from Atlas
Glenn Bach
that the flow of the river
of displacement
for our own High Line
revived)
the new word as a living
entity: only those
deemed riverly who will
benefit from this narrative
of loss: is the city
an increasingly hot
and dry climate the fantasy
of an arcadian waterway
of the river as a paradise
a sylvan glen a thicket
a single drop of rain high
in the San Gabriels now
reach the sea
landing land in transition
of coming to land (upward and
downward) (on land) (on
sea) (on moon) (in house)
(naut) (aer) (mil)
(archit) (fish - ing)
The gilding of the aspirations. The daily commute
of the well-worn. The both sides of immigrant
populations over the bridge. The worn away
of the foot traffic. The gray sky of the archive.
on uneven land of rough boards. While newness looms
in the background. Erasure of old weaving
erosions. Alterations
erasures
a metropolis of rigid chaos
for want of a site no place
can be looked up to. From base to turret none
where full in the face.
By the eye taken in the street wall. The extreme
height. The endless vista the grain of the city
changed.
Every genre of birdsong meticulously drawn
in.
Inscriptions of a figure on mosaic and stone illustrious
and unknown. Over the chosen narrative the conquest
of time once shook the pavement.
See the drama for a change in the plot to overturn
this violent nature. The growth and grasp had not
prepared us for the shape of the world.
Other than burial will provide complete protection
so that the earth is not empty. The world where we
make our home and the fire that consumes
all before it.
If the music of occasion never to have settled
the pleading had no effect. A retreat from definitions
the trained eye of the shifting splendid new.
Above the water table there is no philosophy
for the lean season. If the site with no hillocks
of water level the file cannot be played.
Acted upon the foundations of houses in the place
of illumination. If we live by the sword of science
to un-break the great conversation.
hawsers thrown by the tugs
a work of fragments an exhausted
genre. A kind-of
structure. Struck as the dark
waves
amongst grass and gravel
for stones and heavy beams
bollards and cleats
of cast iron a few timbers
and the pilings
on the pole of a weir. As a ship
is injured. Between sea and land
without either. Forbidden
circulations. The shipworm
returns. Lists which pertain
to movement. Termite
of the sea
night and fog meet. Gives
the air. Alluding to a lighthouse
to the deck of an ocean
in this dispiriting mall
the racket the fishmongers
make. A great manuscript
that no one would ever see
our city the art of paralysis
to do monumental things
Originally from Southern California, Glenn Bach now lives in the Doan Brook watershed of Cleveland, Ohio. His major project, Atlas, is a long poem about place and our (mis)understanding of the world. Excerpts have appeared in jubilat, Otoliths, Plumwood Mountain and others. He documents his work at glennbach.com and @AtlasCorpus.