Partly - Rae Armantrout Wesleyan Poetry Series

Скачать книгу

being

      dissected

      before an audience

      of one,

      none,

      hundreds.

      –

      New twigs

      do the splits

      as I once did

       Exchange

      City of the future

      in which each subway station’s stairs

      lead to the ground floor

      of a casino/

      mall.

      –

      What counts

      is the role

      defined for each piece

      by a system of rules saying

      how it can move,

      not the stuff

      the piece is made of.

      –

      In the intersection,

      a muscular, shirtless man

      with small American

      flags tied to each wrist—

      so that he looks

      like a wrestler—

      pushes, no, shoves

      then catches a stroller

      piled high with plastic bags—

      his stuff.

      –

      City of the future,

      where a tramway to the top

      of a peak

      opens onto

      a wax museum

      in which

      Michael Jackson

      extends one gloved hand

       Canary

      1

      Some folks got tortured

      by folks

      right afterwards

      at an obscure

      farmer’s market

      where handcrafted soda

      and artisanal mining

      showed

      we were on the right track.

      2

      Canaries

      served as coq-au-vin.

      3

      We thought of events

      as landmarks

      first,

      then as lifebuoys,

      but in this too

      we were mistaken.

       Mistakes

      1

      The subject will claim

      that she has been taken

      to the wrong place.

      That the room

      she is brought back to

      is not the room she left.

      That these comings and goings

      are happening

      to someone else,

      are gathering momentum

      controlled by a secret

      mechanism.

      That she needs to tell

      someone.

      2

      I walk out the door

      to the stone bench

      without meaning to

      (without meaning it?),

      each step

      jarring my frame

      as it would anyone’s

       If

      1

      One cultivates

      a garden of peculiars

      “beyond reproach”

      a plant like a half-

      folded accordion,

      a plant like a pale

      rock, split in two

      as if to ask,

      “Where

      is the original?”

      2

      (and a few

      self-starters

      with their sharp

      rocket-fin leaves.)

      3

      You, husk-light,

      forgetful,

      with these

      hollow bones,

      this fly-away hair,

      are you ready

      for a new season?

      If it’s just this:

      nutmeg-flavored latte,

      “pumpkin”

       Surplus

      I sat on the patio and wrote

      Each afternoon I would sit on the patio where one waggish, unmoored

      tendril nodded emphatically and the tree cast a web of nervous yet

      resilient shadows, while the crickets had no idea what they were

      insisting on—

      but then what’s an idea?

      I might visualize living sculpture (in which subjectivity, unable

      to either detach itself from the body or direct it, had a public

      experience of itself as surplus) without wishing to harm anyone.

      In fact, I did.

       Assembly

      1

      With large red lips,

      a ceramic fish face

      in a pink knit pouch

      from which spinelike

      sticks protrude

      is suspended

      above the work station.

      2

      Though ghosts don’t exist,

      electrons on the mirror’s surface

      absorb arriving photons and,

      in their excitement,

      emit others that

      come back your way,

      replicate a woman.

       Outburst

      1

      What do you like best

      about the present?

      Reflection—

      its

Скачать книгу