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.