Comments on Cybertry by Leslie Scalapino: "... the poems have an unusual, that is, very individual characteristic, one aspect of which is that each two lines throughout seem (s) to bifurcate, will begin separating (as if one watches it/the two separate, almost turn up at the edges, not with conclusion and into continual other imaginative actions as movement -- an eye test). Such a lively and quiet mind in them which makes that bifurcating (in which the branches are all of interest) its ground."
Please Ignite
Where the bus stops? close before your feet
the
half-automatic door folds to the left
departure, tears stay alone behind the window,
white
tissue up and down a nose, crumples;
one hand combing red curls back to the ear's
pale
moonstone; chosen?
Please ignite, diesel, give it a little jerk,
the
rounded rubber rolling away with
the window, some hair, tears, tissue
treacherously --
didn't I observe that before?
Sorry, suppose on the bus door's right side
rests a
fire extinguisher; it's red, too.
Nest of Acceptance
As the fog sinks into the ocean I touch
a salt shaker;
the cafe's waiter serves his first look.
Thunder of calm August; table cloth lights up
and
liberates the silverware from its supportive surface.
Unpredictable charm of death, when I watch my
request
disappearing into the darkness between his hair
covered ears.
A guest explains to his partner how she feels,
her
thumb and middle finger building a nest on eye level.
Invisible, the mouth holds its tongue. The untold
moves
across through flowers, sleeves and partial
acceptance.
With a nod, my dog reads the alphabet of meat on
bones.
Knowledge and learning reunite
in my neighbor's breath. We recall an Italian farmer's
horse
plowing in service to Chianti. Old as soil, we lick
our lips' red violence.
Soon we empty the painted plates. My fork persists to
lean
toward cheese strings, putting a beard on the faience
dragon.
Leaving the Ikarus Club, Raffaella needs change;
tip-quarters
clink sharply to expectations the waiter has
in mind.
Swinging through curves of the Autostrada del Sol, I
observe
two arrows ahead of me: one pointing left, one to
the right.
Clearing Power
With the speed of an owl adapting
my eyes during a
doctor's examination
charm of not yet composed lines
a too small X asking
about validity
if the letter itself could be certain
it wouldn't
question some company.
In the dark, I hear gloved fingers
arranging me and
the coolness of tools.
Lenses exchanged before one eye
suggest rented sight
is available.
Not identifying a low line's Y
I sway with the nurse's
observation:
to your burning inside
those lenses will add better
focused views.
The new optics perform
as if disappearing fog has
meaning.
by choosing a frame, the temple piece
feels well in
place but not mine.
The shop's mirror shows equally silent
a retriever and
a blind man lined on.
During the night train's ride home
the vision of an
icy lake never snowing in.
A Taste of Entry
Dark matter, in her eyes the health of distance, when
with delay
the plane landed in a burst of flames.
Bare-faced in transformation
starboard, an early touch of essential ground;
temporarily not embodied
the wave of a soul enters the
mosaic of a time-shredding reptile.
It is a hot consistency rooming with a taste of sudden
entry.
No disc formatted, abundant energy offers a first
tickle to Sheila;
her fetus leaving its watery boundaries into the
unnamed.
Slip, slit, sliding; unlimited small, the blacker
the hole the faster weight spins.
No fear? The pilot on his nomadic journey,
flight-flooded, pouring air.
The navigator's needle
oscillating to a picture in his wallet.
It says no; she's nineteen, no college, but karate and
the breath of a surfer.
Will she be bursting too, leeward
where a sail's move changes speed?
Is there a withdrawal from barefooted flames on
delay,
a distance from the weight that spins?
Engaged
Stillness under his watch seems so evenly
cut up;
house keys, during the funeral
handed to the daughters' ashen mask;
April, a moon
shapes the night
with its habits; an animal is engaged,
the name could
be one wearing the name of others.
Besides belongings, Ruth and Salmone
exchange breath,
eyebrows move sideways;
how impatient the sofa's straw cover
darkens,
numerical twinkling comes to mind:
seven chairs to inherit and yellowed etchings
showing
privileged fishes growing wings
and a fur coat, probably from a leader-wolf;.
its
compulsory smell still eye-catching
Invitation, the unwanted offers side-seeing
onward to
new invocations, coded e-mail.
