OMATIC & AFTER ST JOHN
Susan Gervitz
dPress 2006 Sebastopol
16 pp hand sewn
Cover by Oberon
OMATIC
—For Elizabeth Robinson
Now I will tell you plainly and from no cryptic speech
Aeschylus, Lattimore, AGAMEMNON
filibuster a thin pretend
veil vial conveyance
rhyme Dogsters are
insist if as building blocks
if as
as if as available measures action
by answer will
of no action by action
nomer ation
delinquence video outside the gates
like a dad coming home at dinner time
subject's nomer
actions actions actions' station
static notion
notion's notation sing
a stupid
sing chorus taxi-ing for |
One long
pan for inter-ordinary how about
how the ten-minute take
exposure's time's perpetual stunt
meticulously pre-cut
Notorious I Confess Topaz
mobility voyeur by action answer
no action of
meant
of no or ornament
players
true as you to scuttle
figure shy characters move less
We see the object of the title
[Still you
but are]
Saudi Arabia Scrivner
procuring jeeps room service reminiscence adornment adjacent
You are but still
curtained window Can we talk of form in terms of
cannibalism and the 100 kinds
of hunger all servants to this meal
diatribe chorus refrain
name carnivore lead to
as it may distribute incarnate
to this work set
work this set to
[Apollo]
word my broke I
word I my broke
[If you were building blocks I'd
back of word break]
seer the was
but to
broke
that promised to
I
[children]
did wrath
You so
did wrath, did harm
You so no
Be that could how
Could how be that
[by the author's author
Do But we foretell that seems
all
true you to us
us you to
[the mere un mere~~~ foretell that all seems
delinquent omatic)
But do we that seems all forestall
all you that
to us
that seems
Compensator
COMPRESSOR
[Cassandra Karaoke forge]
forestall measures
halting halting halting holding up
[ name object lesson a name repeat Stop
Then over again trespass none.
There pass ever again.
Believed this none for again none me for this.
Mere migration as return.
Do but we.
True to us you.
Distribute serve.
Insist if as.
That seems all forestall.
Fore halt unmere.
Filibuster stutter.
Notorious.
One long pan plan.
One helping of child flesh.
As a cause if origin a face causes.
Extricate speech ery untie.
Talk we can terms of the moving cursive scape.
after ST JOHN OF THE CROSS
Ballad I
1. In the beginning was the living in living, in which nests infinite transaction 2. The same word was said to be the beginning; was in the bare glottal stop of beginning and wore no crown 3. Was born without witness as a beginning, without tool to work itself, shape without file.
Repent or bet 4.Thus had always conceived and was always conceiving and always giving substance and always procuring, counterfeiting, making a dictionary of it 5. "As the lover in the beloved, each in time resided in the other, and this love that united them was the same to each one" 6. And another gagging on the nature of number while sorting the concept of one into equal parts 7. "We are weary" yawned the exegetes, scolded the philistines, droned the news anchor, of waiting for the addition of one to reveal its limits 8. "And one love in them all made them" was like sharing needles, toothbrushes, mastication, and they deplored it, castigated it, adored it -- called for an appraisal 9. For the one that the three possessed fell into the mirror of the past, as does most infestation, plague, even numeration, even intoxication especially into that shining lake 10. And each imagined each to be a knot, tied to the shoe of a king stamping out the inquisition while looking up at the sky for signs of the first flight 11. Therefore increase occurs at the rate of distance over time. An equation of generation does not have to include plenitude
12. "The problem is not that you’ve gone to begin again," said the King, "It is the flowering of the trees before the scheduled spring and the gratitudes for the legislation of famine you have provided the citizens, lack beyond what money could buy, and that is why we give you asylum
Romance 2 The Communication of the 3 Persons
Non
In the aquatic
Below the floorboards of what was
once called the Heaven mall
Non
Sequence makes the impact
but it is not sequence
that we recall impact is as
the runners run
water bottles bouncing at their hips
in the act of "the more love there was"
and all the King’s bystanders send realtors
to the rescue when "what we want is not truth but
each other" —Oppen
mistaken then
How then
three in one
a moving ratio
fatigued infinite
middle song of a taking-stock lullaby
Place an epic in a jar
clay savior of Kol Nidre
throat dust lid stuck or sunk
fatigue of the infinite
to move without purpose -that loves us
is as outside the glass
Ballad II
1. Lets this be
the story thrown away. 2. Poetics "Continuous".... "the rest is diaries" —Bromige. 3. The noisy inhabited insomnia of all his work the absolute commitment to restlessness. 4. Let the story drive without steering down a winding country road at night with the headlights off in August to a place you promised no poetry could be written because we’d be too busy with the loose wheels as the car was pulled forward by the road which left your hands free. 5. As do line breaks that know where they’re going before we do 6. Another time another driving without crown or tool