Eratio


 

 

 

White Blood of a Poet

 

Alifair Skebe

 

 

 

 

I.

 

The moment of ecstasy is the moment of breathing

in and out of the lungs, a deep diaphragm breath

(there never was a diaphragm, he said)

 

mathematica erotica

 

of burning holes in burning ships and thoughts fleeting,

uncharted, blown like aerospace chips.

 

How excited we get at the possibility of tomorrow’s news,

of trash day.

 

Charting thoughts fathoms deep, surfacing.

Freud’s iconic image on a smashed penny.

 

For two quarters and a copper, a circus machine spat out

an embossed likeness of the man’s white-bearded visage.

 

To engrave the face, requires the machine, the poet, the mind.

Freud beams on a nightstand or a tripod for soap

 

in a borrowed room, sleeping and waking;

to think of the self, in betterment of health.

 

To “be good to yourself” means

rest rather than play

(and always a romantic getaway)

 

the place where he won’t stop you from singing

or rip into your soul

 

flight

 

Psyche smote from the cliff—

Athene in her hand.

 

 

 

II.

 

She said something was missing.

They’re like beads on a string.

 

Bead-words shimmering with

no connection but the string.

 

(Did she know that is the art?)

 

Hejinian doesn’t give me pleasure

like Nerval or Pound,

 

and even Stein—a true Modernist;

she breeds poems

like pedigree pups.

 

I do hope it’s sunny in Austin this weekend.

 

 

 

III.

 

The skin expands too quickly in relation to becoming,

the former being loss and gain that quickens the skin

 

no longer a little egg

and little feet

little hands

 

the picture of transparent organs

whereupon loss and gain imprints the mind

 

a few pounds of flesh

(what is my worth?)

 

a signature, a heartbeat, a breath between lung and tongue

like blood it is, Faust in his

 

drawing room

(I in my cap)

 

consternation once held

for hibernation

 

a loss—a dream

a gain inside

 

without speaking, natural bond

my flesh is your flesh

 

my body given

a pattern of wanting

 

(desire)

has even its limits.

 

 

 

IV.  Cloudbridge

 

waves of white

begging—

 

this is all I know—

this is all I can ever know—

 

disappearing into vantage point

a peak

 

distance varies

side beside

 

wave of valleys

piecemeal peaks

 

patterns of limit

horizon climate

 

inclement weather

postpone desire

 

flesh under wing

black crow descends

 

his eye—a thousand rivers

seen blank and coursing

 

a thousand skyless

nights and days

 

Promethean exertion

casts his stone from embankment—

 

a cloudbridge

what is below must be Earth

 

or together inherent

pattern of sun

 

here is where the sun shines

here is where light touches

 

bleeding heat

wounded waters

flow down

 

 

 

V.

 

Did I say what I wanted to say?

Just as simple as desire

 

(desire is no simple thing)

bareback water drowning serpent

heifer swan white white white

this thing called mass

quantity shorn

against creek

 

let coursing flow

like dam could break

 

want not the same as dream

transmutation

 

key into door

eyehole peeping

 

door not curtains

double and French-paned

 

 

 

VI.

 

roughly twelve glass panes

separate sight from seen

 

blessed for the dirge worn

time-spent lastly virgin

 

motion sickness

movement to beyond

 

second sight

blind—the wise in apathy

 

avert eye

pheasant waits in the corner

 

of the scene

as framed oil painting

 

Blakeian poison deity tap root

down sun ray

 

beats heat

gold yellow power

 

method surely drowns

(my life was lost in translation)

 

breath hollow

coarse

 

transforms itself to inner light

compass points from center

 

out radius

the point is lusting from the body up

 

read Hecuba or Hades

so sudden

 

redden poise peruse

lusting like mice

 

lust is a ruse

read shock Ra

 

double helix turning on itself

death in life

deaf

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alifair Skebe is a visual artist and author of the poetry collections Thin Matter, “El Agua Es La Sangre de la Tierra” (written in English) and Love Letters: Les Cartes Postales, a book of poems and collaged, text-art postcards.  She is an English/Writing Lecturer in the Educational Opportunity Program at the University at Albany. 

 

 


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