The Ring

It's true that we are meat and it's true this training
It's true the experiment's not thru never thru yet it's true
It's true we are only rings not to jump thru but to be
To be only in the sense of being-in in the sense of a draft

Not knowing otherwise how to cry
It's true we cast shadows which only sometimes fall
And which usually rise

That are a cause for occasion
The fall and yet the sleep of the tick
Their machine properties and gaps in instinct

It's true that we are meat and it's true this training
It's true the experiment's not thru never thru yet it's true
It's true we are only rings not to jump thru but to be
To be only in the sense of being-in in the sense of a draft

A body draws near a warm body and because that body is near one sucks
The fall is suspended in sucking them
So sucking is true to shadows

Green and purple to the arrested touch
The teeth are true only not having a face
The animal is this singing and sighing

It's true that we are meat and it's true this training
It's true the experiment's not thru never thru yet it's true
It's true we are only rings not to jump thru but to be
To be only in the sense of being-in in the sense of a draft

These signs are the collapse of eyes
Wrested from a mortal glance
One paints bulbs black

Any color they are not as I
That splotch of red not real as meat
But as the pain of color itself

Of color itself falling thru our bodies
The pity of both before and in
The cage drawn so to the animal crying out its face
The cage confined by what makes us us

Like a curtain drawing back and sliced but not torn
Like here when it is here
The flicker of gravity born

There is sovereignty in the things we lack
Lack itself divides inside from inside
We remain in our animation like quiddity repeatedly killed

I knew this at once when it painted itself
By itself the appearance of action in the things we create
We cried a lost dimension or indiscernibility around an endangered body
What felt necessities sighing this body is the soul

There is danger precious danger only if we discover and sleep
There is danger prescient danger crossing the leashless rings
There is grace but not elegance in this per se

The greater the mutilation and discrete jets and interruption of organs the more we ascend. The head follows the hand of course, the literal hand like a physical belief in this ascendance by haphazard degree. The hand of the painter presupposes such consent.

Kierkegaard speaks in his *Sickness Unto Death* of the "about-face" of despair. But you disperse pity from the face (the soul- appearing-surface) across organs and objects. In cages cross-sectioning the case consent is as escape or "primeval consent" (Susan Howe). Accident proves incident cause.

Every animal needs an attendant as every mortal its name
Every name its angel as every angel its spirit-body
Ours is a true appearance of spirit seized in harm and dissected in grace
Ours a mannerist dignity of dice, a dicey proposal of remains

A blackened bulb
Thoughtless purchase
Misplaced description
Foreclosed reflections of things being similar

Embodied instants
Suspended cause
Throwing forth
Teeth without mouths

Umbrellas for heads
A color for shadows
Dissymmetry of the preformed
Intussuception

Substituted abcess
Determinate excess (a jet)
Presentable affect (the cry)
The sound always sealed-up in the cry

Carnal vantages
Sense for sense-of-falling
Aspect-flows (brush curve)
Resurrected drives

It's true that we are meat and it's true this training
It's true the experiment's not thru never thru yet it's true
It's true we are only rings not to jump thru but to be
To be only in the sense of being-in in the sense of a draft

Of color itself falling thru our bodies
The pity of both before and in
The cage drawn so to the animal crying out its face
The cage confined by what makes us us

I knew this at once when it painted itself
By itself the appearance of action in the things we create
We cried a lost dimension or indiscernibility around an endangered body
What felt necessities sighing this body is the soul

Every animal needs an attendant as every mortal its name
Every name its angel as every angel its spirit-body
Ours is a true appearance of spirit seized in harm and dissected in grace
Ours a mannerist dignity of dice, a dicey proposal of remains

The fly makes its eyes for the spider's web here
What remains is the frozen refrain
A dew like a thousand eyes in attendance
Which vanishes in this experimental.

