Midst Midst
We're all saying the same thing now, scolding the same shadow, not in harmony, but in sync or by turns. Singing that bar about the flock taking off "as if" it were one body— as if this was one body— and who could be listening?
Sep 15, 2010 / Books & the Arts / Rae Armantrout
Peregrine Peregrine
The peregrine don't bother with the beak and feet and toss them to the sidewalk off the top of the Methodist's tower like KFC out the window of a speeding car of drunks, sparrow and pigeon parts on the sidewalk, a roadside litter, the road here in this case is the sky. It rains blood more literally than it always does and the birds of prey have non-metallic feathers. Everyone in Chicago has read in the Times, coyotes prefer Mc D's. Our kind of wild life steps right up, robs the joint in the disguise of himself he knows no one would believe. True, animals don't use human technologies, but the changes in us, because of such advances, advance the animal relation to us. They've necessarily learned vicariously what they need to know of how two-legged technologies run; they keep up with us the same way the dumbest button pusher keeps up with the MIT computer engineer. Not rocket science, but enough to know what it does is there to work around or with whatever it is. Adaptation is an education in more fields than we imagine.
Sep 2, 2010 / Books & the Arts / Ed Roberson
The Pithy Serpent The Pithy Serpent
everyone knows satan is just a guy with a lot of special efx a pithy serpent who plucks apples from the garden of lost trees I'm an ancient bystander whose chronology is less sympathetic and more cave-like think of me as an obscene gesture a plain ordinary obscene gesture in a place where the weather is nice and the people don't have a clue
Aug 25, 2010 / Books & the Arts / Dave Brinks
from ‘Revelator’ from ‘Revelator’
Eternity in the present only I shut my eyes, inhale deeply to hear five speakers' simultaneous yatter, squirrels up high in the cedars bark, dog golden terrier blend all taut muscle, sinew o'er bone, jaw pauses mid-air in flight, just ahead of the Frisbee's grasp
Aug 25, 2010 / Books & the Arts / Ron Silliman
After Sappho (The Volcano) After Sappho (The Volcano)
The clouds mock me with their mimicry of continental land-masses. Chimerae. An atmospheric shield of tiny silicates separates the mother from her sons, roses from wholesalers.
Aug 11, 2010 / Books & the Arts / Ange Mlinko
Breaking News Breaking News
Amid a conflicting report a nuthatch fetches a black fly, dips its plume in stagnant pool. This is a sky drawn, grafted, rescued, not a bath of vapors an afternoon shutters with counterfeit meaning. It is just an incident within a field of possibility, something periodic and bruised, one location in which we grip that instant of contact. Upstream a scarecrow is ragged in the wounding, a music of terror barely rises above the slopes, reft with nothing but its melody's radius, the slow ancient call of the bird in the distant flicker.
Jul 28, 2010 / Books & the Arts / Matthew Gagnon
Indivisible Indivisible
The unit of measure united in the particulars inevitably leads to divisions; part of medium is to be indivisible, so divines the medium. He says, "I am neutral. I am neutrino & pass through objects to stay objective. I limit myself to experiments involving infinity—that is, unlimited license to be licentious: does it matter to murder matter? And is it murder to dissect what matters—how will I discover what is murder or what is matter? As a matter of fact, the uptilt creates a steep plane interrupting the plain, a stratum revealed as part of many strata united and thus dividable. As a stratospheric shower, particles aggregate into one granite unit. Is wave action just another wave to that which is indivisible?"
Jul 14, 2010 / Books & the Arts / Marcella Durand
from ‘Lone Coast Anacrusis’ from ‘Lone Coast Anacrusis’
—"mu" fifty-third part— Some new Atlantis known as Lower Ninth we took leave of next, half the turtle's back away. Whole bodies we saw floating, not only heads... Endless letting go, endless looking else- where, endless turning out to be otherwise... Woods all around where we came to next. We'd been eating wind, we'd been drinking wind, rumoring someone looked at God eye to eye... In what seemed a dream but we saw wasn't we saw dirt sliding. We were back and all the buildings were gone. What were cliffs to us we wondered, blown dust of Bandiagara, what the eroding precipice we saw... Ground acorns ground our teeth now. All but all gums, we were where the Alone lived, came to a clearing lit by light so bright we staggered, Nub it was we knew we were still in... The mountain of the night a mound of nothing, Toulali's burr what balm there was. Toulali's burr what balm, remote though it was, lifetimes behind us now... Voice laryngitic, lost and lost again, blown grit rubbed itaway... Someone had said something came to mind. Someone had sung something, what its words were no one could say. Sang it bittersweet, more brusque than bitter, song's cloth endowment stripped... Choric strain, repeatedly slipped entablature. Given... Given endlessly again... No telling when but intent on telling, no telling what. Wished we were home again • Refugees was a word we'd heard, raw talk of soul insistent, adamant, the nonsong we sang or the song we nonsang, a word we'd heard we heard was us... Wept in our sleep, again one with what would never again be there, raw talk rummaged our book,the backs of our hands written on with cornmeal, the awaited ones reluctant again... The city of sad children's outskirts we were in, woods notwithstanding, woods nonetheless, bright light the light we saw as we were jolted, raw talk spiraling away... We were there and somewhere else no matter where we were, everywhere more than where we were... Where the Alone lived we donned abalone-shell ornaments, light's clarity conceded, night yet to relent, Toulali smoldered on, semisang, semispoke, wrestled with his tongue it seemed... We trudged in place, barely lifted our feet, backbeat hallowing every step we took, moved us albeit we stayed put. We were where we were, somewhere else no matter where, evacuees a word we'd heard... Stutter step, stuck shuffle, dancelike, Toulali's croon enticed us, toyed with us, ground gone under where we stood
May 20, 2010 / Books & the Arts / Nathaniel Mackey
Aug. 5 Aug. 5
Aug. 5 When a man is asked to sing of his anger the risk is that without remorse virtue dies War then is in the face, in this homelessness, the despair which couldn't wait couldn't ask for We don't talk to each other anymore we email global reach managed minutes morning to noon in the hospitals we are all old forbidden to talk of lost sons, asked to smile Enough, they'll hear the news, men in photographs die and nothing will seem simple, their faces especially where sorrow stretched everything Maps point to? and defeat looms where? out there where? Here the naked body is where terror lies Guilt builds monuments, the way we spend our time
May 12, 2010 / Books & the Arts / Eléna Rivera