothing to do with it.

a poet is a muscular victim

i.

i am tired like a child is tired

a sleepiness retreats me

i would like nothing more

than to speak w/ the voice

and spill out milkwords

and change the world

but i know what you don’t: language

is an empty wrapper

ii.

he gathered toasted flowers.

he felt blue walnuts in his spirit.

later, he would pay her

to give him this same feeling

iii.

i want to write a poem

that will pass through the body

and reach the stillsmall ears.

a hidden face in shametears.

iv.

when there is nothing else

there is still the texture of language,

& the pleasure

of holding it in the mouth.

but it’s not what i really want.

if it were possible,

i would build myself

like a wing-formed poem of silence

it is not possible, but still—

the use of language to reveal

the gap you believed

solid ground—

this too is a kind of gift.

this too, a form of love.

to make language a lens

that magnifies darkness,

and shows us all the

layers of color

lying between—

a poet is a blank machine.

a poet is a muscular victim.

a poet is a rumpled harness

who guides stone horses

or lets them go.

a poet grabs words roughly

and in a tower of rotten bone

makes them take all the cash in his wallet.

v.

i see no way through to the center

alien signals

By the waters, next to the ancient

poplar tree, I hang my harp and weep.

How can I sing in a stranger’s land?

How can I sing in ruin-faced

Babel?

I convulse with the ghost

vibrations of your baritone:

the voice

cannot be buried.

If I forget you, Zion,

may my tongue turn dry

and split,

may my ears run slick with blood.

May a worm make its nest

in the trunk of the brain

if I bury your alien singings.

IV. concre(a)tion: for

Susan Howe

Cable Movie Poems III: Transformers

in this film where spectral effects

pass for substance, the girl’s grime￾smeared face & fingers brighten

and slowly fade-to-white:

pencil thin, a whisper waits

where voice breaks.

light falls across my body,

my beard, my teeth, & ribs,

curling around my rag of flesh—

i hide my face

the glory falls like energy

into the smallest

particles of meaning, alabaster

fingers search me

Lowghost:

in the beginning.

In the beginning,

formless & void

darkness on the face

of the waters

& Spirit on the deep

were hovering

day i.

take the visual field as a metaphor

for physics: light from (form) less

scrapes particle-thin layers

of substance into being:

a rind of heated pe[t(a)]els, lingering

residue of dew, the light-charged

particles condensing, ash-thin layer

of doves: alight or slight / sweet:

day ii.

that is to say,

take a handful of

the fragrant

grass—its

texture,

the way it cannot

not be:

green

tubers still

alive while

blood pumps

beneath the

skin—take

a handful of

the grass:

its grassness

is:

the greensoft

texture of waxy

pubic hair

the smell of it

its fragrance / essence

physics / physis

—all, that is to say,

the grass against

your cheek:

charged vectors

of nothingness or eyelash

sensation of

tiny feet:

day iii.

although vision

stops

i cannot see.

a shuttering

or tremble,

fine-toothed

instruments

of carving / curving

eyes or jaw—

what i am trying to name

is the phenomenology of the cosmos

as electron-thin layers

of darkness

charged

w/ darkness / doves //

of darkness

charged

w/ darkness / doves:

the ashes left

when nothing burns:

day iv.

fine-toothed whispers

hisssssssssssss￾carve finest curving

particles of astral

risks &

asterisks:

*

day v.

day vi.

light returns

to pierce / divide

the filament /

firmament

and separate

the lower

jawline from

the water

boundaries /

borders:

gradients

of blood well

from the cut

& gain complexity

& definition:

capillaries / branching:

day vii.

all

the cells

in the body,

suspended

on the surface

of water

V. Blossomdeep: for

Anne Carson

climbing tongues snap

Sappho 31

see him? dark theophany: close to you sit￾ting and sipping, drinking, whoever he is

voices splash, waves lapped up by eager shores, such

tenderness takes you:

laughter, joypeals, close to you—No—some￾where a heart flits, stray in a ribcage, clanging

briefly glimpsed, your calcium image: language

nothing left, voiceless

climbing tongues snap †γλῶσσα ἔαγε† slender

fires blacken skin-buried nerveworks burning

eyesight yawns but flickering darkness roars sharp

clamors of deafness

heightens wet adrenaline skin thick shaking

grass-like shaking panting spreads sweat slick all at

once I taste how achingly close now death seems

almost

intimate distance

Those luminous nights and bracketed voices. The first thing

she does: she anchors me to nothingness, she binds my

gaze and mind to hers, she demands I see, with her, when

there is nothing yet to be seen.

