--- 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