Sojourners (Falling)

old lions beware
a wake discrepant
ship between two
shores no santa
here as if in turning


a necessary journey towards
wildness
homeward song

that freedom from gravity centers our bodies

freedom from the open
force an ecstasy


and wind which is too big
as spirit made where does it come from
and why doesn’t someone continue
underground


a shift of force
they were a people when they had such amulets

who could survive to gain the fire
by any felt necessity


paint the weight of our hands existing innocents

what strokes and oars do we follow the bristles promise

there is a portal which is always open
there are the facts of actuality
at work

sojourning turning


forcing the words where they must break beyond breaking
then writing must be one with its worlds

what we interpret
as roads as pools & forestry

such is the mind


or the fate of the
body
in this storm of spirit

she knew these things when it came upon her

and
after much reflection
upon that
gust


while there were
still animals in
the Hudson River
Valley

hunting the
hunter a spiral appears

history’s a moon shot


like a heart
beating a beaten
stone is it
that pulpit which beats the hand

then close the nose ecstasy
being
beyond and in
the world


that freedom from gravity centers our bodies

force an ecstasy by the grace of sovereign abandon

i cast

That Even Sorrow

For Tom Mandel

Together the fragments
make another fragment.

Letters will allegorize
a body, but time
won’t stand guard.

Wake Games*

Lifting the Corpse

A very large man would lie down on his back on the floor. The legs must be kept straight and rigid. Four men then tried to lift him off the floor with their thumbs placed under the shoulders right and left and on the calf of the legs right and left. Each lifter used only one of his thumbs. If the man was lifted places were exchanged. If they failed they would have their heads bashed against the floor (especially if they dropped the man!)

Pulling the Stick- Sweet Draughts

Two man sat facing each other on the floor. Legs were extended so that the soles of their shoes touched. A strong stick : a handle of a spade or pitchfork,was laid across the tops of their shoes. Both gripped the stick, one hand inside and one outside and each tried while holdi ng his legs rigid to lift his opponent off the floor even as much as an inch. After three pulls places were exchanged and the test continued similarly. Sometimes a man who was to be lifted off the floor would make his foot slip from the opponents shoe. Friends would stand on the coat tails of the person they did not wish lifted.

Lifting a Chair

A chair was gripped at the base of one of the legs by each contestant in turn in an attempt to raise it above his head. It was by no means an easy thing to do, as the old chairs were quite heavy.

Breaking an Egg
An egg was held between the contestants two hands with the pointed ends against the palms. He then tried to cr ush the egg, and generally failed.

The Stronger Hand
Two men stood facing each other, with their right hands raised against each other. Pressure was then exerted by each in an attempt to force down his opponents hand.

Wrestling-
A man would enter the house dressed in a suit of straw and challenge all present to wrestle the Connachtman.
A. A man gripped a stick with his hands at either end and tried to jump over it. Without br eaking his hold. An open razor edge upwards was used instead of a stick.
B. 12 men faced each other in two lines, six in each row. The men in each line stood about two feet apart from their neighb ours. Each player extended his two arms and gripped the hands of the man facing him. Other active men at the wake then tried in turn to jump over each pair of hands in turn, down between the lines without stopping. This was a very difficult feat to perform.
C. Two men stood with a spade handle or other stick resting on their shoulders. Two others then tried to excel each other in performing acrobatic tricks on the stick, like circus performers.
D. Two men competed to do somersault on the floor returning to a standing position.

Driving the Pigs across the Bridge. Those who arrived late at the wake house were the pigs . They are scolded for not having arrived earlier and then someone would shout “We must drive the pigs across the bridge” The bridge consisted of a number of men, who stood in line behind one another, with their shoulders bent forward. The “pigs” were then forced with blows to mount like riders, on the backs of the others; when all had mounted, they were suddenly thrown on the floor in a heap on the floor.

Riding the Wild Ass. - A rope with a noose at one end was thrown over one of the rafters of the house. The man who wished to show h is agility then grasped the other end of the rope and put one of his feet into the n oose. He then pulled on the free end of the rope and tried to raise himself high enough to enable him to kick against another rafter or couple with his free foot. The difficulty and danger of the trick came from the fact that one part of his body (the hands) was pulling against another (the foot) and he might easily fall on to the floor and injure his head or back.