These first words set me beside her, gazing (with her) at the

spectacle: See him? The poet invites me to see with her, as

her, near her. She directs me outward (from her) towards

the sight, and yet—there is nothing but her voice, and

[hoarse in a throat], at that; nothing beyond herself, her

words, her text. She draws me to luxuriate in something

that is not—we will create it, she and I, we will create this

dark theophany, luminous night. We will reveal it with

light. We will unveil it with pitch. We will make for

ourselves deep darkness, climb into its wells, and descend

the mud-slick walls to where the water laps at our ankles.

Inside the blind impressions of snake and drip and web, we

seek the light. We pursue some undersong down a tunnel of

falling children. She draws me outward by drawing inward.

She gives me sight by blinding. She blinds by giving light.

And indeed, the spectacle I see, this thing she draws me to

gaze upon—is none other than myself, the selfsame “you”

of address: Do you see him? He is close to you, sit- / ting

and sipping. She draws me with an intimate ‘you,’ and in it

reveals great distance. She speaks to me and speaks of me,

the same she blinds and heals. I draw both near and far. Or

rather, it is quite close to me, so close I can see it only from

her side, both near and far, I am intimately distant.

A Compendium of Weeds and Flowers

I. Weeds:

1. Clover (seanrog, trifolium cloeferwort): small white,

pale pink flowers

2. Milkthistle: The zebra-stripe yellow of the monarch

worm, chewing through w bright precision / the dullcolor

leaves. Characterized by popping sap pods and common,

purple blossoms.

3. The Dandelion, Taraxacum Officinate, from ME dent￾de-lioun, (lion’s tooth, for its jagged leaves, Dens leonis,

butter blossom

4. The grass / of the child’s chain

5. Ablutions of subtle poisons will protect the lawn,

drying up the stalk and blossoms before even the late dry /

summer heat can change the upturned cheeks / to the puff￾white manes of grandfather stalks.

6. “This grass is very dark / to be from the white heads

of / old mothers,”

“Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of

mouths”

“Or I guess the grass is itself a child. . . .”

7. The Dandelion Flotilla: the needle-like beak lifts a tuft

of feathers, the pappus carrying fruit, above the dangling

Achene sheathed in spines.

8. The flowerhead: A ribbon-like corolla of petals, gold.

Inside, the stigma catches seed above a cylinder of woven

anthers. The hollow stem supports the fragrant flowerhead,

and bitter white juice runs through the rosette

circumference of fingers.

9. The taproot, sinking deep

II. Flowers:

1. Anthema: From Classical Greek, the generic word for a

blossom, or the anthem, a kind of choreograph set to song

2. The Meadowsweet (also known as ulmaria, fen￾meadow, and brideswort): Moist-dark, born in dew

3. The Oak (quercus): Catkins—elegant hanging

cyllinders covered with testicular lavender fuzz—purple w/

growth. Seeds in its crowny cupule. Its serrated leaves

rising up in a spiral.

4. Broom (also laburnum, ulex, Cytisus): Slender green

stems, delicate leaves with yellow petals clustered in

stubborn bunches, close to the branch. Can often take root

in thin soil or white-knuckled in sandy scree. A fire-climax

species, it germinates in the seasonal burns even as it

unravels in ash.

5. Ashborn

6. Columbine in a lime outcropping, caught in a rift in

stone. The spur of the petal whirs like a single, tiny

sparrow.

