BLOW-ME-DOWN ETUDE

                                                                      Ah! through the hush the looked-for
                                                                      midnight clangs!
                                                                      —William Morris, The Earthly Paradise

“Put her in her Chair! Put her in her
Chair!” The bleary weights of nothing-to-explain,
nobody to explain to. News of the weave, nub
of the bleep. I take what I’m given and give
what I’ve taken, stake what I’m bidden, dumped
when I’ve driven. (Upset to get.) Just when
thought, for one thing, affecting has got
to as possible point, whatever, a few
as many were and worse didn’t—
but not to dwell, to fall, specifically
where was that it might, matter (formal)
given coagulation. Remember you brought,
prying to amount for, rather given your own
dizzying play in that inflection. To open up
as much of, as far as, to convey
in this respect and a sense, at the
same, more relevant in terms of revealing, finally,
forged dominions have mistook. The only
true epiphanies the ones misplaced (the
forced replacements of). Arrived with silent
fire, projector of what was faced. We thought we might
be better than. But the knees swell, the
feet collapses. No further shown, as if it’s
only do too little, or much too much. As
if more strobe at clay could quell command: fear
frozen with fright, tautologies our
topologies; tear the midsection & loose the
rig. There was a moment that hope made
realer than the pause endured, who wept
like trawlers without recall. No villanelle to chew
nor salmon to. These tendencies arise
out of a culture and cannot be confined to those
defined them: a pound of defiance is
worth an ounce of lure. (She was a giant
of the experience of being a baby & proud
was I . . .) Summary
or tainted with coats of (jangle what
you will, where you pry—not fables with
testy, tedious tirades, waves at)
plaint. Oracular insects
infusing pseudonymous stuffed desks (stuck
decks). Rivers of lies, severs of
glides, desperate for an even chance at less
than might release, at least a vantage
to profane the holier version of these
visions, riddled with blitzkrieged
orifices, adipose titration. Moon at
worn regales; the ink its sail. Plastered
on the mesa & pacing fifty leagues
anon. (We thought we might be better
then.) You try to jump ahead, but fall
behind, dropped back but are conspicuously
frames. The falters make no better
flitters, along the oak and toggled plane.
Basically berserk, the body with only
organs relies upon a
peacock’s prickly prudery; then
resents what will not relent. Spilt
or guided. For guilt is the burden of the whitewashed
man: for what has not been done and what cannot be
undone. “Where there is sorrow there is
holy ground.” The sink cracks, the
furl falters, and Everyperson bastes its
stew. Darting and then carted; filled with
or unacquainted by. Who feeds the farmers
cornered by a row of sediment, cooled
erotics of unsublimated stokes. He
speaks but does not offer, scarcely
sweats before he swings: there is no
denouement for pebbles or for wings.
Of course, it is an honor to be sprinkled
out, not that it’s an evanescent one: I
dislike the form and in most phases would
not see the point in, to make stab at.
That’s fine, did you notice, seems an
extraordinary, if it is in, however, for
reasons that now can’t see to reply
to—stupid & wildly deranged—decided
at least is a register, is having (dubious
distinction) though as you know the lack of,
loose extension, style of support, is
segmented beyond the pale. Will lessen: I
decline: one could: at least: there are:
that will: when may: though is: you
should: that might: is obvious: possibly
substantive: worthwhile bothering. The
concurrent and multiple variables affecting the flow
of the construction stream can easily . . . Loss of
pleasure in all or almost all or nearly mostly
all; unresponsive to usually pleasurable . . .
An situation amounts, the fledgling recriminations
that border on beautification: a constituency
of tissue and marrow and formaldehyde. Many
disputes involve opinions and facts
about stipulations that occurred over months
and years. Everyone does not feel well-
treated—the same slap applicated with
the fine measure of meager interdiction, ignorance
of extent. For instance, your actions seem
divisive and policing of the very “community”
you desire to support. Nothing represents
anything. Billboards poster our losses. Better
jeer than leer. Waking up at least two hours
early, body movements slow or agitated, excessive
or inappropriate feelings of self-reproach.