Stealing the Goats- The player grabbed two sods of turf, one in either hand, and faced the floor with his hands and legs extended; only the turf sods and the toes of his shoes were allowed to touch the floor. The player's objective was a potato which lay on the floor below his face. He had to pick this up with his mouth without allowing his stomach to touch the floor or bending his arms or legs. This was difficult enough to do while uninterrupted, but it became more so when he had to reply to questions during the attempt:

Questioner: Where are you going now?
Reply: Stealing the goats from Hell.
Questioner: Swear that you are.
Reply: I swear that I am.

Lifting a horseshoe: The shoe was placed three or four inches out from the foot of the kitchen wall. The person who tried to pick it up took his stand about three feet from the wall, and h ad to pick up the shoe without bending his knees. Whenever he bent forward in making the attempt, his head would touch the wall, and he was not allowed to use his hands to help straighten himself again.

Going around Under a Table: The player would lie face downwards on a table, catching the edges with both hands. He then was required to bring his body around under the table, between its legs, and return to his starting point without touching the floor. His main difficulty was to keep the table from overturning in the process.

Walking on the legs of a Stool: A fairly long stool would be laid on the floor, legs upwards. The contestant had to mount the stool, placing his two hands on the front legs and his two feet on the back ones. To do the trick he had to walk around on the stool legs with his hands and feet until he returned to his original position.

The Donkeys and Baskets: A man lay face down on the wake house floor. Two others sat facing each other at either side of him and extended their legs across his back toward each other. Each took hold of the other's legs. The Prone man was now the donkey and the other two the baskets. His task was to rise up as a real donkey would raising the baskets on his back. Two groups of three often took part in this test each striving to be the first in comple teing it.

Spinning the Tin Box- Each of the male players was given an even number while each female got an odd number. The players sat here and there in the kitchen while a tin box was spun in the center of the floor by the man in charge of the game. As the box spun around he would call out the number of some player whose duty it then was to rush forward and catch the box before it ceased to spin. A player who failed to do so was given some penalty.

The Mock Court or The Police Game
Eight or so of the players remained in the kitchen,while everybody else went outside the door. Those who were inside then divided themselves up according to their duties in the game; one would act as judge, two as lawyers; one as court-clerk, and three or four as policemen. The police would then go outside and drag in somebody as prisoner, while the others pressed in also to hear the case being tried. The judge too k his seat, and the clerk read out the name and address of the prisoner, as well as the offense with which he was being charged. The trial then proceeded as it would in a legal court, one lawyer prosecuting, the other defending. The main source of the fun, apart from the charge itself, was to be found in the sly references made by both counsel to the private affairs of some of those present, who were dragged into the case. These mischievous,though irrelevant, hints caused great laughter, as they were understood by all. Having heard the evidence, the judge announced his verdict, which was witty and light or severe, according to how he regarded the defendant. The police had then the task of seeing that the verdict was carried out; if guilty, the defendant might be handled roughly as punishment, or even doused nine or ten times in a tub of water. If the first trial produced a good deal of amusement, as second or third would follow, until all were tired of the game.

A somewhat similar game, which involved a court-case, was the following. A man lay down on the floor, feigning illness, and a doctor would be sent for. The doctor arrived into the kitchen on horseback, the horse being two fellows clad in straw to resemble an animal. The horse would be a very wild one and, in the course of prancing around the kitchen, the doctor would be thrown down on top of the sick man on the floor. When examined, it would be found that both the patient and the doctor were dead, and the two who played the part of the horse would be tried for causing their deaths.

Building the Ship
John L. Prim has provided a garbled account of the way in which this game was played at wakes in Kilkenny over a hundred years ago. He mentions how the keel was first laid, followed by the prow and stern of the ship; then a woman, who was taking part in the game, would raise the mast with some gesture and speech that convinced Prim that the game had its origin in pagan times. His account is so unclear that it would be difficult, for want of additional details, to imagine how the game was really played.
Henry Morris has noted that his uncle had seen a similar game played about one hundred years ago in Co. Monaghan. It was a lively game, with lots of activities going on, he said; the only part he could remember was the tarring of the ship (soot being smeared on somebody). Morris said that the game died out in Farney, Co. Monaghan, before the year 1880.