7. The Poppy, anemone coronaria: anemone for its wind￾bleeding seeds, coronaria for its circlet of blood. Purpura

(violet, bright), Purpureus (for its murmuring dress)

8. Blood and sap, sap and blood

9. The blood is thin or thick. The blood is blue or red. The

child / takes after her mother.

10. “The beautiful uncut hair of graves”

11. Asphodels: like great white ashes, or ghostflowers laid

against tombs. Smoky enough to feed the thin dead with

forgetfulness.

12. Chrysanthemum psalms

Snub-Poemed

when odysseus slit Isaac’s throat

i.

when odysseus slit Isaac’s

throat:

ii.

in the mouths of Orcus swollen-wet

and ripe w/ the voice of sparrows, and the tiny

flicking tongues of sparrows

flitting like shades on the bodies

to and fro,

and in the image of the burning river,

a dappled row of sibilants rushes

around Anticlea—three times

he throws his arms, three times

she melts like sparrows

and the moths of Orcus, hung from trees

rush out in a thousand arrows,

eager:

iii.

as i am eager

for the fire

to run my moth￾dust tongue

thru the candle

wax to taste what

fire tastes like,

to learn how light

is formed

VI. stained glass

Logos: for you

[“the scab on my lip / called canker- / worm”]

the scab on my lip, name of the the devil

called canker- worm

a constant presence

callous from picking

first: it splits & spits

& bleeds

& then soft burns

the smooth tissue forms

the healing skin &

flakes of

pain & brittle edges

emerge & pinch &

then

my fingers itch

again to find

the smooth red skin

the healing

hides:

inside this body —a presence—

lies? will

rise, but

scars

& when that abide &

light inhabits

of morning / mourning

flutters on my

deeps— finally

the worm will

he sleep

speak-

sss￾he his- sleeps

Journal Entry III:

April 2013, Poetry Magazine: p. 14

as far as maximum effort takes me

—the rest i read more interestingly

as a flipbook—dining my eyes on

the subtle permutations of the

rectangle as they blur & slip by. i

just can’t understand what Poetry

Magazine wants verse to do—a

mouthful of molars in a world of

meat: there’s nothing that could cut

thru

in college Andy asked, “what

makes it a poem?” tho i held this

truth to be self-evident, thru later

years, i guess as the decades

slipped past & my longing went on

w/o answer, i came to see the

question as less obtuse—because i

too long to know what a poem is &

how in the world i might write it…

what’s done is done, & what’s left

—

what’s left? & lately i don’t see

poems but question marks—what

in the world could once again

make a poem?—take the shattered

history & make it sing—pass

through the archive & linger or

make it live forever—take art and

heart, cliché & ostranenie, & make

them work together?

“Akedah”

The lucent letters wane

& flicker,

& the dimful

father bides & binds

the innocent symbols,

& lifts the glittering

caesura

high in an arc

which poise describes

a falling

stroke: the circum￾cision of the

throat.

“Hymn”

I know to write the luminous words, I will have to cut

myself

& let in the light.

I know that if I speak plain, I will have to hide my face.

“Guitar Tabs”

A# E

May the good lord shine

A# C

all fire and breath,

A# C

we’ve all gotta die

D Emin

we all face death.

A# E

You’re naked and scuffed up,

A# C

a little ashamed,

A# C

but don’t let it break you,

D Emin

we all face the same.

A# E

There’s no one around,

A# C

but the desert-dark eyes,

A# C

but you’re not alone babe,

D Emin

let the good lord shine.

Journal Entry IV: 4/21/13, 12:01am

Carla clicks her mechanical pencil

—cat curled up on the quilt,

second cat @ the foot of the bed

—journal propped on crossed leg

lying naked post-coitus &

unwashed sex, wet washcloth by

left hip while langhorne slim &

the law play—volume setting 3—

from the laptop on the plastic

table—12AM not bedtime yet—

chronic lip scab stiff & brittle—

ragged piano plays Cat Stevens

honky-tonk—song fades &

banging buddy holly guitar starts

in—title track bouncy & upbeat

mangled old soul baritone

filterless Camels vocals—that is

to say, i am lying in here in bed,

contemplative & pensive,

apprehending w/ futile

wishfulness—for what, i don’t

have words—to speak thru to you.

to find a shape to make things

bigger. to find, for myself & you,

the words to tell what a poem is,

& how once again i might wake

up—&, with you, remember—

In the beginning was the poem, and the poem became

history.

