Or to Begin Again (9 page)

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Authors: Ann Lauterbach

Tags: #Poetry

BOOK: Or to Begin Again
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Our attention, like soldiers, or:
Our attention, like soldiers, or:
 
 
Not like soldiers. Not like soldiers.
Not like soldiers.
 
 
And the apples and pears assembled on the white cloth
Apples and pears assembled on a white cloth
 
 
And the couple under the enormous tree—these
And the couple under an enormous tree—these
 
 
Picked out details on a chart. Then
Picked out, paused. Then,
 
 
Stumbling out from under the enunciated dirge
Stumbling out from under these forms
 
 
Of twilight's last screen
Sudden hatchings, partitions, reversals.
 
 
There were several hatchings, several namings,
The lesser and the leftover piled up
 
 
Several reversals of one into more than one.
Over the fecund industry
 
 
Had there ever been such magnitude, such spawning?
A counting of cast-off limbs.
 
 
Such counting of last limbs on the green?
To have unreason counted as reason
 
 
To have as fact unreason without crime
And only one intentional wound; to be
 
 
To covet the black eyes of the small dead rat.
Covetous of the smallest wakeful hour as
 
 
Adding and adding so the agenda grows
Of the black eyes of the small dead rodent.
 
 
And the blood stops running, the scar sets
Adding and adding so the agenda grew
 
 
The scar set and the tune rose into its thin retainer.
And the blood stopped running, and the scar set.
 
 
The scar set and the tune rose.
2.
A modest evocation, a simple claim. As his crimes were disbanded
A modest evocation, a simple claim.
 
 
At his death, the mourners came out from their foxholes
As his war crimes were
 
 
And the crows also.
Forgiven at death, the people
 
 
The year turned into another year overnight
Came out from their kitchens
 
 
The day turned into another day overnight
To mourn; crows agitated the air
 
 
The war was a separate entity, with its own turning dates.
And settled on kill.
 
 
The candles were lit.
The year turned into another year overnight.
 
 
Nevertheless, candles were lit.
The day turned into another day overnight.
 
 
Some counting was included in the dossier of events
The war was a separate entity, with its own turning dates.
 
 
Counting seemed to ease the ambiguity of the ocean.
The candles were lit.
 
 
There are the pluses and the minuses to add and subtract.
Nevertheless candles were lit.
 
 
The issue of fewer or more. The issue of cost.
Some counting was included in the dossier of events.
 
 
But, turning away,
Counting seemed to ease the ambiguity of the ocean.
 
 
The innumerable and the inseparable
The issue of fewer or more. The issue of cost.
3.
And the incommensurate
But, turning away,
 
In their separate, unique garb of silver
The innumerable and the inseparable
 
Riding up and over the long radiant angle
In their plural garb
 
Like a flushed stream of mercury
Rode up and over in a long radiant angle
 
These seemed to make the weapons and their procedures useless
Like the flushed stream of memory
 
Blank came back, blank followed blank, until full.
These made the weapons and their procedures fertile.
 
The pathos of the hour, its desire to be spoken.
The pathos of the hours, their desire to be said.
 
Noon came and went and no one watched.
But noon came and went and no one spoke.
 
No one watched, heard, or was beseeched.
No one watched, heard, or beseeched.
 
Know me!
called the empty bell from far off
The two hands reached up, surrendered.
 
And swiped its card, and drove away.
Know me!
someone called from far off
 
And the couple stood and kissed under the boughs of the tree.
And swiped his card, and drove away.
 
And the old man smiled to the camera.
The couple embraced under the boughs of the tree.
 
The old man, now dead, had smiled to the camera.
The old man smiled to the camera.
 
The young man, a soldier, smiled to the camera.
THE SCALE OF RESTLESS THINGS (FRA ANGELICO)
1.
Error bloom
inadequate spent
 
all the odd gloves thrown away subtract the
G
nothing to retrieve add
C
cloves
array unverified heat twisted wind mistaken for favor merge lift up pluck from vertigo
 
the shack's
bravado
swept out to sea.
Save the
O
.
 
Dripping not blood, not water, refuse of light metaphorical distension beyond the immortal If.
 
You might know how everything names itself as cost
and the poor
the shotgun shack not water, not blood,
 
not yet conceptual
as if to ornament the sign as easily as a strap
 
as if
in the welter of the exiled new
the girl ripped slip and no hair
she, too, had been shorn
like, and like an image.
2.
Enter in an initial
D
 
The Devil in monk's garb
the first hermits
 
a ring of space
around the head
 
miracle of the Book
floating across fire
 
knee-deep in mud
dream of the puddle
 
dream of the cloud
floating gift, missing
3.
arc of the halo
and a lily
 
enters the pattern
blue figures on the roof of the hut
 
central pinnacle
missing also
 
long vertical drops
architectural
 
The puddle is bitter.
It tastes of shiny
coins. Notice now how the lovers,
reflected in it, are
warped to perfection.
A chickadee sips and bows and
sips the moony bowl.
 