A Co. Galway man has described the game , as he saw it played there. Three men sat down astride a stool, one behind the other, all facing in the same direction. The man in front was the prow of the ship; the man in the middle, the body of the ship; and the third man the stern. A fourth player stood on the floor beside them; he was the builder of the ship. He would ask the company for a hammer or sledge, which he needed for the work, and he got it-a hard sod of turf, a piece of turnip, or something like that. Having got the implement, he would walk around the stool, talking loudly to himself about his accomplishments as a ship-builder. He would then insert the right hand of the center man under the right arm-pit of the man in front, and continue to walk around the ship, striking hard blows with his hammer on the three, as he went. He would next put the left hand of the center man under the left arm-pit of the first man, striking blows all the time to make things firm. He then placed the legs of the hind pair around the body of the person in front of each, hammering away to keep the timbers from splitting. The trio would then have to lie back, as far as they could, and the builder would start to raise the mast. This part of the game was often obscene.
Another game is mentioned by Prim called Drawing the Ship Out of the Mud, but it is not described.

Building the Bridge
Twelve men or so stood out on the floor and formed into two lines of six each, facing one another. Each man took hold of the two hands of the man opposite, thus forming the bridge from which the game took its name. The bridge had now to be tested for strength. Another player mounted on the crossed hands and walked to and fro along them. Finding no apparent fault with its construction, he dismounted. Somebody would then suggest that the bridge be tested to see if it would take a flood of water through its eye. This would be done by some rogue who sluiced the legs and feet of the players with a bucketful of dirty water.

Making the Poteen
This game is both imitative and a booby-trap. Somebody who had not seen it played previously would be asked to sit on a chair or stool in the center of the floor. He would be, as it were the still. The man who was working the still would walk fussily around him, getting ready for the work, while some others remained outside the house to keep an eye out for the police or "Revenue men". As the busy preparations were at their height within, the watchers would rush in to say that the police were coming. Speedy action was now necessary; the first thing to be done was to hide the still outside in the dark. The stiller gave this order to his helpers, and they set to work with a will. Pity the poor still! The innocent fellow who simulated that was dragged out into the darkness and flung headlong into the cess-pool of the dung -hill or some equally unpleasant hiding-place from which he had to extricate himself without light or help.

Coining the Money
Another booby-trap! Counterfeit money was to be coined, as it were, and some innocent fellow was got to sit in the middle of the floor to represent the mint. The players circled around him chanting "Coin the money! Coin the money!" until somebody rushed in from outside to say that the police were approaching. The mint had now to be hidden as quickly and as disagreeably as the still in the preceding game.

Sledging
Booby-trap again! The master smith and his helpers announced that they had to make some plough-"socks", or horseshoes or something like that. A man who had no experience of the game was asked to sit in the centre of the floor to represent the anvil. As soon ass the victim was seated ,the master, and his apprentices began to thump him with their fists, as hammers, chanting in time with the blows:
"Strike him strike, strike together!
Strike, strike, all together!
Having pummeled the anvil well for a time, one of the apprentices would suddenly shout that the anvil was on fire! It had to be taken out quickly lest the forge be burned. The poor anvil was taken hold of by three or four strong fellows and dumped into the cess-pool outside, or else was douched with buckets of water.

The Kiln on Fire
In this game, players simulated a miller and his men drying corn. The floor represented the kiln. The miller would order his men to bring in sacks of corn to put into the kiln. Each man went outside and came back with a man on his back; this process went on until some twenty men, as sacks, were lying in a heap on the floor. The were left there for a while to dry, as it were, and were then turned, those underneath being placed on top. When this had been done, and the process of drying the corn was progressing well, one of the workmen would suddenly should that the kiln was on fire. The miller and his helpers would rush to pour buckets of water on the sacks, drenching all who were heaped on the floor, especially those on top. In some areas, only two players took part, the miller and his daughter.

The Deaf Miller
A player (the miller) sat on the floor, mixing soot and water in a dish with a stick. As he worked, he carried on a conversation with himself, his remarks causing great laughter among the audience. One of his mill-hands would enter carrying another player, as a sack of corn, on his back, and would tell the miller that the sack was to be ground. The miller would pretend not to be able to hear him, owing to the noise of the mill, and would finally order the helper to lay the sack down behind him. When five or six sacks had thus been deposited behind the miller, who all the while continued to mix the soot and water (to simulate grinding) and keep up his remarks in a loud voice, the helper would shout that the mill was on fire. The miller would have no trouble in hearing this and would throw the sooty water over his shoulder on top of the sacks behind his back to quench the blaze.