If I linger in the archive, in communion, then I am aware

that this is the substance of that to which the archive

testifies, this resurrection of dead texts.

When I remain in the archive, then the archive will come

and live in me, and share the life of my body.

If I commune with ancient literatures,

and the history of meter is mine to command,

and the voices of lost poetries ring undiminished in my

verse,

but have not love—

Journal Entry V: 4/27/13, 11pm

so hopeless & tired @ times—

how become big name? how hear

@ life’s end ‘well done, thou

good & faithful poet’? so many

writers, each sustained by

fantastic pictures: glassy or

glossy images of historical

figures animate the surviving

eyes—But those lost names are

dead & gone, & the image is a

lie. i am not concerned w/ career

—but i need to endure beyond

my body—my words must carry

on. it’s not the doing, but the

doing in a way that goes out:

your love will carry on

My vocabulary did this to me. Your love will let you go on.

--Jack Spicer

Though written on time￾thin liquid

of water, my love for you

will carry on,

travelling through futures

illegible

or resurrected in the ancient

records,

a second birth

moving backwards

to where—I do not know—

the yearning

words behind the Logos￾onion paper

of layers, heaped up in time

until I

touch you.

We only have,

I guess,

what we’re given,

though I long

to breathe and die

to touch

and there to find

your hand￾set type￾face, bound

and polished, brass

and patina,

glowing and glowing,

sinking

and away, waters above and

waters below,

vast spaces, pale structures,

brighter and brighter,

of fonts.

Could my love for you

ever falter?

Or could I forget you,

Zion?

A mother might forget

her crops,

or let her children

go hungry,

but I will not

forget you,

your loveliness,

lingering,

lingers

on and

on, and

my love

for you

will not

go out

[“yr face like / snarls / of rain”]

i.

Where there is a will,

there is a way,

I think.

In private, here,

I’m thinking

about the problem of

The Absolute,

and how to put down words

in words,

accompanied

by power…

if I

to you w/

the touch, here,

of silences

breaking open…

ii.

Eyes leak

speech￾lessness like

dreams: I’m coming

soon to you,

my darling; soon

I’ll come to you—

but until then dreams

break open,

like tiny shells

with yolks,

or little statuettes

of silence:

light blue shards

like tiny skies.

I rise to you,

my darling:

rise.

And the skies rise,

too, on top

of water,

floating on

the atmosphere

in oceans, bright

and deep.

These motions of

the element time,

like liquid

darkness or

new wine:

spinning,

dusky and blue,

like flowers

on a stain-etched face—

your eyes

are a winedeep

blue,

and stain-etched,

dear;

your face

like snarls of rain:

there is no tenderness

so open.

for you i put the words here

back

in the form of words.

If the line

is a breath and I

am the line

that bursts across college-ruled

angles, running

parallel to robins—

then my life lives

in the reading;

my life breathes

on your lips.

my little dog is a temple

i am i because my little dog is a temple

+ a series of temples in a sentence is sound

+ a thousand sounds like suns = syntax,

+ a billions constellations of syntax is fires,

+ a circumference of fires in thousands is birds,

+ thousands of perforated birds = language

textual humanism

. , ; i I

anxiety / immortality

the arrow bites

through layers,

per skull

& ventral striatum;

per medial

forebrain sac & tender

zones of fire

to the feathers. Geryon’s

neck, a plough￾clipped poppy, slumps

& drools

translucent fluid1

1

a bundle of flowers

leaking: wax￾skinned summer

persimmons

simul, frantic

dendrite geometries

fire in random

sequence, flooding

the dopamine

adaptive pathways

w/ chemistry’s

burning phantasms

of memory

or bright abstractions2

2

I’ll aufheben

yr Latinate brain matter,

& press my scruff￾weary cheek

against the mouth yr hippo-

campus feeds

years the cankerworm ate

i.

