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--- R A C H E L B L A U D U P L E S S I S Did glass feet cast within a dream step through sand and lava, step turned, arch twist, crystalline rough foot wrapped in blood-red wire? And did those feet on ancient road walk enfolded valleys patient, dazzled, and intent? Will pick a way, a way strange Way, a strained descent, a descant arcing by this mark; will vibrate modal tuning and see rushes, will be as ru shing running light just under the surface of the long rive r; will suffer irradiation points, punctures of curelessness. This third edge: title to the poem declared from passages of cascade. Flawed ru by matte-blue lapis lazuli gold mini-crevasse mapped in riven turquoise and lost azure-tinted limpidity symbolize the head and the foot, pi edi fications that concern the steps taken, a-wander, in "nomadic mea sure." Tilde the mark of this engagement. Mark of the maker, sundered mark. Mark of being touched and called in dream and in necessity, our clouded hills. This third edge curves over the letter, jaunty and exacerbated pronouncing on itself. So when you sing Humdiddle orphan si wah truuit, when you go Hum an so, What a work! Trobar scoop from hum-throat Uvular vibrato, densities and sonorities pitch forward into the roadway tranced and tracing wild and world. The scattered sounded double of the page splay's spun shimmer of stun is where the dead will tell of hearing writing. Tilde is the mark of the wanderer, speaking listener, listening searcher, of stepping stippled Feet touching ground, of Head carrying the Mark that Slides nuance. Suspicion and Query, Quirk and Sheer, nyahh through the Mouth-top yaah to the toe tip sound catches between high arch and low arch; once you're touched, you'd know it anywhere. Born to the First life back passwords, suckled Hurt on blood. Born to the Second life thru gargled Rainwater ghosti imploded Whirlwind sub go for Gbo, within Orphic Vertigo's "blutopic" blows. Born to the Second life thru slant pipes sounding rascal layered tones. Born to the Third life geopolitically saffron stirred in risotto tarmac. Evaluation golden. Thought's exacting scent, its Sensation of eating Gumbo made of Frankincense. Born to the Third life forever, or long as possible, Breath deep drawn in the fitted middle of "home," pulsing out Nigunim scat wet-nets to catch the burning embers, the alphabet falling, rising Bozzetti, buzz eddy bodiddey dis of carib sylla bells books of curved needles. Stereophonic No coming at you burr ditty spurts of idity, a Yes wrapped dark as anything dark as gnarled psalms, far inner, Ark-deep, singing twists of low-tuned tend ons Clave and chord-- they make the body Harp on Hark, take itself as "shadow of the Melody instrument" as orc the angel phantom stra nge wings glossy laden with dread of Hopes' repressed turbulence. House of the Head-- its inner Fingers shake the veins. What a rattle, raddle wattle, thrown as "Catcher," sinew wooden tlingit thing lets rumble chords run rife in Chunk-stave Numerology. Heart beats down the length of corridors on the borderlands of correspondence. The knotted self wrestles its taut strings' strung Intelligence, then understands its Being, veined and tied, plucked and plectrum. Clots in the Ear cluster chord totality tympanic membrane empathy. Heart tied into ropes and Eyes, refugees of stylus and feather, blued for the n-th time. Numbers nyygh the signifying twist one piece of bone or heft crystal page of mica book, bead kept in a bundle to unwrap, twig, tooth, button vertige for the Head is capped with tilde, teeming and bereft. September 2001-August 2002 to Nathaniel Mackey |
© crossconnect, inc 1995-2003
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published in association with the
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university of pennsylvania's
kelly writers house
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