Lifting the Old Nag
A heavily-built man would hobble into the kitchen, pretending to be an old foundered horse, and throw himself down on the floor, grunting and complaining. Some players would gather about him , and he would ask them to raise him to his feet. Two or three would attempt this and would fail; others would come to their assistance, but even nine or ten would not be able to lift the nag. The leader of the game would then order them to remove their coats. They did so, throwing aside the coats here and there, and started to lift again, straining every muscle, but to no avail. The nag was too heavy. The leader would then order them to remove other garments, and when they had finally got rid of their socks, they would succeed in their task. At this point, some mischievous fellow would quench all the lights in the wake-house; the others would let the nag collapse on the floor and, in the darkness, set about finding their clothes, which would have been hidden away by members of the audience. Rough-and-tumble searching went on until the lights were restored, and the game was over.

Cutting the Timber
A man lay down across the threshold of the kitchen feet outside, head within. He was to represent the saw. Two players now took hold of his feet outside, while two others caught his head and should ers in the kitchen. They pulled against one another, forward and backwards, as if they were sawing wood, until one pair proved too strong for the other.

The Dry Barber; The Shaving Game
In The Shaving Game, the leader and his assistants went through the crowded kitchen of the wake-house to find out who needed a shave. They would pick on somebody whom they might dislike for some reason, and drag him out to sit on a chair in the middle fo the floor. The barbers then gathered about him and started to rub water, in which many kinds of dirt had been mixed, onto his face and head. He was powerless to resist or escape. Two would then begin to shave him with bits of stick or something, as razors. The shaving was, needless to say, an ordeal in itself, and it was finished by drenching the victim with water to get rid of the soap!

*all above desciptions of Irish Wake Games lifted directly from: http://www.bcpl.net/~hutmanpr/wakegame.html.

A Catastrophe (Falling)

The fall is what is most alive in the sensation, that through which the sensation is experienced as living. The intensive fall can thus coincide with a spatial descent, but also with a rise.
--Gilles Deleuze

Fact would
parse the fading light in all
eye beams pyramids
by which we see it
seeing us the soldiers anon

commanded in sense fed eye-to-hand
hand-to-eye
color cropped around the mouth
bent to some specification
of war what would parse

the world in fading actuals
the bodily coagulation to which an arrow
grows
a cropping an absolute
fact the orange of appearance small of distortion back

that smile
without a face or how
words do words contoured to
words smell
how unpainterly yet eventful the spirit seeks

what it says
what it speaks to eat
it swallows what is heard paint
subsisting in accidents
resonance the world feels this again

the little smile break
the wrist in a small catastrophe rising by
degree they are evasions
of nowhere the flower
coupled with other forces

the witnesses to this the
colors begin by falling in place
reversed by chance wherever
the hand was was a chance
for escape

a wrestler a monkey a silvery basin
where the hand once put the eye
none will follow gravity
your freefalls glow
so green

Shoot Straight!

A Diagram After Ralph Eugene Meatyard

Oh My God (Literal Hallucinations)

Literal Hallucinations

Falling

Falling

No one told you
to fall for the hand
to fall
into the face
for the face to fall

no one tells you to
it's just you do like a pulse
taking
or suddenly reviving
from eyes

your lived eyes that we all have thusly
seen
like that ground hovering instead of you
actually hovering
being there instead of you

here there is actually no where anymore
to fall
but this body your body
your pulse
teeth and all.

*

What it may have felt like to go down and come back

"We" a wind, maybe that "divine wind," maybe
"somewhere in the trees," the leaves
of "these trees" rustling, as particular as "this,"

"something" of an instrument blowing, a "literal instrument"
somewhere in "that wind," or the wind a "particular
degree," perhaps of "revelation" or "instead"

of "human contact" being "that conventicle," that "literal
refrain" the refrain, of "other lips" which "blow"
and "must" speak, the "rustling" they would make instead of "us".

*

The last Gulf War

There is a certain rising in place
to barely be human and sing
a boundary of crude the boundless
radiation an heir to become them.