awake in the night,

a ghost in the eaves,

fitful bulbs buzzing above:

i breathe.

milky eyes wide with webs,

alone with the knots

in the stomach, alone with my fits

of dread—alone with my baby￾soft, hair￾sad head.

the olive arms touched by scars

bear cigarette marks

& the backs of the hands

are kissed with brands—god again,

awake in the night, a ghost

in the leaves:

i am.

the slow skitter of years

turns hours in this dark—

& that which turns to May

only yesterday was March.

and then again beneath these bulbs

September starts. i startle aprt:

i clutch the strands

of strings, i fumble with

the leaking heart:

ii.

i have known scars

self-inflicted.

i have suffered the night

when it breaks apart,

indifferent.

i have suffered

some sad thing

unspeakable

in the silences

i keep:

the blankness

of an hour

killed,

the distant

noise

of a leak.

iii.

but if from all sides

a tentative song

darts from the mouth

of morning birds—

and if in the first

gray milk of morning,

i hear this one small note,

defy the bars of the night,

break through the shuttered blinds,

leak in like the limp

that runs before the light:

then selah.

i will

rise with the morning.

i will

shake off the night’s longing.

Corinna 691

Dawn plunges up

from the ocean deep, drawing off a moon￾holy brightness from the ash￾grey sky.

Sea-sons, sons of deathless

Zeus, blossomdeep

in May.

In the seven-gated city,

the chorus of singers

cries holy

Iris-Bright

Language burns, a dream

at dawn: I know

your face even fogged

in sleep, your iris￾bright eyes even slick

with whispers: those humming￾bird hearts of musky

speech. The white

shards spill, a sleepy

blink—if I didn’t sing, it

wouldn’t matter: the very

stones would shout, the earth

cry wonder.

on the predestination of election

the elect, ex￾lecto,

plucked out

from the atonal

mass

of strings

to form a chord

or stitch

of sinews; & also

lecto in the sense of

lecture

lexical

legible

letters:

the way the attention falls

in the act

of reading

in thro (illegible)

tangled ligatures

of symbols

upon discrete phenomenal

windows

& in its throwness / ex-

(ception) static

emerges /

merges from the

inundated sense

a word (or sentence):

another sense:

e-lecto / Logos

to be cast off

or proceed from:

flesh becoming

text, or literacy

encoding ‘persons’:

electo: the submerged

features slowly

rising thro the

deeps, an exodus

of rivulets

beneath the rainmany

inks: the lower

waters from the

upper

waters /

deeps—

election:

to have been read

many death-lovely heavens

the winter lily thrusts its head

through layers of frost￾sick dirt

~

Ringed by tufts of hard

dark grass:

wind on a blossom￾wet face:

feathery tongues

of fire

~

rain, a wildfire of falling sparks

~

my neck cranes upwards

w/ sharp need,

& i am finally crushed

by the many, death￾lovely heavens.

~

the whole thing shines

w/ light;

the rose reverberates

w/ darkness

there is a vibrating

scar of miracles

above the cities

of yr voice

noctilucent

father, fill me w/ beauty

& call me beyond

to a training in weight & grandeur

& the glory of small birds.

& teach me yr depths & yr heights

& the silences that fill you

& fill me! pull back the tatter of ribs

& take out the stone that sits there,

replace it w/ the gospel of dawn birds—

father, if only the right words

were here this world would be

born anew—what is this thing

you’ve placed in me that shines

w/ precarious substance?

surfeit faces kne(k)nokt de-composure

liquid-dark sleep

i.

frail

pattering

fingers,

teeth: my baby

girl like

halcyon

or violets.

ii.

dried petals of dusk.

the husk of yr dress.

an echo.

iii.

hiding from me

behind figs: your blue eyes

can’t cover the liquid￾dark sleep.

iv.

hush, dear hands—

this song is enough.