the burr of my poem

Quick
children kiss us
we are going through dream

– Audre Lorde

—

I meeked the poem on to a sunspilt
star, and it

growled        the purr of it was tinsel
                       but I granted it
                       my weasel and

it purred again        the burr of my poem
is gone, or

has it?            we long for transitive verbs
                       when we could easily
                       be content with riddles

—

We are going through dream
and the children

know which dream to live &
which to slay        the

song too knows but words
get in the way –

٣ word wrestles

أ
hoarfrost, iced munitions led
astray by

word, by Word – gift of song
rift of Song

by word        heard wrath, slept
as the chain

of verbs belonged: they woke
in disarray &

chain, the sweat of their mirrors
unbridled now –

(ii)
morning as errant song, the gift as mend
as the architecture of mould
this would of

wear & mendicancy! how the strain of rinse
builds fences, how it stains
the oak of pale

ت
an unpried zone, withheld with whose bark?
       solitary perhaps with
       saturn’s name, which

saturn, you ask? tuneshot with tuesday’s age
       unhooked perhaps with
       my master’s rage, which

master, you ask?

the half that has and the other

Two unequals sitting
      together,
talking amiably about what it is
that makes one half have and the other not –
this is where imagination cedes ground
to unreason –
so pitch perfect you are in a hurry to call it love

---

Here is the data visual accompanying the poem (click through if you may):

the dream that stuns

To enter the poem as flesh       as the dream that stuns you –
the owled necessity that sings of the other       does the poem
sit in relation to the other as it does to ancient song?
to enter the poem afresh, to return       the dream that stuns
owled necessity, the song of the other       we who would gather
brambles and speak as if we live forever       (which stories
stick to the ground of the poem?)       is it wonder sitting at my
throat recalling an earlier witness and becoming known?
to enter the poem again       has the eclipse been stone for long?

where do we go

where do we go to settle our debts once the rags have been
washed     when
          the rope of not-having-been
          closes round our

necks? do we stare into an abyssed ball for futures? does the
weight of a grassblade
          shake our weeded yet-to-comes?
          if through this word is to flow

the unheeded burn of the other’s weight     if through this word
is sifted the witch’s
          soothe and her meaning, the
          howl of burn & stitch of

war     if through this word is stone my brother & river my stone
would the calm
          of a paper heathen suppress care
          suppress her hooded scream?

---

Context
As I begin to familiarize myself with Silvia Federici’s work on reclaiming the commons and linking witch-hunting with the birth of capitalism, I attempt a playful weaving of some of her very powerful insights into verse.

the is and was of prose

What was prose?
– It was grandmother’s recipe book spilling devourable esoterica
– It was the poem stung with the immediacy to explain
– It was trying to speak of the spirit of the forest seeking endless play
– It was putting on paper the ensuing death of wonder
– It was the knot at the beginning and unlying of the knotted tie

What is prose?
– It is the pause before verse cuts its teeth on the veracity of the evidence of words
– It is an infought war of erudition between bankers and highbrows
– It is prepost-modern but not prepost-erous enough for armchair whimsy
– It is the wrangling at the tryst of what-happens, when-do-we-know and whatchamacallit
– It is the scramble for the poem, the want of it, the heat of knowing the want.

bludgeoning by the flippant and wordy