Enter the world,
a species already sufficiently inured to tragedy
ANNA MOSCHOVAKIS, "The Tragedy of Waste"
XVIII
A new world springs up where the old world
nearly leaves off. The pawpaws are cut back
to reveal a field of maize, a comfort of crows'
grainy call, tongues that click. Paddles
beat the heavy ribs of arched sculls. At
a yellow crossroad you decide to make
a left and what happens after is history or
just a job to hiss and spit at. A racket
or a lever, a level and a rule. Sweat stains
the page of oriented labor, no longer
disappearing in the dirt of tilled rows.
XIX
The comfort of an arm, a screen,
a calendar, a folding chair. A moon
fir for a king, a level of comfort
driven down by rising
barrel prices. To say there is
no hope for us but in meaning
and nonetheless, somehow
what replaces a banal pub
on the corner is more
generic even. Everywhere
things getting it right. You
walk by, smell the motivation.
XX
A boat. A moving sale.
A party undisturbed
by invitations. A mislaid
vocab. Price tags in the wind.
Surveyor bending to the scope.
Yellow reeds looking to forms
of potential thought. A cool
breeze through a competitive
model. The point of a dagger
missing, cut off by a framing
device made between wood
and linen. You could say
outside, or keep quiet.
XXI
In the conversion, a world comes to light
but not the world, actually. Or so you
might think. Or actually, in order that
you might think it. In order that that
world be perceived it must convert.
Or else who knows what the fuck is it?
Some kind of universe we're up against?
Worse: You take it on your own terms
even when you say you're taking it on
its own terms. In the lovely world over
there are some unfamiliar terms. Maybe
they're in your stomach, a world you can't
identify with even as it turns inside you.
XXII
The world flows through — rather
in that world everything flows together:
a common world. The chimney in disuse.
The smokestack — bricks and vines:
an image of industry as natural, inevitable,
primary. When it comes to
allegiances told through the hues
and heraldry of robes of boiled silk
no matter how. . .they speak
of fall foliage. Shrub oak take
a vow the color of rust. Crickets
beat the earth outside — the typing
sings of lower desires, that prices
should remain pieces
until the picture of a world emerges
of its own accord from music.
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M A T V E I Y A N K E L E V I C H
Some Worlds for Dr. Vogt
BLACK SQUARE EDITIONS 2015
