some predicament
personality’s constancy, if and with
ripples in the chain, cracks in the china:
it won’t disown me, I wouldn’t define it, so
it will be left alone
and when polio takes the right, it will be sinistral
duly repeated theories:
the world as hologram,
the haystack as the needle obscurer
love is labour
change: inevitable
but the change coming now fast and heavy-handed
there are strange occurrences in the fragrance of these parts,
saffron, maybe brushed metal
and there is a strange and foul and white noise, but worse:
all nights in the yellow light of a bare lamp
stupid electricity, she says,
you don’t get it
you open your eyes
with difficulty
dried crust of injury holds them together
like mountaineers hold on to rocks and achievements
there is that
and there’s a
stranger leaning now on the
awkwardly low windowsill
picking between her toes with her fingers
that’s the body-language for
so what the world is coming to an end
we are still going for a stroll
a deep shade of patina
whatever that means
falsely timid, shoulder-patting, self-acquitting at every turn of the earth murmuring to himself god is love and
love is patience
but the world is young and not gentle
i go through these churns of the stomach,
when my heartbeat rises, i mistake it for emotions,
i do my own version of the Philoctetes on the island
in mine he lies on a bed of lavender, and that is
pretty much that
*
i don’t know how to silken what’s been coarse
the loud thumping is just replaced by
a forest of juniper trees, and so
there is a forest, also of,
the shadows of the juniper trees
(come under)
you call, someone asks
who it was; it’s everyone’s business don’t you know it
rosemary
some impressively beautiful oddity of the body
like a hand that won’t work and/or a learned mouth that won’t speak
so what do you do
you patiently teach it to think and you learn to write with the other
so arduous that you hallucinate from trying
it’s only as strong as an allergic reaction to fruit hair
still, it induces feeble apparitions everywhere you go, you
don’t know if it is because you’re new here, but you know you
want it stronger
at least that’s what you say in your journals
so that everyone knows a thundercloud that’s you
years later i touch buttons, they summon the
radical history of stuff,
of drab stuff
of vicissitude
what you believe believes back
that you are a guest on the earth you tread
her mother thinks
she is
a guest at her own youth
mumbling tar and
feathers, tar and feathers, tar
and feathers
you slowly tie the tourniquet
rock back
someone begins to shout
a bit of fear in your palm,
your trousers take the shape of your stride
and your liver grows larger, a bus departs
you put your last gum
in your mouth
*
they make ice with electricity
they lay very still
at night in
rooms with water damage
you wonder if the sun each day is a new one
or if it’s in regress
because time moves in spirals
and the ailment has no cure,
you put beeswax on your scalp
on your clothes
people open their doors to you
you go through them with a false pretence
time is what passes between two appetites
the senses go reeling when you see the
sun light up only the top of the trees these
are known as the wax years
for dew collection you need two hands one
walk in the forest and all is forever pastoral
including a half-rotten fox
a bed of apricots
frozen soil
you have one bad toenail
she’s got a few
*
the beach is littered with smoothed glass
could be that people sin somewhere else
or a miracle took place
there’s a path with nettles on both sides
that’s called education
walking it is diagnosis
not walking it is a bedroom in an old city
you don’t want either
someone gives you a lock of their hair
and in your other hand an axe handle
you hit a walnut
you touch the wood milk
you collect its leaves
you boil them
wash the hair
with its broth
*
duty called and the duty
responded:
have faith in ourselves:
some of the past is there in your face
the rest is in the distance
landscape’s god’s garden
you are god’s dog
this chalet is where you rest your breast
a sharp piece of a word rolls around your tongue
a faun is whispering
don’t say it
your eyes put death in doubt
this minx is calling you to duty
to your home
away from home
her hands on the beads
marble body in ecstasy
but you pan one-eighty and there are
wastrels in the marshlands
with clean eyes and mouths
in the distance
(some of the past yes) but also
a young soldier
in the distance civilisation and
vilnius
now for the baby
the hours turn into weeks and years
and the hours belong to the lord
should the fig tree turn clear,
oblivious, but tranquil
should it chant an anthem
life in your thirties
in the year nineteen-thirty
should you deny privilege the planting of red flowers and green leaves
should all your filaments light at the lightest step
and so the dumbfounded days turn into
shark weeks, turn
into shark months
and the battle is between faith and disbelief
between the ample and the supple
basically:
if it is all a lie
then they should erect breath-taking
creaking houses in the wake of your step
they should draw a bath in your name
a spider should enclose an ant in silk for you
may you not be up to knees in parcels
returned to sender
may it all be reciprocated
like lightning to the rod
I wrote this poem while I was a resident at Rupert, Vilnius. It is about two poets: Rosemary Tonks who denounced poetry and became religious, and Vincas Mykolaitis-Putinas who renounced his priesthood and turned to poetry.
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