* The Prisoners' Dilemma Has Something To Do With Sailors *


landscape distributions are seen from masts also


the sea is the face of VIRGINIA, yes, but
is there a limit on combing thin limit surroundings?


             The Snatched Visit:

the snatched visit husks sink Indian Ocean
like mornings familiar thru
prisoners' Silent Belt Night
{exeunt prisoners, belting out "Silent Night"}
childlike Academy above did color down and
bricklayer them prisoner against prisoner


      the walls were the panoramas


sugarcane ship put into THAT BOTTLE by
a circus of fingers, slowwwwwly the pursued,
decrying dry wolves restored straw by straw,
became golden throat doves,
                                          and, sez the
                                         Word all Earth,

"Your frequency echoes seemed to us only solitude"


rolled rooms ever for rolled Sun did recover crowds
might be an apt reply if Word all Earth didn't habitually
confuse forward speech with a hundred fetishes


aeons, aeons, & this poem ("The Prisoners' Dilemma Has
Something To Do With Sailors") is still talking about
prisoners -- & will wrap up with a mention of dry wolves


Word all Earth, you
sworn sheet traveler,
                               a lurid shadow of unwritten poems
just as ink is the shadow of fiction, is now, just as prisoners
were, Here of Shipwrecked There!
                                                  the wolves are coming
up
                                                  next,
                                                  their
                                                  mouths are
chewing-places


another next: a divide arises: though the prisoners be lost

(dead, under like-pleasure, tho constantly a line
                                              which draws sea's end)

in the center of Indian Ocean sunk itself in center of All Water
they'll somehow find themselves in dry wolves' bellies




* the NEST of the damp star, brightest of the 12 in VIRGINIA constellation *


the twelve branches of SHIPWRECK...

wilderness these to me as I wilderness to these twelve branches
(branches as in chapters, for this writing, but in my brain branches
are the branches of some titanic tree) of swift standing bones


a lots has been cremating, of the dozen whose Inferno is fitter..?..
theirs go awakening endings, damp star, aspiring decadent, they go &
say
they fake most our ruffians, say most our esfinges are interpretable
chunks


damp star wishing the earth's bareness for home, with maybe
a tree left to nest this star safe from the SHIPWRECK eleven


— by my utterance Virginia too, you, sixth branch, damp star





* The NEST Of The Cotton Star *


the Cotton Star, where a NEST,
and a tremor horse,
permitted they in white tones


wounded this crease, the middle aside...


                              the middle aside...
welkin arithmetician,

      brine arithmetician,

                         eighty-sixth hunter,

was the light leading your belongings,
alongside the tremor horse, into NEST


often mid-air is a must for pantomime


mid-air the Slumber Countess, oh surely you meant
the Cotton Star, recalls when she was honored below,
under clang, under the clang, quoooo th'under-clang:
"go sliver'd air the | tremor horse is most legible"


of and of...
                 down heyday leave creases wounded

what covers the responsible NEST under the cotton star?
an arithmetician for the sky, another for the sea - what the two face:
ninety hunters for the NEST of the Cotton Star - what the ninety say:

"with the last straw of astrology, our blood leaks in its looks"




* World weighty with skies? No, world weighty with all in heaps the foul lyres *


this is a windfall for you, Biblical daughter -
a personal plea for BROWN MERCURY, for
America & scroll provided by BROWN MERCURY

my personal plea to you, Biblical daughter, was met
with not compliance, nor outright refusals, but with
your anecdote of a Korean map-maker who omitted
America from his world cartograph -- the map-maker
did admit meeting French sailors who claimed to have
seen America -- they found an endless wilderness, lifeless
save for the cries of patriots in the far distance

I had ten dollars, & gave eight for Mystery, Biblical, & Curse books:
"Alcoholic Murders" "The Golden" "The Warning Falcon" "Cuentos"
"Alice's Psychology" "The Quotation Rubber" "Major Liaisons of the
Disguised Man" "Further Poems of a Millionairess" "Virginia Triggers"

plea between sneezes - I got the iron thomas bug - $2 plea hearings

the above line I discovered in the flyleaf of "Virginia Triggers",
written (the book, though possibly also the note) by Kallalisumeno - my own
note, penciled beneath, after reading the book, is

the scrolls are the skies - the lyres are brown mercury's americas

iron thomas bug was
Kallalisumeno's undoing

brown mercury bug
is my own undoing

Kallalisumeno, Kallalisumeno, Kallalisumeno,
ME & YOU have traded within your name,
Kallalisumeno, Kallalisumeno, Kallalisumeno,
now I've a name as long as all your thoughts --

Proteus? countless no longer, Virginia always



* To Be Sure, I am a Forest and a Night of Dark Trees *


how cypress numerous upon the earth, and so
forth, is what I'm inscribed to compose

my respite be ornaments (for instance, a star wrapped
in the middle of the amber-grain waves) on names in silver:


"MY SOUND LEGERDEMAIN

gold arm of that cream, the sun:

as soon as it scalds Virginia's face her
each thought is halved for vengeance,


~But take on
the sway of
things, tho
yours is not
the reed's~


inscribed on port side (which
is a half) of the star wrapped in
the middle of the amber-grain waves"



sorry, I meant my REPRISE be ornaments (for instance, a star wrapped
in the middle of the amber-grain waves) on names in silver (here
again):



"MY SOUND LEGERDEMAIN

gold arm of that cream, the sun:

as soon as it scalds Virginia's face her
each thought is halved for vengeance,


~But take on
the sway of
things, tho
yours is not
the reed's~


inscribed on port side (which
is a half) of the star wrapped in
the middle of the amber-grain waves"



how cypress numerous upon the earth:

Proteus? countless no longer, Virginia always



and so forth:

Proteus? countless no longer, Virginia always



is what I'm inscribed to compose:

Proteus? countless no longer, Virginia always (here again):



Proteus? countless no longer, Virginia always, Proteus? countless
no longer, Virginia always, Proteus? countless no longer, Virginia
always


my reprise be ornaments (for instance, a star wrapped
in the middle of the amber-grain waves) on names in silver:



"MY SOUND LEGERDEMAIN

gold arm of that cream, the sun:

as soon as it scalds Virginia's face her
each thought is halved for vengeance,


~But take on
the sway of
things, tho
yours is not
the reed's~


inscribed on port side (which
is a half) of the star wrapped in
the middle of the amber-grain waves"



«±  ±»
jeff harrison is the author of "Fickleyes, Futilears, & William Wormswork" is  available from MAG Press., and a  chapbook "The Unread Is Carefully Ancient" is available from Writers Forum. #4 in Furniture Press's PO25centsEM series, he also has two e-books at xPress(ed), and one at Blazevox. His work has appeared in Nerve Lantern, Sentence, MiPoesis, Big Bridge, Muse Apprentice Guild, VeRT, Cipher Journal, Xerography, Argotist, Moria, Poethia, Word for Word, Xerography, Blackbox, Masthead, Side Reality, Generator, Tin Lustre Mobile, foam:e, Eratio, XStream, A Chide's Alphabet, 5_Trope, The Dream People, Aught, Blackboard Project, Starfish, Kulture Vulture, Znine, Newtopia, Pettycoat Relaxer, Great Works, canwehaveourballback, Gypsy, Kichen Sink, Wandering Hermit Review, and Cranky.







: ARCHIVES :

















ABOUT



«±previous
















































next±»