Ann Lauterbach / Two Poems

Two Poems by Ann Lauterbach

CONJUNCTIONS:53, Fall 2009 A  C O N T I N U E, OR  E N T R Y 1. Where next? Oblique cost of the not yet. Strange flotation of the stampede, resembling play. The octagonal stop, characteristic, time is place. Intentional rupture of the flow. Play coming upon belief, instruments, kin. Kindred bricks or blocks, the hallucinating margin. Then: double vision, a skill contained by doing. A refusal to embed that into this, so that this perishes. A spread or insistence, as in a flood. A local extremity, a wall. Extent and its delimiting edge. Elaboration sprouting form, its voraciousness. 2. What next? Unique cruelty of the undone. Rook rhymes with book, crow with toe. Also hook. Also know. To countermand restlessness, settle on fact as it seeks to order a well-worn shoe, two shoes, a pair of old shoes. And yet the sun lays claim to natural dyes, rifts through the glow-torn phenomena where I see the metonymic rituals of spring expose a mournful goddess in her crypt. Hook rhymes with crook, know with foe. 3. Strange flotation of the stampede, resembling play. Rumble, blaspheme, crooked under the gun. Too much is previous. Even the game, about to start, will vanish with its partner, day. Reach out your spoon for another portion; arch your neck. Everything is in profile toward evening. If, on behalf of a last chance, you move Yours sincerely into the winning slot, then cherries, stars, and the quick weave of your hair into braids: all this shall be yours. These are lessons of chance. They are not plans. 4. The octagonal stop is my master. I was thinking of roaming out of range to where a sidelong pillar of light rides the river sky. Wow! If I turn away toward an unmarked grave (here find the stop where the real is done) will you believe if I say something gains on our aspiration, our embrace? Branches against cloud. Fence against road. Above the shade, the elastic flirtation of a web. Words in another room, if the radio were on. These are lessons in mobility. They are not fate. 5. Intentional rupture of the flow, blurry, as in a Vermeer. You, who may not have seen such reproductions of the same, missed the optical illusion which, as it happens, is rhetoric at its best. He saw how materials collapse a desire for reality’s articulated shield. The Dutch love the small, domestic stage. I love the huge impertinence of an unresembling fact. Look! A deep pink developing above, there, in the west! It cannot be saved. 6. Play touches belief, sorts out, finding kin. Could be time to count. Ten, five, three as if pointing toward severance, the throw of the dice. Looking back, there seems to have been a hive or bank in which things were kept, a hoard or list or will. In the philosopher’s tale, there are bitter claims at stake; in the great attic, increasing remorse. Dearest, I visited your room after you were gone and found the and the the and the the and the. 7. Kindred plays or blocks, the hallucinating margin above mementos of— a supplemental neuter deletes some revenant’s luck. Her. I dream the awkward dream. I disallow. On the rug, with paint and trowel, under stones and ash and the rude vocabulary of the frost, grammar disobeys its rules. The western crawl space. Air and earth aglitter, collide. Something adds, something subtracts. How near is the thing that counts, what is it called? THE TRANSLATOR’S DILEMMA As if to foretell an ordinary mission, with fewer words. With fewer, more ordinary, words. Words of one syllable, for example. For example: step, or sleeve. These are two favorites, among many. Many can be found if you look closely. But even if I look closely, surely a word is not Necessarily here, in the foreground. I see an edge of a paper, I see orange, I see ear. I see words and I see things. An old story, Nothing to foretell in the ordinary mission. I see “her winter,” and I see “I am merely A tourist here.” Are these issues of Translation, the barriers of translation? I see John and an open book, open to a day In August. I am feeling defeated Among these sights, as if I will never find Either sleeve or step. These ordinary And pleasurable words, attached to Ordinary and pleasurable things, as if To announce them I am Announcing certain criteria. The step, the sleeve, How they invite hovering over and within Our necessities: a coat, a stair. But I am merely a tourist here, deaf to light. What is this wreath? What is this thing? Nothing to foretell the ordinary, its leap across http://www.conjunctions.com/preview.htm