C.S. CARRIER
ANON
(SELECTIONS)
//
I propose to write a poem
to write an azalea
to write a logarithm
to write a darkness that is love
to write rain in the trees
to write lightning, an electric branch
to write a trachea, a larynx
to write a radio wave, iridium flare
to write ejection, molten gases
self-care, to write, accrete
along the earthworm’s shiny eyelid
to write its 47 legs & 47 griefs
to write an incision
to write a blowtorch
to write past death shrouded in pus
to write that we all will die someday
that we will all someday, we’ll all die
bend like wool, petioles
like cells in a calcium bath
sulfur in pastors’ mouths
mitochondria in the loam
nests beside blackening thumbs
the groundhog’s glistening teeth
we’ll all someday freeze
we’ll all someday metastasize
we’ll all someday bleed
we’ll all someday bloat & fossilize
someday, hopes pinned to eggs
//
I propose to write a poem about and
how it conjoins
how it confuses time and space
and gender
and makes a simultaneity of things
a synchronous paradoxicality of orbits
a logic of miscellany
and hovers over the valley
and enters the houses as a molten yo-yo
and the bread burps open with purple blankets
what is it about and
and what is it about my hands pulling it
what is it about disease and denial
militarized legislatures and hair salons
and what is and
what is the meaning of over in a pandemic
drum and fontanel and words and lust and
the accretion of things
sensations and sensationalism
and never says goodbye
and slides under the trees
and eats the white grubs
and empties the streets
and withers the flowers
all of us
and refracts DNA and cells
and impulses and secretions
and so on and
//
I propose to write a poem
wherein the arrangement of pine straw
outside my window is a small creature
a Gila monster maybe a ball of snakes
wherein a woodpecker gymnasts
about the limbs of a pine tree
the river appears the ocean
maybe the bottom of the ocean
shallow so light still seeps down
small fires erupt on a sparse field
each fire its own hue & timbre
the field animated slowly with long sighs
toxins bubble the ground toxins
signified by embroidered circles
orange & yellow & red
my legs blister my mouth blisters
the trees blister the deer blister with tuberculosis
small packages of bones blister & smoke
what ties it all together besides the window
besides my place here & now
in this mise en peste under sharp clouds of
the military industrial infotainment complex
deciding who lives in the great blue
air with heroic ghosts
is there harmony in the images
is there harmony in the clinking syllables
what more will need to be done
after I decide to show up
//
I propose to write a poem
to write an azalea
to write a logarithm
to write a darkness that is love
to write rain in the trees
to write lightning, an electric branch
to write a trachea, a larynx
to write a radio wave, iridium flare
to write ejection, molten gases
self-care, to write, accrete
along the earthworm’s shiny eyelid
to write its 47 legs & 47 griefs
to write an incision
to write a blowtorch
to write past death shrouded in pus
to write that we all will die someday
that we will all someday, we’ll all die
bend like wool, petioles
like cells in a calcium bath
sulfur in pastors’ mouths
mitochondria in the loam
nests beside blackening thumbs
the groundhog’s glistening teeth
we’ll all someday freeze
we’ll all someday metastasize
we’ll all someday bleed
we’ll all someday bloat & fossilize
someday, hopes pinned to eggs
//
I propose to write a poem about and
how it conjoins
how it confuses time and space
and gender
and makes a simultaneity of things
a synchronous paradoxicality of orbits
a logic of miscellany
and hovers over the valley
and enters the houses as a molten yo-yo
and the bread burps open with purple blankets
what is it about and
and what is it about my hands pulling it
what is it about disease and denial
militarized legislatures and hair salons
and what is and
what is the meaning of over in a pandemic
drum and fontanel and words and lust and
the accretion of things
sensations and sensationalism
and never says goodbye
and slides under the trees
and eats the white grubs
and empties the streets
and withers the flowers
all of us
and refracts DNA and cells
and impulses and secretions
and so on and
//
I propose to write a poem
wherein the arrangement of pine straw
outside my window is a small creature
a Gila monster maybe a ball of snakes
wherein a woodpecker gymnasts
about the limbs of a pine tree
the river appears the ocean
maybe the bottom of the ocean
shallow so light still seeps down
small fires erupt on a sparse field
each fire its own hue & timbre
the field animated slowly with long sighs
toxins bubble the ground toxins
signified by embroidered circles
orange & yellow & red
my legs blister my mouth blisters
the trees blister the deer blister with tuberculosis
small packages of bones blister & smoke
what ties it all together besides the window
besides my place here & now
in this mise en peste under sharp clouds of
the military industrial infotainment complex
deciding who lives in the great blue
air with heroic ghosts
is there harmony in the images
is there harmony in the clinking syllables
what more will need to be done
after I decide to show up