Three Heads
It doesn't get lost easily
in a language attached
to it;
it links its own flight
to the landscape of other
invaders.
On the target's terrace we protect
a birthday candle
from wind.
Turning grandpa's face to the west,
sunset may
read stories out of his folds.
To who's warmth would this
summer night like to be
compared?
Without responsible efforts
it gets closer to the
sleeping city.
In a fan of three heads diving, countdown
5 4 3 2 1
the nuclear payload.
Balanced
Abducting forces, a downshift unleashes
a fall-in
fall-out of a wave's top transparency.
Fish-cool, the piling of water throws its bones
around.
Hypnotized, I give in to little resistance;
tugged under, breath stops as the body
disappears in a
swell's initial curl.
Along the towering glass wall
a scheme reflects the
intruder.
Losing a wave's center, the forces resemble
a stage
shortly before the last push at birth.
The open mouth forms an O; a piece as big
as an oyster
misses the balancing hand.
Tunnel-foam, grabbing the surfer.
Former arguments
connect smoothly.
Under spread legs, two blues partake in one cut.
Sun
oil destabilizes the feet on a slippery board.
In a shape of wet gravity, both, the rider
and the
ridden bow to each other.
Exercises seem to be shadowed when one wave's
gusty
winds try to put a partner out of side
Rented Bronze
More, more speed
on street-determinable joints
a dimmed cafe, its air;
I sit straight, inhaling
dope and plum cake.
On such contradictions
Berkeley, the chasing
of students' searching out
for their brothers. Both fifteen.
Can school be over,
over to fall on
bronzed fingernails?
October cuts, short lighted,
a corner sign;
its rusted angle, pointing one way
I feel my father's
rented rib.
Clear Apart
Blue-sky column, the barometer ascends
in arteries,
the weather
unquestionable
bends. On the calendar's midsummer angle
peach colors'
moisture
in waves
they contact a close night-flying bat.
Zigzags; no
past of now, less moth-wind
early, when I'm
apart, aperture, absorption. My dark eye
scans
the movement on a nude shore, fuzzy
binocular
one beam enlarges my too long hair.
Is there
provision, does the focus fingers a nerve?
clear obsidian
star milk condenses. I listen, please
speak
Arabian from deep in the throat telling
tales.
Botanical Soft
Exchange, it inclines itself
partly in flowers, partly
not; the sucker
considers the word offal
unmistakably,
encouraging a round mouth's oh,
but earlier. Timing as a soft approach
when shy eyes
turn lower;
suitably present, quickly invited,
permitting to
choose just this collage
as a museum; the visitor wears rose oil,
blushes,
almost botanical, before apes appeared
badly shaved, occasionally on request
half way up for
certain hours of a day.
Since so much can not be identified, anything else
is
immediately put forth or at hand, when I sleep
(more seldom, during the abomination of a question
a
vulnerable value offers its feeble-minded strength).
Access to His Sleep
Saturday evening
one boy calling me
with his
sister's name
(second sound
colored, washed away
by the sea)
half past six
out of his hands
dew water
drinking
no, the door knob?
it wasn't shut before
I
opened
the darkness
occasionally darker
access to eyes
sleeping there
within the sleep
around his
neck.
Sand to our Initials
I am the inflammation
of my mother's
wishbone
spread out, beaming
the basket of a
journey
we would not
mouth or breast
leave alone
twins
of the fluid
once sipped on
beyond
a beach-line
four tides
sand
to our initials'
slow moving fingertips
shine is half
blind
fish fin and
gently
bearded
the fiber of my rib.
Changing Tracks
My silk is worn
inside the elbow
crow print
fold
shooting
into my eye the sun
a blind spot
desert hillside
only one creek wet
with bushes
they change angles
on dusty stairways
tracks.
Before and After
Arm
with a little of her hand
greeting
no, she hasn't
in its shade
lips of an excuse
we smile
we look away
before and after
a ring-dove
gray, much of gray
to follow
our heels
both sinking
down to the creek.
Cybertry
Copyright © Werner Reichhold 1995.
All rights reserved.
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