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Poetry

from Shine

 

STRAIN FOR COHERENCE of narrative to have lasso-like bearing where
chokeholds restrain disorder. Quiet floating over al-Hamad radar heat
sensing blast. Cool air lifts on the lake. Pawpaw and cherry. Balinese angel
observes evening’s thin buzz of distant traffic. Praise and blame. AR-15s
close range room quilt or bread. Quiet of a boy in a tub as water drips.
Towels lavender sage burns New Mexico pinecone lodestone Cerberus
three-headed monster paces my desk.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I FELT EARTH MOVE in ribbons—waves of chaotic motion. Screens
flashed news—we had only wanted simple things—
                        American beach grass
                                    gingham, sugar or muskets
                                    above the door
                        Bottle-brush grass
                                    bare feet
                        warrant of impersonal affection
                        see with Lucia                         her name light that
                                                bears
passage—tacky lily stamen stains. Common objects of feeling. Rice cake
crumbs jammed in my foot. Pale silver paves the street.
            Her eyes look out from daguerreotype. Movement of skirts on rich
Aubusson. Master in her—his hammer can’t bend like amiable answers.
Pressed to bloody toilet seat in terror. Muscles atrophy, wrap tightly any
bone. Some were saddled, others walked in stiff canvas or wool, bayonettes
aimed on Cherokee Cree Crow Nipmunks Mahicans. March in dogwood
spring, dear Shiloh.
            Boxed men in Rio Marseille football beatings Bab al-Yemen warplanes
shatter colorful windows red blue drone shadow passes Jabal an-Nabi
Shu’ayb. Wesley’s savior wanders interior. Naked flesh of her in him me a
pronoun dust to pulse or jerk wide spasm. Lived
                        encounter             poplar            
            light gleams on cyclists’s passing helmets
we are woven 
                                    loss                        sky
            rain                                                            played
                        nursing             tiny
                                    fists            milky
                        puppy lips
            east                                                west
                                    bison rhinos and aurochs
            tall cord grass—
spokes flashing past. Weep in the arms of strangers. Industrial mass
cushions or sparkled glass. Spritzers under umbrellas. Moistened torsos tear
master’s measured aim. Sky earth rare home to hear.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ANY NARRATIVE TO BREATHE a sudden wash of rain air humid tires
spray curb a city’s calm in late window. Fan and brandy quiet to relieve. A
reason or fat act to prove. Against a continent or long river systems, lakes
and valleys, canals open to receive a movement of goods. From the
beginning
            turn-in                        thin shacks                         there are
 narrow bunks                                    apothecary weeds             heal
azimuth of moving lives. Leaves give shade. A child’s native attunement in
Cancer to break into human pieces. See what’s left in collected debris. No
words—not rubble or crushed cinder blocks—relate catastrophe’s measure.
Proof of Yankee idealism or greed sounded in aftermath expanding. Liberty
of living unattended by what sinks the man in a doorway with the corpse of
his girl no blood there is anguish his face stabbed to see every instant
circular lives orbit the heart is a telescope and forgets.
            Dog, scorpion, pinecone. Threadbare to bare earth’s grave pairings,
leavings. Pear tree in misty rain. Raccoon pushes compost bin. The patriarch
poses on his way to Spain. Balinese angel assures protection. Charms or
                        fool purchases                        history of
ruin            plastic as pieces of a game            forget something
            loved in a nook of the basement
                        black man dead somewhere
in his car in her
                                    opportunity
of breath. Alone enfolded by wetness. Parti-colored streamers a cake.
Remember the Spider-Man piñata. Soft wind. Motorcycle. Fan. Mastery of
the quiet rounded uncertainty every piece any sudden move hung in the
common. Come and see.


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CROSS BORDER TO FOOD and tampons. Weight of democratic vote
sticks thin shirts or dirty slacks. Fattened on corn syrup—a row of guards
collapses on Bosphorus Bridge. Commit to wages to trade dignity’s index
for hunger relief. Smell the city subway heat. Straight white fantasy withers
under image repair. Loaded to kill wordy ambassador freak timing mass
culture farce. Air increases muscles around the spine. Prickly ash or
purslane, common
                        sidewalk trash                        pigeons            wander
mottled                         hunt curb rejecta
            America                        like wilderness forgone
as if            and how            it will
            fuck up easy plans
                                                dying of hunger and thirst
                        sailing on rafts tied
            Florida or            what they called
Appalachia
forgot to run a freeing of a sense to own others, appose sovereignty in
isolate wastes. Embodied African labor. Atlantic’s sucking currents—grave.
            Currencies devalue—oil slaughter Venezuela. Summering in Hamptons
or Cape Ann halibut cod lobster butter—rhythmic access bindweed and
speedwell. Fisted in porn rage roses undulate in belly fat. Priced out to
service text device era of common digits a dom to manage pleasure’s ratios.
As if the bearded imam’s moral north adhered to Enlightenment heave,
weird edge in liberal dream lift. To stand or steer in green clusters of dry
maple leaves traffic gaining crosswalks or waiting stained by storied rage a
purple tank top and brown arms to dare the onrush a flow or raft of safety
dreaming.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WEEDS TAKE THE VALLEY. Goldenrod and tansy. Sumac drops pods of
burnt red like crimson in the wings of black birds. Thistle and dog-
strangling vine to crawl over Shiloh naked heat
                        say how to advance calm purpose in doubt
                        numbed by image             contained in sound             dis
                        tribute order of feral circumstance
                        mighty ordinance crushed video
            Nabi Shu'ayb Lesbos Aleppo
                        head-phones plugged in buzzing hard-working
                        wasp between windows wan paper cells weave
half unwound, sleek in spinal flex. Coffee hawk feather morning sun chews
a cord.
            Pardoned by exceptional geographic condensation. As words aim or
misdirect, inter ancient humors or murmur measures one passes through to
none. Called back to a physical body, a beginning first going out of one to
no one. Wasp in morning breeze sucks juice on fallen pears. Balinese angel
wings expand to breathe and in confused motion flings self to self in
adjacency. Orbit of the eye while a fan’s plastic arms unwind. Cool resolve
of home routines. Complacency settles disease. In some wild remote one
continues beside a tongue a tempo a sleeve or hood. Implements or codes of
continuance.

 

 

 

 

 

Contributor

Dale Martin Smith

Dale Martin Smith is a poet and literary scholar in Toronto, ON, and is the author most recently of Flying Red Horse (Talonbooks). He teaches at Toronto Metropolitan University.

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The Brooklyn Rail

FEB 2017

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