Falling being distinguished
from armies damnably near
the world's end our convalescence
this vast screen of tears.

*

Body Snatched

This seeming a syndrome of all the people,
the half-formed people, the places
of people we can't be, their cries of fading
substitutions, eruptions if place could
only be place

we still wouldn't be here, I would always
be double to me, a fading actuality
of choppers rising, descending to make
the least thing suffused

with a tentacled concern,
some least man of slumbering armies
a syndrome, of factories dissembled by war--

one falls in line but one also survives.

*

Bacon

To show the scream
of the living nurse,

The animal
inside the mortal meat,

these accidents of living out
our days with a face,

the ear hearing
the sound grown-in

as ancient their hair
if we would be here,

readied by will,
awitness in pity.

Into one...

Eruv I.

"Make peace not love."
--Amos Oz

The spirit of this converted private
Is not an inside abstract

It is the key of keys for dwelling mutual
A mobility of ritual to discern

Us in potentia hence to discover again
And again ourselves merely lifting

What must be transportable as string
A version of commons understandably

Shifting the signs grew out of this
Heart and grafitti became bright beams

Making a bubble bridgeable an effect
Of needing an inside outside outside

To be a call to floating contracts
Towards a mobile peace.

The Intensive Fall

The fall is what is most alive in the sensation, that through which the sensation is experienced as living. The intensive fall can thus coincide with a spatial descent, but also with a rise.
--Gilles Deleuze

Man Thinking

With gum for eyes
With brains

For hands
We do not fly

We sink like
A syrup

In the head

The mind
Is this syrup.

*

Coupling. Gross wing. A pong rhythm. Of the mind. The eyes diegesis. Extra voice.

The slow rap. Seething. Like a balloon to gas. The mind is that balloon. Of attention your

intention. Never mind. Mine. To break the frame. We make conclusion. An image

of the voice. Emergent from wind. A superimposition. An eye for propositions. Coupling.

Gross wing. A pong rhythm. Of the mind. The eyes diegesis. Extra voice. In a slow rap.

Seething. Like a balloon to gas. The mind is that balloon. Of attention your intention.

Never mind. Mine. To break the frame. We make conclusion. An image of the voice.

Emergent from wind. A superimposition. An eye for propositions. Coupling.


*

It is as a wind

tunnel
to these voices

it is

a syrup through which
no thought

passes
it is our talk

in being animal

a singing
flame it is

of our bodies
bodies in

the impassioned
absences
of sound commensurable

with consummations

and deployments
of mutual
power

it is the blood
moved elsewhere

invisibly

labored the rhythms
of spirit

passing through spirit
matter through matter

it is
only felt in this sense

singing flames radiation

not actually singing
aloud the slow
motion effects

your body our body
blind matter upon which

an idea of us
touches down again

withdrawals from
our poverty

*

The eyes the wrap

Around eyes of all

Children inconsolably weeping

To be alive like the dead

Their eyes covered in a gum

Convertible to no other

Color except for this.

Permission*

Permission
for Robert Creeley

This poetic mood approaches the state in which
what is present appears as present. Do you find it so abstract
and colorless? What an extraordinary idea to say
that immediate consciousness is colorless and abstract!
-- Charles Sanders Peirce

Often I am permitted to return to a meadow
as if it were a given property of mind
that certain bounds hold against chaos,

that is a place of first permission,
everlasting omen of what is.
-- Robert Duncan

The first idea was not our own
-- Wallace Stevens


Return to that field
Bridge going under
A clutter of
Leaves in some fall
Distant falls
Those leaves braid

Whose leaves braid
Time going under
An image of thread
In an open sky
The eye sees contrast
Of branches some
Spaces are not
Meant to be seen

It is this thinking which
Feels instead
Here where
I have no frame yet
There is therefore
No eye yet
No eyelet for
Our imagining

Man with his dog
The bridge that
Small building
Are too much
Story
For the imagination
Not enough leaves
Their
Thickness to braid
Pure image of time

Pure pattern depth
And thickness
Flatness of
Reference deny
Story its place
Historicity neither
Here or before
A now heard
And near

All permitted of
Return
A field draws near
A hooded bird
Near the sky
Eye’s flatness
That close

