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From In a Supralunar World
I.
More
& more now no one
speaks----but
I
say “no one speaks.”
This
style is a style, not something
imagined
this
style says something she said:
“I
like your style”
then
said something
----
“Those
plucky girls upset the roman emperor.”
“Plucky
girls.”
II.
And if in
following you have I
tattooed “merde”
on my hand?
I am
human only from my knees
down my feet
huge
Shall I tattoo “cunt”
on my hand Papers stamped
“inutile”----
sleeping
on scrub
going back to bureaucracy Leaving
bureaucracy
for buttered toast shit
in churches
----useless
A
drink on the steps
below
the church
Who
lets us drink on these steps
----
love in these steps
III.
I am
occasionally attacked
by
birds of paradise
That
what’s the matter can only be
What’s
the matter still
&
the
eyes still have it ---- I know
you
by
your pin-point pupils
all
the rest having fallen
into
the book
----
look up from pages
cheerful
obscure amused
(But
one can parry parry
or
foil
or
try
to draw a measure
IV.
The sea being in the
sea Call and we shall speak of
things you never thought you’d
speak of
Begin
with a bird who dislikes the music Other
music it
might like
In the dream we are two chickens
in trees above a restaurant near
Hemmingway’s house
Little
love clucks
V.
Everybody’s anxiety
revolving
Meeting
manuals Failed submission
Bow
down desperate we dance
with
electronic appliances in
rooms
for living
Where
we come from we are
taught
&
pulled
You
see We are
enraptured
VI.
The
nouns shall woo you
They shall be wooed
VII.
Every
bed an exit every “almost caught hold of”
then
fled flee but not flee
to
every bed Not at all unaware of
fossils stories the market place
lamplight
the
snake charmer I think I know is there would be an original snake
Whatever
snake Dear sweet slither
Every wish to analyze
Every
stray saved from exit For parting
Etc.
And
should I one day be walking, alone, in the woods, at night,
and
meet a young woman naked, alone, in the woods, at night,
might
I not consider the possibility of blankets, and how one comes
to be
walking in such a place at such a time.
~
It is
good to be a poet on the way to the office of the censor,
where
one can read all periodicals
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K LORRAINE
GRAHAM is the editor of Anomaly, a
magazine of innovative poetry and poetics with a focus on writers in
greater Washington, DC. Her poetry, book, and art reviews have appeared
or are forthcoming in Mirage/Periodical, Primary Writing, Poetic
Inhalation, Submodern Fiction, The Review of Contemporary Fiction, and
elsewhere. She is the author of two chapbooks: Dear [Blank] I Believe in
Other Worlds (Phylum Press) and Terminal Humming (Slack Buddha).
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