105. Limnitations
I can think out
to you these
few things
broken in
pieces like
chalk, like
brittle,1 like
intentions
a.
the limitations
of the expansive
distances2 beyond
which we see
something too big
to remember
b.
secreted or kept3
within or
allowed to seep
from the body
the sticky syrups
of the body
under surfaces
but straining to
leave through
orifice or wound
the body
suppurant4
c.
desire is not
a subtraction
of the man5
and does not
comply
with the
apparent
etymology
held within
it as it turns
its eyes from
the stars6
desire is
the addition
to a
woman7
d.
sensations
suggest8
those parts
of existence
directly
perceivable
(and thus
accessible to)
via the
senses
but the word
holds within
its body
gravid with
possibility
the sense
of scent
(that sense
that wanders
in and out
of grasp)
and sent9
something
received
but some-
thing also
directed on
to another
e.
water10 is
waiting
for the
gravity11
of the
situation
to pull
it one
way or
another
it has
no will
or way
of its own
but merely
wanders12
and fills
and it
seems
to be
pushed but
it is
always
pulled
into
place13
f.
forgotten
and gotten
the way
we hold
onto what
we don’t
know we
still know
the moon
for gotten14
g.
underthought15
or the under-
thought how
for instance
the under-
thought pulls
you under
drowns you
in dreams
or worries
the labored
breathing of
the impre-
gnable16 unlike
underthought
that ulterior
thought that
hidden idea
that darkly
guides where
ever a bright
thought
seems to
reign
h.
light
is weightless
but heavy
with heat
on the wrong
days a dog17
could sleep
within its
sunshine
forever
i.
deft and
apt
a symbol18
word
j.
scrunched19
clumped
cramped
and let
go as if
in flight
k.
a passing
passion
the words
don’t mean
except as
the language
allows them20
to be
in thrall
enthralled
with an
Other since
One self
is never
complete21
in itself
l.
love
of love
of word
of
sound of
sense
of want
of
want and
wanting22
m.
poetry is
serious
business
like contract
killing23 but
the work
is more
plentiful
and pays
less and
some say
the rewards
are
fewer
n.
nacreosote24
o.
this is
tho even25
at this
point
it might
not be
obvious
a letter
specifically
to you
Olivia
and the
letter
is O
_____
1 Cf. “peanut,” as in “peanuts and penis,” an unavoidable pair and an unavoidable pun of the day, followed by the immutable pair “anteater and antelope.” What belong together do not necessarily belong together.
2 Words can be both general and specific, so a distance may be the measurable space between any two points (which is the general use of the term) or it might be a great expanse between two points, as it is that the word seems most naturally to mean to us. Poetry is about the use of words and so must take such polysemy into consideration.
3 “Secreted” and “kept” are words that may have the same meaning in some instances or contexts, and which share phonemes more than they share letters, since letters, the characters of a written language, are usually only general guides to sound, which exists on a different stratum of meaning.
4 A poetic license is valid for five years before the poet must renew it. The body is always a potential “suppurant,” even though the word did not come into existence until a few minutes ago.
5 Punning against a folk etymology, we can find within “desire” (though not desire) the senses of castration, impotence, the inability to father children, even the effects of the feared and fabled vagina dentata, a terror so quaint given a man’s frequent inclination to be surrounded whenever possible by the faux vagina dentata.
6 “Desire” is a word without a certain etymology, but these lines reveal an assumed etymology for the word, and one a bit wondrous is its poetic disturbances of the mind.
7 An idea derived by sexological research that seems to show that women are aroused by seeing any type of sex acts (heterosexual, homosexual, even between bonobo monkeys) despite whatever their own sexual tendencies are. This arousal, researchers have assumed, derives7a from the fact that what arouses a woman most is the feeling of being desired, whereas men are more aroused by the desirability of others, of potential or imminent sexual partners. (Of course, I’m not a sex researcher and am reporting only my interpretation of the findings of research presented for the layperson.)
7a “Derive” is almost “desire.”
8 The poet Philip Booth once told his graduate poetry writing class (including me) at Syracuse University that we should avoid using esses too much in poems, because they did not record well and sounded harsh on audiotape, but I can not avoid sibilance, which seems what the tongue is made for—not to make a sound itself, but to direct and restrict the air between itself and the alveolar ridge and out of the mouth in such a way to produce a remarkably continuous sound.
9 Certainly, these are merely a pair of puns, not some significance the word actually carries within itself, yet I cannot shake those hangers-on from the body of the word.
10 Water is on my mind as I have been spending the entire day eating nothing more solid than gelatin or sorbet, preparing my body to cleanse itself, drinking laxatives to loosen the solider syrup of my body, and washing it all away with water. Water runs through me and out and out of the house and away, and then water comes again and repeats it all, drawn by the pull of gravity.
11 At this point, this segment of poetry ascends to pun, suggesting other ways to consider the actions of nature. Just a step from a pathetic fallacy here.
