Jennifer’s blog is http://jenniferkdick.blogspot.com
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Jennifer K. Dick
After Jacques Roubaud’s On the Plurality of Worlds of Lewis
i.
This world is the fusion of
Shadow-bodies,point
Where possibility
No longerlives
Merges
In throughthe object
Revealing itself
As noteunscrawled
As through
Invisiblelettering,
Reflectionof emptied being
Involutioncontained
Bottled inand out
Escaped smoke
Sucked backdown
To call it ‘a necessary truth’, ‘an
Explanation’is not even to see
This pointthat is disappearing,
Homogeneous,occupied
A sudden lack of direction
Waking on the world’s backside
Curve above the orbit
Gone cold
Reshadowed full globule,
Redoubled,a space falling into
A continual insistent
Way toreach
Down in the dark
ii
You are
all points joined from arc to arc
in the other
betweenthem
not even theimpassable space
of anarrow:
oneuncrossed sub-world to another,
Charon,Lethe, Orpheus
pleascarried back
Penelope toEurydice in
return anunreturn-
able,still.
Survival
is too smalla word
fordisconnection.
Time. Thiswait. This awaited.
On thebackside bright
as eclipsedhorizon
Theblinding
ungazed at
Other.
6 poems from Betwixt (the continuation)
(1)
“Through the floatingpermanence of the relative distances”
(G Bennett, Last Words, p41)
When is oneword still enough? When is the iridescence irradiation? The path from here tohere is… I cannot tell you, Eury, where the stopped chronometer will point (us),nor what messages this lopsided one way walkie talkie has left adrift instatic. I fissure. I shift. I have returned to the edge of the edge then thegulf beyond that to call forth the void into under round which thesecables-roads-tracks-wires rope and strangle. I grip you harder. If I hold, thensnap, then the surface, that one, a canvas, reveals itself to be tactility. Tobe ground to dust or, grinding against me, pressed flat into the book to holdthat still stilled and crumbling orange light blue flash the rails crack andclatter rattle retch in the braked squeal sparking the night of tunnels intoinstallation, space, to be planets and galaxies, your breast an arc, curve andpoints. There is a wilderness of silence in you, or walls that would be me. Ido hear the singing. Still on the stunned branches I wrap round you like avine, tightening.
(2)
What will hold meback from the conflagration in the daffodils, Orph?
Forgot thesafe word? worlds? This is what I meant by build it on an estuary, a bayfrontbeachfront rise to the occasion wave fronting these tropical airs that havejust now reached the Transylvanian fog rolling in and upwards. Coney Island’shot lips ’80s replays on the Top 10 Kasey Casem in loafers, leggings and jellyshoes—won’t catch me dead with my fingers glued to bubblelicious pinkstainless steel seating on this rollicking rollercoaster. Painted white, itmakes for a whitewashed story under Trocadero’s lions. She leapt, or was shepushed? Pulled from the scenic balcony staring out towards Eiffel’s tower?Unwinged, human flight’s too far for shallows, not drowned as Icarus, butcrushed into limestone, body vaporized: rock shadow, stone-singed. SHHH—SHUSH now! He came before youinto this dark. A lute. Fluted. Flouting fingernail grating down the chalklessblackboard. Messages never written, or left. I call down into the cup of thedaffodil shaped like an old telephone line. Can you hear? Operator. Pleaseconnect. Me to. This is. An outgoing. Call. Line only. Is there someone else?On the other end? Listen. Songbird or sonic waves? Come into the night. Lightglowing bright. Green. What other shade would I be? (His / her / my own)silhouette.
(3)
Inceptions or instant-soup packages, ‘twere I aculture found under you
This saidthis, a country which does not exist. Yet. A continent of mono and duo-syllabicnames, flat stones lugged upstream. Temples, 3 eyes you congeal betweenfingertips, toes, read signs the stop, starbucks, second avenue and beforethings slip back to mouton cadet or boulevard haussmann, Athens or Thessoniki,slope under where I can be, Eury-, that man in waiting. Tailcoated or togaed.Meandering homewise, shuffling off this coil-like viper-skin along ruetiquetonne, schlept then schluffed a muffled meek metric me away. What does mortality serve? To be master ofall creatures but you? Breast bitten wrist coil or cruel, I could not but lovethis denial. One sting. One suck. From open veins, scythed, scathed, empty alast tune out. Blast me back-forward to take a step, stumble, get up withoutseeing, certainly, not you. Nor any other.
(4)
Back in a flash, on the half shell, givin’ hera big, glossy-poser smile
Rock Hudsonon the silver screen while “only the Phantom knows” bellows a baseline out theold 2-way am/fm. Take your pick, plucked nostalgic out past the 70’s, nowpre-flight screened with baggied gels, liquids, creams. Caps to screw tight incase of pressure (pleasure) change encapsulate within more plastic (latex?).Orph, could I make you a doll, a Barbie replacement? She’d never settle forjust any Ken, must be business tycoon or Pop American Icon Nouvelle Star Ac’kind of pre-fab: test to hit the right notes, tale tuned. Don’t dawdle ordoodle on the accent just south of the “t”, pretend a dwindling “h” happenedbetween “ting” and “thing”. Object-ification is smooth surface, hallowed groundpalming her breast. Pomegranate. Palpitate(-d/-ing). Nope, you’d never make that mistake. After all, she’sgot you by the balls.
(5)
Nothing more to do but whine.
Hand totrace-lace-bind, center stuff, staple, stroke. You’d known it was me, my foldedgrammar, tattletale forgotten, coat in the wind, wishing for a hopscotch match.There, where I cut back the years, say “go to pieces”. The patched bleedworkbox left behind of yellows. I suppose, had I a forwarding address, past thisadvent calendar’s seasonal grating, I would have been lying in wait, lined upahead, flagging the signless poledancer back down under us. Hold. Here. Yourbones breaking, marrow-exposed syntactical errors. My voice in the foam, thephone, a pause—enfin—wheremight we meet? For what price, a plate, a platter onto which I give you over.Will she take care of you? He? Theace, half-moon historical abstracts linger like smog in the acrid air. Can’tyou taste it? Me? I know the direction this dart is heading.
(6)
Mist and air meet anundercover harp
Echo’s got the dropsy.Plum outta autofills, betcha she could take us all down with her,within her griffon, a guffaw—donepawin’ the playgirls, Orph?—I think this map’s upside down,towel-twisted, collapsed collage of the N the F the A line. What’s it going to take to break out the newfangled tram and run rampant along the 15tharrondissement? Seems a sham to gum up the gardens, picket the pot-holefillers, sell the last shelf of books and call it a day. Don’t you think? Thegals here, at your feet, are all-smiles. Fact-filled frills can’t get a ruffle out of this newlywedseason’s strumpet spinsters. Bi-ped ghost chameleon, you are not, Orph, thoughI can’t play this game any other way. Hose down the mid-Manhattan madhatterhoopla, spin me on up towards Harlem: I want to go back to the old days—sycamorejazz and mint juleps, down home southern bells in glitzy chintz nightshifts,raffles or cakewalks along the local 4H fairs. Who’s gonna be a winner? ThoughtI meant you, Orph? Naw. Pick that fading image of a girl back up and see ifsomeone hasn’t spotted Narcissus somewheresabouts. I think just a glance willdo her (me) some good. Here, in my harp-sign-and-signal-less labyrinth, whereare we wandering? Could be a rhetorical ring to pattern the trap not to speakto, see, know, pin the tail on. I got to wonderin’, what’s it like? to break?