That’s the major
problem we always
have in this

country. We don’t
have a totalitarian
society where we

suppress the opposition.
We have an
information glut and

we bury the
opposition under piles
of newsprint that

all say the
other thing. So
our side gets

to get a
critical review in
The Guardian, whereas

the other side
gets to get
a laudatory review

on the front
page of the
Times Book Review
                                      [Michael Meeropol]

Overactive, talkative, pressured speech; racing
thoughts, flights of ideas; inflated self-
esteem; need no sleep; easily distracted; judgment
wasted. The Westside wail of words. Steam
pours onto subway platform as crowd hangs back
of turnstile waiting to see if trains will
run. Two feet canary, team fleets of
aquamarine. For all the talk about decentered I’s
there’s a lot of overbuilt egos. Like
lips passing in the Fright. (We thought
we might be better than.) Beyond any bromide
hidden in assumptions and retarded by lachrymose
perambulation, hollering for benefit when all
the swirl spies pleistocene maquettes. Where
during the time of the observance chortled
aboard a lack, preemptive to detain
maladroit possession, steamed at
what reposed, dishevelled, on a fair
and merry query. As right is as and
just enclosure deeds the doing spun, so
bid departure, fore enamoured, seeds
the sowing sunk. They asked me how I knew
a shade of blue was blue; I, in tune, re-
plied, when you’ve got two eyes, folks
return your fire. Hunted down or
hunting. Fabulous forsook, the code without
the signals. And who remembers Leon
Klinghoffer and forgets those with no names
or faces who perish without trace and
less sanction? The Lord looks on
those or these, but, deaf and dumb, gropes
at making signs of solids. Ignominious
restitution, a civilization unable to rise
as high as a gutter; yet kindness
makes fools glow with sedulous light
& the stunted grow incandescent. These
are the words we cannot hear, a language
of sighs. Here are the verbs we have
not curved, vested by sleight: cascade, retort,
vitiate, effloresce. Staccato deserts the ob-
ligato, amounts that turn against, in which
to spread, invaginated prescience before a
nod to cruise: pratfall or billy-
goated & bubbling up like whine.
The world we seek is wiped.
Sitting up, standing,
falling down. & the river turns
to slush & the slush
to shacks but there
is no encampment
& no prognostication for
a sail is a Dot & a
Rot is a shirt
& a lurch
devolves into twin
doves or antiquarian
swans
but more likely a
pigeon.
Clubbed by stupidity
intoxicate of
stupefaction. Coming on like
gangbusters and then just
banging. (We thought
we might be . . .) Alerted,
flushed, remanded to
reminders. “He took so much
disparity,” she said. “He was
so grave attending the . . .”
Milkweed
or filched rudders
(rubbers).
The ghost of a semblance of a
dive. Altered, adiabatically foregone.
Rosy-fingered hiccups, polyglot
hibiscus. “At the time, I was troubled
that poets could neither tell readers the name
of the device dispensed nor possible side
effects. Now, if you care to think about
it, even advising a reader to give
aspirin to a fevered child involves a
complicated series of aesthetical and ethical choices.”
May philosophers, December social scientists. Having
completed the spadework on the lattice, she
took up, as one might a pair of spectacles, the long-jammed
plan of village of R——, in the county of
P———, professing no more than an historical
interest in a rumored subterranean passage
that connected the village to its
remonstration. Never abandoning fury for curiosity
self-aggrandizement for repulsion. Howevers which
adorn multifoliate pummelling, hung by
plunge and agglutinated with tetradactyls.
Sumptuous sunder (rife with rips). “Sawyer
called it transference, I call it baloney.”
Dovetails with
apologia, garlic press. “I’ll
tell you this, Sam, you’ve
got some serious problems that require
professional help.” Galvanized
Gargantua, doppler of sudden zeitgeist. Sunless
in the sun. For each of us
must decide the level of response
we can afford to give readers in their quest
for truthful, accurate information. Benevolent
deception, partial truths, white lies, and other
forms of circumvention should not be ruled
out. If readers come to us for authoritative guidance,
it is important that we not disappoint them—or they
will turn to other, less reliable, media. “I
just can’t hit that number
worth a damn.” Garden-
variety effluvium.
When guest is seated, go to door and ring
bell twice. Slow boat to Bayonne, big bust in
Saskatoon. Elementary tuning porch. Who
waves the flaccid flag, downing a silvery
flask, and wrests cacorythmias from
a nest of horns. Bleat, bleat don’t
you know the shoals. (We thought . . . ) Still
the joust has made its recapitulation and the Trout
fills the hall: skies of pomegranates and a
ceiling of guffaws. Along alighted melodies
that . . .
Something there is that doesn’t love a
pawn, that wants it smashed, and that its pawning
for. As if
a runner might o’ertake her strife