12 The w’s (or their sounds) are (or is) the sound of water moving.
13 And the bilabial plosives stop the water in its place. I have no idea what the sounds of a poem of mine are doing until after it is written. My ear guides me, but the ear is merely a specifically trained part of the brain.
14 Tmesis heightens the ancientness of the word “gotten.” This is a bit of North American writing, not English.
15 Even a word that doesn’t truly exist, except as a potential word, a latent word, can have strata of meaning within it because a language follows certain multiple and complex rules that we, as its users and thus those who keep it alive, understand without even thinking about them directly. And I didn’t even refer to the adjectival form of the word here, where something underthought is something ill considered, and usually noted as such only after the action it generated has come to a poor conclusion.
16 The awkward break in the word is intentional, allowing for extra meaning on either side of the hyphen, but “impregnable” is already carrying out more than one role in this spot even without this extra meaning, provided once again by tmesis.
17 At this point, a single phrase ends one sentence and begins another demonstrating a kind of verbal imbrication. A sentence, though, never ends in spoken life, which is real life and the source and venue of real language. Listen carefully to a sentence someone speaks, how it is begun, then begun again, interrupted by itself, then goes off track, but keeps running, not really stopping, but interrupted by another sentence by the same person or by another voice in the conversation. Language is not clean and neat (the big lie of the poem is that it is). Language is messy and ragged, as messy and ragged as life.
18 The pun is a kind of prevarication that pretends it doesn’t know the difference between a voiced and a voiceless bilabial plosive. The ear knows, the mind knows, and they hold the two thoughts together at once and as one.
19 English can cram more phonemes into a single syllable than any other language I know, and that denseness of sound is difficult for second-language speakers of English. Yet that fact is one of the treasures of English, and one poets don’t often lean towards.
20 Of course, the opening of this section is meant to provide evidence of this opening statement. The making of bald didactic statements in a poem is a poor excuse for poetry, so sneaking a little punning into the mix helps alleviate the damage of directly saying what I should simply show.
21 There is a pun in this word that I almost miss myself, but the phrasing around it should bring it out. (NB: I am not identifying all the puns in this poem, just a few of them.)
22 And wanting more.
23 A point possibly never made before, and one made here only as a form of denial, or what we might call irony, if we were rhetoricians (which we are not).
24 Sometimes a single word is so powerful that it can make an entire point all by itself. If that word is a poem, we call it a pwoermd. (NB: Philip Booth also taught us never to use the word “so” as an intensifier.”
25 Even if a linebreak may seem meaningless, it possibly isn’t. The linebreak should enhance meaning by emphasizing points, forcing productive tmetic breakages in syntax, and by guiding sound.
to you these
few things
broken in
pieces like
chalk, like
brittle,1 like
intentions
a.
the limitations
of the expansive
distances2 beyond
which we see
something too big
to remember
b.
secreted or kept3
within or
allowed to seep
from the body
the sticky syrups
of the body
under surfaces
but straining to
leave through
orifice or wound
the body
suppurant4
c.
desire is not
a subtraction
of the man5
and does not
comply
with the
apparent
etymology
held within
it as it turns
its eyes from
the stars6
desire is
the addition
to a
woman7
d.
sensations
suggest8
those parts
of existence
directly
perceivable
(and thus
accessible to)
via the
senses
but the word
holds within
its body
gravid with
possibility
the sense
of scent
(that sense
that wanders
in and out
of grasp)
and sent9
something
received
but some-
thing also
directed on
to another
e.
water10 is
waiting
for the
gravity11
of the
situation
to pull
it one
way or
another
it has
no will
or way
of its own
but merely
wanders12
and fills
and it
seems
to be
pushed but
it is
always
pulled
into
place13
f.
forgotten
and gotten
the way
we hold
onto what
we don’t
know we
still know
the moon
for gotten14
g.
underthought15
or the under-
thought how
for instance
the under-
thought pulls
you under
drowns you
in dreams
or worries
the labored
breathing of
the impre-
gnable16 unlike
underthought
that ulterior
thought that
hidden idea
that darkly
guides where
ever a bright
thought
seems to
reign
h.
light
is weightless
but heavy
with heat
on the wrong
days a dog17
could sleep
within its
sunshine
forever
i.
deft and
apt
a symbol18
word
j.
scrunched19
clumped
cramped
and let
go as if
in flight
k.
a passing
passion
the words
don’t mean
except as
the language
allows them20
to be
in thrall
enthralled
with an
Other since
One self
is never
complete21
in itself
l.
love
of love
of word
of
sound of
sense
of want
of
want and
wanting22
m.
poetry is
serious
business
like contract
killing23 but
the work
is more
plentiful
and pays
less and
some say
the rewards
are
fewer
n.
nacreosote24
o.
this is
tho even25
at this
point
it might
not be
obvious
a letter
specifically
to you
Olivia
and the
letter
is O
_____
1 Cf. “peanut,” as in “peanuts and penis,” an unavoidable pair and an unavoidable pun of the day, followed by the immutable pair “anteater and antelope.” What belong together do not necessarily belong together.
