Anselm Hollo
from Corvus (1995)

 

 
Reviewing the Tape
 
 


i.m. Piero Heliczer

I

calling 1959 calling 1959 what does he know
a red piano a fragmentary tusk
he sees men & women preparing themselves
for the long journey across the room

he is in love with the world
it's got a face like a horse
her hair is 365 poems a tent & into it
that tune it's 1790! oops he stops goes back

sleeping is any handful earth
waking returns the toothbrush clack to the beaker
"her anger has caused me great pain"
can't tell which she he is talking about

brown photo legend
man's reliance on fossil fuels but a short episode


II

no junipers no shouldn't think so no
he wrote somewhere inside
so slow a broken nose repeating itself
into this hole in the ground

no connectives or interval music
it was hot in the dream hole
above the brick town with its captive dogs
the first time you saw it acres of watery sand

ah to be funny in bed in writing
to be in our bodies
maybe it was just his old difficulty
of remaining in the upright position

of the higher primates
their glimmering moments of loving


III

the instruction manual lay soaking in the bilge
I'm yours I'm all yours but the signals were garbled
one who looked tall rode away
didn't have much to say

narrative pomp & pleasure
time in shore zones

ahead of the water they came
wrapped round a stick of incense
he'll sleep a long time
the day your son comes home

a flute & a spine in the grass
too dark a raving madman
persistent cigarette burns on his hand & arm
november 1967 a hundred farmers plow to lucid murmurs


IV

to disappear on the floor
in the other room closing the book
''I'll be back in a minute" flowers out there

over them reigned a red personage
in autumn some sponges "i am moving
a fraction to the weaker taking"

this deep a breath is ardent
ultimate consummation of long ethereal affair
sit listening to the gods
approach her their cries

it is peaceful peaceful
the people go crazy
the manager of this cinema
wears a big Aoppy heart ha ha


V

branching like any body
but here have some wine
& exhale heaven snug against her skin
kiss her ill with love

"him now" in his sleep he walks past it again
to one who lives there
in the rented satellite
with Officer No Quarter

enters another plane
of the new world or drives the big white car
through savage people & frozen gases

still taping his thoughts ran much upon this
wrote the works ever known as
. the features of gods


VI

on the horse's back & into a hall
then son simply expressing in his own way
that I was wrong 6-9:00 a.m.
through customs in Hong Kong

all the way to her navel
a single large crystal
thinks of Don Giovanni
with no interference from tree-cutting crane

smileful girl they used to spend maybe an hour
in glamorous roles
in a little while it won't exist

red mists of rage
plate glass breaks snow streels in thoughts
across a green roof


VII

there is a light on prudent alchemist
laughs like Leo the sun
crocodile curbs dangerous onslaught
Iaia of Kyzikos her pagan will to realize

life in the sky she saw
a tapir do the tango
prance from his mother's house
back where the night begins

in a seven-foot urn
I move about the beetle wakes up
temporarily in charge of the 1920s

the surface extends all the way out to the core
wherever there is a hole distributed in space
cave equals room equals window