The mercantile dressage at the core of the Rose.
 
Enter in an initial
R
surrounded by a frame
where the minus conducts business partly noticed a breeze from across
scatters the miscellaneous
N
and the trials of Islam call of truth and
call to prayer
 
their inexact registers–
 
In our story, how Abelard spoke and how a crew migrated over the plains with its primer of elision the treatise on hunger on imminent foreclosures of the real–fury in stasis black dog returns and the past flips up
 
as if
word of mouth
could resurrect the simple course of seasons
sitting on the porch could save the world.
4.
If the saints were to meet
If the apostle were to call forth the magician
 
If the falcon were to reveal
If Francis were in the fire
 
If the palpable ordinance
If the wallpaper were singing
 
In replay she awakens.
In the wake of the replay, she
 
is awake.
It was all a dream.
 
The century in which she was a boy,
the hugely upholstered dress,
the pretend attraction to the swarthy lad.
If you
blinked, you missed it.
 
If you
blinked, you would have missed
the moment that she wakes
awakens is awake.
 
Almost an object of sight, almost within bounds of the known a new age new tusks new furrows new starving rats new mildews and rings new illuminated Spiders bright berries on branches catching ochre leaves there are no images
5.
Nevertheless
belated in affection
I
had gone goes more or less has had
to cede moist residuals–
unkempt sheets, etc.
The modern furniture, a cool polyester gray
out on the curb. And yet,
the materials, acquired,
cheat their source.
Moved away.
Moved toward.
Moved, or turned, away.
 
Flirty filmmaker deceived
I
and her ancestors, soiled her
party dress, whipped her torso,
led her across red rope at the club.
Made nothing
absolute
happen,
 
as she stepped away from a better job.
This is a
full-service
enterprise.
This is gutter and candle,
the informant and the slain.
Outrage, a kind of rash on her face,
on the grainy silent screen
as the director's mirror breaks open the sea.
6.
In the film of the painting,
the zip zips open,
dust flies
through the opened edge
the yellow fringe
the crimson tide
leave expression behind
 
mimic and aura condemned and so
 
open the miraculous envelope.
Read the blank page.
As usual, some German angels
spread-winged, are faced to the past.
As usual, one of them is sleeping.
7.
I
launched a scroll
in the misgivings of January,
after Rome. As
I
began
 
writing to the beloved,
something went awry.
«
And so
» I explicated the loss
and earned a degree.
I
watched the escalator rise,
I
mentioned positions and hats.
I
kept the heart girdled by fact
so that desire and its
accompanying historical grace
filled the auditorium with scholars.
Sleeves,
I
's sleeves, swept over the podium.
The field,
I
said, is infested.
 
Have you seen the orchid man?
Have you seen the blue eggs?
 
Prefab symmetry
lost its magic, its surfaces
 
purloined from drugstore
polish.
I
 
sets out to mesmerize
having lost, having never found
 
the blue eggs.
If you catch the light, go.
 
She might have called it
a fool's error
 
the collector crossing his arms directing traffic away from what
I
might have said–
 
Did you see? Have you seen?
Infidelity of the page.
Bug specks on the mantel.
Body parts, etc., on the field.
8.
The mess, the empirical debris
already written
in swank pretense up in the old hotel.
We gave him some money for new books.
His shoe had a hole in it, we could see that
as we walked along the road.
We speak of the person whose
words fall through the sole
of his shoe onto the muddy path.
For new
boots.
Error, a splash across a hem or cuff.
 
I
is in the theater
where
I
will create
the main character.
The audience is assembled has assembled will assemble
its hosanna.
The man his wife the young man
the rumpled sheets the man
the long kiss the touch
the man his wife
her sweater. The luggage the visit
the young man his embrace.
I
is in the chamber of birth.
The chorus explodes hosanna in the highest.
9.
 
The dream's deception.
The companion moth.
 
The cold child's fluorescence
masking its source.
 
The lover
sitting on an immense blue egg
 
in a nest of light.
Smile for the camera
 
dear herald, dear
avatar, we're not sleepy and–
 
Perhaps it was only the decorative
jewels of reason's promise
 
spoiling our outlook
the prismatic gems
 
the geometrical clasp
glinting on her neck.
 
No blood on the cutting room floor.
No ashes on the mound.
 
Uncharitable hard moments
of the architectural swerve–
 
bring back normal boredom
bring back the philanthropy of the Golden Age
 
bring back the sorrow of a single loss.
10.
How went it?
Covetously.
And now?
Also, but dead.
How goes that?
Sadly.
In what manner?
Mercurial, somewhat imagined,
certainly no longer.
A train?
Also. Gambling?
Evidently.
The small ones?
One by one.
Smoking?
Yes.
With love?
Now and then.
And so?
And so.
 
The hour going on it was it was
the little nerve pain at the side of the head

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