delays

Here is a list of possible delays to the blog:

1. FIRE
2. No Computer
3. No insurance
4. Christmas shopping?

Please forgive. I'll do my best to muscle through things and begin posting more soon.

hailey

palinode 8 1/2

The land-
Scape
Is
Deafen
Ing
It is
Houses
They
Are not
Moving
Is that
Obvious?
I move
Within
Them
But if
They moved
How would
They do it?
Incrusted
Shaking

It is not
Winter
But winter-

Some
Place

Like I bought
A tree

All I can
Do
Is read
The paper
    and list:

     What
     Needs
     To
     Be
     Done

Joey took
The books
With the
Limited
Press
Runs
I took
All my
Messy
House--

Palinode 8

Not to research
you
but you
Unwork work
falling into
a chair
despite things
I seat you

      “you are here you are talking”

sloppy
they are your
words I let
you speak
them with-
out interruption

I have trouble with reading the paper or
      paying attention

      to what you are talking--
      have you deliberately?

      What? It’s not funny, dear…

      Did you see the red maple by the train?

      Uh-huh.

      It is so bright. When do they lose their leaves?

      Hum?

      When do they-- dear, when do they die for the season?


      In this same poem, I am listening,
I want:

this night I

want

want a temper-

drop

ature drop to

bring

bring winter

white

white as it is

supposed

supposed to

-a-

to suppose

things

these things are

me

alone in me is

all

no longer all-
owed,

we are here
we are sloppy--talking.

Palinode 7: Alice ordered me

Yes those languages
work work

It’s not that I
don’t understand
(sounds are not
more than thermometers--
tell me how hot it is in here)
it’s that I don’t work
that way
    

This is to research you
I read the paper

In seamless night smells collide
I try to lap you, speak sweetly

I know what you mean
In French or Zulu
    

When I’m not at work, I laugh like this:

      Republican unseated
      Despite maverick streak

      Research unseated
      Despite maverick strep throat

For meaning--I’m not the one they go to anymore
    

This seamless night
Nearly, a separate poem

An empty table, I said,
Not something like it
A bird without feathers
Loud
Naked

Rats in for
Shedding my dis-

& leaves, yellow
were falling

This is Alice’s style, I steal her words

here:

…company.
    

Ask me to pool my words from nothing
Go ahead ask me
    

I will tell you a narrative strain:

I still have a lover,

But I am not here.

Palinode 6: Bitter-like

In this lap language I’m not speaking sweetly.

I’ll tell you the workbook words I really don’t understand:

Crisp body
Bright flavor
Noble rot.

This one I say daily:
Viscosity

:

“A measure
Of the resistance
Of a substance
To motion
Under an applied
Force.”

This sound will ruin you:
malolactic fermentation.

I say them,
Make them up,
Make them indivisible.

This is:
--German style
--South African style
--From the Loire Valley

Just a word bank, and still they ask me:

What does dry mean?

My voice is:
noble,
bright,
and crisp.

I would rather an empty table--
Ware without contingency,

Bitter-like, I say

For (preposition) no reason.

Palinode 5

I will make no sound like
Ruin--

Like ruin I will make
No sound in, above, beside, like--

This is (Greek) for in
No namable preposition;

Combine them (Latin? German?)
I do not know what they mean:

Night jasmine
State room
Star connection
Jungle gym
Night jasmine
Air conditioner
Honey mouse
Visualization
Floor sample

My voice is a crepuscule unfinished--
Things said only to be seen,

Deaf night coming
nothing formed,
nothing important.

These things, something (like)
a full table, the feathers without the bird,
soundless
         content.

Palinode 4

‘Formed’ sounds an
important word,

ticks crisply to
one notch up.
           Hearing is not
twilight, your voice
is not downy, not
goosefeathers—

I will make
           sound

like a Person, like a
Window Opening, like
a Piano to-
gether—
        Order your
        Court, consort your
        Horses— surely,

You are important
Amorphous
        Un-
Formed;

These     words     are     enough     born,

larger.

sounds like

I won’t neither
Make sounds like
Person or piano
Rememory the
Old when the
New comes up
Hearing your voice
Is like crepuscule
With Nellie, I consort
With my lips
The sun is unstuck
Undone I have muttered
Past crisp crossings
They are still new
I still -read motionless or
Quiet or yet- cannot say them.

as best he can

As best he can
he will say he was
at least a body

-fingers-

-untoward texture-

he does not realize,
around the new, the old
inhabits grey matter;
to remember a concert
with a person or piano
is not remarkable;
hearing

-unuseful-

-copied-

music;
he runs his fingers through
his straight blond hair,
over his scalp
it is not beautiful--
thinning in ten years.

the doctor

When entering his new life his fingers will fall softly toward the keys. His hair will be straight now, as he had wished as a boy. He will no longer need his worn out copy of Grey’s Anatomy, because he is no longer a doctor, and although he does not realize why, he keeps it around his new apartment, hoping that one day it will be useful, or one day it will teach him something he does not know. His music is daunting. Anyone is amazed to hear it. His straight beautiful blond hair will be thinning in ten years, but he has no memory of any other texture or thickness. When he grows older, he will say he was once a great concert pianist and run his fingers over his scalp, thinking backwards as best he can, and doubting, in a small way, whether that life really happened.

Must we define?

palinode (PAL-uh-noad) noun

A poem in which the author retracts something said in an earlier
poem.

[From Greek palinoidia, from palin (again) + oide (song).]

Two of us live in Philadelphia. I'm not sure where the rest of you are. I work at a wine store. That's me there in the green. Joey can speak for himself. I will say, his afro is not usually quite as poofy.


As for this blog, it is meant to be a venue for mainly poetry, fiction and criticism coming from our happy blue room in Fishtown. In time, I hope a few others will add in to the conversation as well.