and patch the lost, unstrap this pediment
of feeling’s long and agate train. Much
as you say, to start, at least unconsciously
familiar (usual bulging): but the, we did,
was a, she managed, and how, every time.
Or rolled over, onto something (alchemical
projectile), schmaltzed up with predictable
thrashing. Upstairs for; or is so in the meantime you
can actually precondition, have trouble with, as you—
quote—to absorb roughhouse, endless transfer inflicted
in passing out (but toneless) exoneration. Yesterday
I got, I became, I couldn’t understand, I
should be finishing, or some such function as
a viper. Both because and because. Like
the idea of soon, excerpting plans who asked
to duplicate in terms of expanding, since
if, which have been a part of, was news
to me. Weird and Red! Though, for example, they
say ‘Baltimore’ different in ‘Boston’.
Studiously unprepared (oxymoronic
modesty). Like
loss that melts, topical
glaciers make their move. “There’s
a bay inside o’ Heaven
made of spray, mazed with crape
& it’s acommin’ for us
couple o’ days, aft a long haze.”
The antimonophysite heresy: management
refuses responsibility for personal belongings checked
with management. Saucy sailing, bossy
commiseration—before the point is dry.
Fecundly familiar, incontinent supplication.
But not, according to Myron O’Mally; the
bored haberdasher denied any involvement
in the multimillion dollar confidence
confection. Roasting the Host, toasting the boast.
As trippingly entreaties us to linger, where
hushed in the calm of plums, a votive
respirator hums. Humungous desolation, lodged
at flotilla and superannuated fortnightly.
Suppurating bombast (lain along the lane, the
lady lit a Lucky). When I arrived
the reader was lying
flat on the bathroom floor
without any clothes
and complaining of
severe logorrhea. These are
the criteria I have tried to get
out from under
insofar as they would lead to
tighter analogies, less rhetorical
affect. Furthermore, we
are simply miles apart
flatulently wrong
bad bit of deflecting—because you support, on
that topic, no more
about as themes
which well up against this
(tiresome allegation) to
a place like Sovereign Privilege
(sense of from) go in
the direction of, link
constrained.
True I do load
on a spectrum more
than peripheral, and also
more germane as a sweeping,
without swaying. Unbridgeable gulf
by a long shot.
Clear crystal adipose tissue. For
example, yesterday I refused to sell a man
a capon. Mule
of a guy. At dusk,
a dullard’s thoughts turn
to dinner. Always
wants what’s out of
reach. The search
for nonproverbial language:
child sticks finger
in crank. Suppose
your tooth hurt.
Get dressed, descend the ladder.
(Later.) To be among such constitutive & fibrous
fathers & be so slaphappy. The world we seek
was swiped. (We thought we . . .) & rushing
headfirst into the saltmines of the heart. On
the other hand, you can always spend more time
improving your chess. Romanticism is
analogic, modernism is digital. Marxianism
with a tiny middle-class face. “I got
bowls coming out of my ears.” “There’s
a three-inch opening in the incinerator.” &
the Heart of Africa bleeds black blood. Every
day of apartheid dwarfs (every
slash of entitlements mocks)
the grief for
seven dead star warriors. Logic
skates on the brain, reason
weighs
on the mind.
Once
I
saw
a
man
walk
into
a
pole.
“You’re like an uncooked nerve.”
From amniotic fluid to
semiotic
fluidlessness. Semi-
arctic; infra-
papillary. Semi-idiotic. Semi-automatic
nosedive. Baby
Doc’s dead! Death
to all tyrants
who feast
on the misery
of the people!
Illusion or
myth?
When reason swells
with repose then love is scorched
flight.
Some
like it
popped.
“Haiti? Isn’t
that where Richard Burton made one of his
movies?” “Every
Jew a .22.” Blinking, mumbling
sprawling. “Don’t
eat so fast, people will think
you’re hungry.” Crazy Eddy’s
Martin Luther King Day Portable Stereo
Sale. Sondheim
slumped on a sofa in his Manhattan
townhouse. “The important thing isn’t
the parties you join but the parties you
make.” Or, a shell game’s better
than no game. When
the Messiah comes, the rust
will fall from the scales
on our eyes. Some
like it cracked. Doubled
over with second guesses.
“Just tell me what you want.”
Stove-top denunciations, roving bands of
expectation. For God is
scales not vapor: each day its
dew (a portmanteau in every curlycue).
“I’ve done everything in my power to make this palatable.”
In the priestless churches of San Juan Chamula (the
sentence will not end). Asking,
Where are the Bickfords of yesteryear, where
the Schrafft’s? While in the back corridors of time, where
nothing is lost, the crowds swarm Lundy’s at Sheepshead
Bay. We (who?) thought to build a diadem
& kicked against the slates by which
each is measure & found wanting what
is ready at hand but grasped too hard.
Better than this puncture’s pride at punching, to
find a deck of turns, a float of
tufts, & prattle sightlessly among the chaise-
lit lawns.

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