From Promontory of Liminal Field
These embarrassments
of elocution
The worn and morose
grooves of existence in their
refrain
pockets of light
the bee-eater’s exclamation
the sting of speech
plasticity of
your rapid confusions
whereby
brute morning accordionlike
sweats
collects as rivers in the chest
as a pimple of amber
encases Paleolithic flight
from promontory of
liminal field
in endless sessions
the wing
extends its razor
millions of summers ago
meanwhile incalculable exits
open each night
the moon’s Braille curtain.
Honolulu, Indiana
We anthologize
the weather, in small
post-nomadic c r o s s i n gs
Did our forebears’ gelato?
Were they more prone
to neither
as long as anyone, beneath a maze
of green leaves
sails
barque of February or
soup of June
seasons become
those who most
patiently row.
Let us such buildings stretch
out, reach in their
stead to the sky
for some meaning.
Still Life with Arctic Monkeys
This dream of gourmet
Cameras, where we
Bless this walking through the desert
Hand in hand with every known creature.
My reason
Batting Kafka eyelashes
Loads the ark with
What sounds like rain.
This paper museum.
As they float inside your poem
That we should give praise
For these icebergs blue
And rejoice in their teeth
Says the Kingfisher,
Astride the Empire State building.
Preciously await faith’s unveiling.
Holding your hand inside
My kaboom and cerebral
Map. That we were witness
To that throbbing Vegas
And wrecked caviar castles.
Each little now in
That springlike yard
A piano key upon which I play
On birth’s label
What corduroy typewriter.
Blistering Dinner Party
Neither was in the neighborhood of necessity, these strung out along the shore. The composer’s waves, his chauvinist forehead should be fair game, as were
Audrey Hepburn’s locks on TV. Both reclining on skates to emphasize the precarious
position that we inhabit inside each second, as if encased in another drawn curtain
to conceal the huge faux fur letters, the day’s signature. Unconcealed emotions, were
they left to their own devices at the blistering dinner party, predatory crocodiles of
both sexes. The film blurs and the accompanying music is so annoying we cannot
concentrate on our invisible novels.
The Color of Perfect
These waves, a metaphor for antiquity
Remarkable in their large blue
drowning in their own knowing.
Don't walk alone through this world
In a spasmodic memory think of the ocean and
remove yourself from the news.
Smell history in the waves' stagefright.
That the afternoon’s indifference
Exhausts itself in the revelry of:
Its cumulative tone
Silvered assonance.
The slow and arrogant cadence of the waves
Above death
Immune to the zodiac
The ocean exposes itself.
The ocean is its own gynecologist.
Its lyrical voice hovers somewhere just south of
Genre, oblivious yet embodying
A definition of hunger as
Yet undefined.
The ocean extends its bloody tongue to pronounce
Murder and also birth, both are
Equal to its Rococo foam.
The ocean is a swarm of always
The square root of its own illumination.
Its essence is well spent
The ocean is eating itself
Its dinner is generative.
Remarkable in their large blue
The waves have quit their employers.
After their departure
After the long lives of the public servants
Who dole out wooden words
The oceans will continue their conversation with the sun.
The ocean lives in seclusion, like
Han Shan, observing some unspoken agreement.
The ocean is our insurance, our doubt
Could we simply translate its complaint
Comprehend its angry eyes.
Learn As
It etches the ice.
what was and is.
Like the passing moment, half cuts
I search for
warmth,
change the heart’s channels
moving.
Each
embered conversation
Échoppe of
noon’s singularity.
Leav
es
in its
throat.
Larry Sawyer's debut collection Unable to Fully California is forthcoming from
Otoliths Press. His chapbooks include Poems for Peace (Structum Press), A
Chaise Lounge in Hell (aboveground press), Tyrannosaurus Ant (mother's milk
press), which was recently included in the Yale Collection of American Literature,
and Disharmonium (Silver Wonder Press). His work was recently included in The
City Visible: Chicago Poetry for the New Century (anthology, Cracked Slab Books,
2007) and A Writers’ Congress: Chicago Poets on Barack Obama’s Inauguration
(anthology, DePaul Humanities Center Press, 2009). His poetry and literary reviews
have appeared in publications including Versal, Chicago Tribune, Babel Fruit, Vanitas,
Jacket, MiPoesias, The Prague Literary Review, Coconut, 88, Hunger, Argotist,
Pinstripe Fedora, Skanky Possum, Exquisite Corpse, Court Green, the Miami Sun Post,
Ygdrasil, Shampoo, Rain Taxi, Van Gogh's Ear, and elsewhere. He edits MILK Magazine
and curates the Myopic Books Poetry Series in Chicago.
© Copyright 2010 Larry Sawyer