Here where we
Have no
Frame yet to
Compose
Looking for depth
Ground to grasp
Purchase point to line

Finding the roses
Still there in the
Fall
Where we
Left them finding
Men with dogs
Cars thru
Branches to
Highway

A now-estranged bucolic
No longer pastorals where
They remained
To decay
Eyes are then
This condition of finding
Circling Delaware park
A proper name
For this flatness

Don’t dismay finding
These roses where
We left them
In our flat circling
Of eyes iconoclast
Love braiding
No point of reference
No above or below
This sky

We cry for
This place we
Cry for
Place without
Place
Tearful commons
The view thru
The trees to
This highway
Cutting the park
In half
Perhaps we cry
For this division too

Substitutions permitting
A turn of leaves
Permitted to
Return
Of course thinking of
Duncan’s children
Revenants seeking
Thickness
Of difference

Sameness striking
An imagination without place
How will one ever
Understand this if they haven’t
Sensed it already
A photograph seems
To ask

*composed Fall 2004.

Eternity then / Inseperable (Tears Are These Veils)

The turbines of elephants
Other animals
Churn in the eyes of the face
The stars of those eyes

Stuttered cries and slatted
Sibilance strobes like labor churns
Pangs of shock
The face disturbed

In space like an angel's
Will not be disturbed until
This eternity of power and
Deformity should become

As stars superimposed
That face expresses
Nothing is lost there is not
Time enough for these tears.

*

It is a sound sort of like
Screaming

And sort of like sobbing

Crying like machines
And animals crying out their eyes

For power alone convivial.

*

Like the voices
The general voices

Of night
The ritual

Impressions and
Depressives

This night
Of the world

Releases
The cage

From the animal
Disgusting

Shadows
Shed

From pools
Around the lenses

Blobs of blackened
Light

Unreflective
And ceaseless.

*

Is this making any sense?

The turbines swell again
a relation to mind.

Cries assemble
and blend around the face

a fashion of grace.
The portrait distorted

for there is nothing
time can't do.

*

A relation

of visions to mind

is ear to this occasional
swelling

sound
sticking to sound.

Will we lie down
in that field

peaceful once more

without sublation from which
we fall

to our senses recalling them

a dialogue of sorts
from which

the imagination builds

around a single
spire a cathedral supreme.

From which an amnesis

reproducible contacts

of stars pre-eternities

of tears.

*

Like rape, mutates
The dropped
Frames the face

Frame rates
Clench the ear, teeth
The image bears

Rearing, rending
Perception
Come to our senses

Turbines fill the mouth
With sound
Visions

Irreducible to
Descriptions, adequate
Knowings

In the service and not
In the service
Of us.

*

The eyes, the eyes, the face
The face, grown inwardly,
Outward, for falling, our sympathy

Our sympathy for the for and our
Sympathy for the in, our sympathy
The sympathy of the in for the for

As real stars, real images
Of stars fall, falling from her
Face, the eyes, the eyes of

The face, the growing inwardly
Until there is a voice for this,
Until there are two voices each

Each other's mine, the one
For the one, the one and
One somehow making one.

*

Eternity is then
Inseparable
From what it can do.

Histories of eternity
Like labor churns
Affected stars.

Towards Exterior (Splitting)*

*forthcoming in Sarah Campbell's P-Queue.

"for whom pictures are paradise"

Children's books do not serve to introduce their readers directly into the world of objects, animals, and people, into so-called life. Rather, if anything remotely similar to Platonic anamnesis actually exists, it would take place in the lives of children, for whom pictures are paradise. By remembering, they learn; what you put into their hands should have, insofar as human hand can impart it to paper, the color of paradise, just as a butterfly's wings have their patina. Children learn in the memory of their first intuition. And they learn from bright colors, because the fantastic play of color is the home of memory without yearning, and it can be free of yearning because it is unalloyed. In that sense, the Platonic anamnesis is not quite the form of memory specific to children. For it is not without yearning and regret, and this tension with the messianic is the exclusive effect of genuine art, whose recipient learns not from memory alone but from the yearning that it satisfies too soon and therefore too slowly.
-Walter Benjamin