2 Words can be both general and specific, so a distance may be the measurable space between any two points (which is the general use of the term) or it might be a great expanse between two points, as it is that the word seems most naturally to mean to us. Poetry is about the use of words and so must take such polysemy into consideration.
3 “Secreted” and “kept” are words that may have the same meaning in some instances or contexts, and which share phonemes more than they share letters, since letters, the characters of a written language, are usually only general guides to sound, which exists on a different stratum of meaning.
4 A poetic license is valid for five years before the poet must renew it. The body is always a potential “suppurant,” even though the word did not come into existence until a few minutes ago.
5 Punning against a folk etymology, we can find within “desire” (though not desire) the senses of castration, impotence, the inability to father children, even the effects of the feared and fabled vagina dentata, a terror so quaint given a man’s frequent inclination to be surrounded whenever possible by the faux vagina dentata.
6 “Desire” is a word without a certain etymology, but these lines reveal an assumed etymology for the word, and one a bit wondrous is its poetic disturbances of the mind.
7 An idea derived by sexological research that seems to show that women are aroused by seeing any type of sex acts (heterosexual, homosexual, even between bonobo monkeys) despite whatever their own sexual tendencies are. This arousal, researchers have assumed, derives7a from the fact that what arouses a woman most is the feeling of being desired, whereas men are more aroused by the desirability of others, of potential or imminent sexual partners. (Of course, I’m not a sex researcher and am reporting only my interpretation of the findings of research presented for the layperson.)
7a “Derive” is almost “desire.”
8 The poet Philip Booth once told his graduate poetry writing class (including me) at Syracuse University that we should avoid using esses too much in poems, because they did not record well and sounded harsh on audiotape, but I can not avoid sibilance, which seems what the tongue is made for—not to make a sound itself, but to direct and restrict the air between itself and the alveolar ridge and out of the mouth in such a way to produce a remarkably continuous sound.
9 Certainly, these are merely a pair of puns, not some significance the word actually carries within itself, yet I cannot shake those hangers-on from the body of the word.
10 Water is on my mind as I have been spending the entire day eating nothing more solid than gelatin or sorbet, preparing my body to cleanse itself, drinking laxatives to loosen the solider syrup of my body, and washing it all away with water. Water runs through me and out and out of the house and away, and then water comes again and repeats it all, drawn by the pull of gravity.
11 At this point, this segment of poetry ascends to pun, suggesting other ways to consider the actions of nature. Just a step from a pathetic fallacy here.
12 The w’s (or their sounds) are (or is) the sound of water moving.
13 And the bilabial plosives stop the water in its place. I have no idea what the sounds of a poem of mine are doing until after it is written. My ear guides me, but the ear is merely a specifically trained part of the brain.
14 Tmesis heightens the ancientness of the word “gotten.” This is a bit of North American writing, not English.
15 Even a word that doesn’t truly exist, except as a potential word, a latent word, can have strata of meaning within it because a language follows certain multiple and complex rules that we, as its users and thus those who keep it alive, understand without even thinking about them directly. And I didn’t even refer to the adjectival form of the word here, where something underthought is something ill considered, and usually noted as such only after the action it generated has come to a poor conclusion.
16 The awkward break in the word is intentional, allowing for extra meaning on either side of the hyphen, but “impregnable” is already carrying out more than one role in this spot even without this extra meaning, provided once again by tmesis.
17 At this point, a single phrase ends one sentence and begins another demonstrating a kind of verbal imbrication. A sentence, though, never ends in spoken life, which is real life and the source and venue of real language. Listen carefully to a sentence someone speaks, how it is begun, then begun again, interrupted by itself, then goes off track, but keeps running, not really stopping, but interrupted by another sentence by the same person or by another voice in the conversation. Language is not clean and neat (the big lie of the poem is that it is). Language is messy and ragged, as messy and ragged as life.
18 The pun is a kind of prevarication that pretends it doesn’t know the difference between a voiced and a voiceless bilabial plosive. The ear knows, the mind knows, and they hold the two thoughts together at once and as one.
19 English can cram more phonemes into a single syllable than any other language I know, and that denseness of sound is difficult for second-language speakers of English. Yet that fact is one of the treasures of English, and one poets don’t often lean towards.
20 Of course, the opening of this section is meant to provide evidence of this opening statement. The making of bald didactic statements in a poem is a poor excuse for poetry, so sneaking a little punning into the mix helps alleviate the damage of directly saying what I should simply show.
21 There is a pun in this word that I almost miss myself, but the phrasing around it should bring it out. (NB: I am not identifying all the puns in this poem, just a few of them.)
22 And wanting more.
23 A point possibly never made before, and one made here only as a form of denial, or what we might call irony, if we were rhetoricians (which we are not).
24 Sometimes a single word is so powerful that it can make an entire point all by itself. If that word is a poem, we call it a pwoermd. (NB: Philip Booth also taught us never to use the word “so” as an intensifier.”
25 Even if a linebreak may seem meaningless, it possibly isn’t. The linebreak should enhance meaning by emphasizing points, forcing productive tmetic breakages in syntax, and by guiding sound.
Comments
Post a Comment