Apartment Poetry Quarterly

19A              19B              19C              19D              19E              19F

 

19F VARUN RAVINDRAN

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PERFECTING THE WISDOM

 

—strange the strangeness of light—a strangeness there in the light—

among the narrows halfwild what musk             monad

hail                  there

there flutes all down wireman O man with full fists

stretched        there

that stretched man there full of teeth the filled man

bleating

for the dick he’s full of there there in his poor O

the lifeshine there

all calico on the

shared                         side of

flesh                             lack what

geist                                        spoor

banking there

a whole man blooms a whole man

in milk               woe

a whole man blooms—smears unguent around varnished lack

                                         all agape “soldered with air—”

gluttonman                 limbful-light

swerve vanish

minnow-wise in dandling broodslant murk

man                   light      map-

pings of lack the marrow        life hailing there among the wild halfnarrow

—a lightness there in the strange—light the lightness of the strange—

 

 

 

 

A LATTICE


“In the morning they were still singing, and I was still walking.”

—Mike Good


The piece below can be read by multiple voices. The leading voice starts anywhere in the piece and can travel up or down the lines. When the first voice reaches its third line or thereabouts, the second voice enters anywhere and reads. Other voices enter and leave alike.

 


—and let alone a month let a year alone—the day tonight still the day of the morning’s

day, let alone breath—this this measured on a pane or in a frame, or a measure—a thought

same, the same as hung above the lines on day—so the day’s thought the day of or in a thought—

a thought’s thought of the molt of the day years of thought—if a year’s thought a year then a fathom’s

thought a fathom—but a thought neither both or—anyway this morning’s ergodic day—or

this this’s morning’s day or in the day of yesternight arose yester’s next, blue night—now

morning’s day’s day but again not either but nor nought—still this—left—this net of let-alones

of same states it’s-time’s netted no-net, a rain-net—alone—its thought of nets of the nets of

days and rains alone—lets—a verse-ish-ness a thought of nets—a month or a year or a breath

toiling rain—ponchos skippets debts—debts debts debts of course debts—debts of day, dayslong debts of breath—

river of debts fruitless river, river of bells, beads, gauze river o river of coins

toiling sapphire, ashen-elbowed river, o river of merit which cannot step twice

in yourself, step once, step not at all—of which tether, which water—sun-colored glass dustless

sentential deep water of which grammar, baring which river grammar—what grammar—of what

baring if nothing hid, what waters, what river and, then, now, what river in or by what

water—o what river of which water waters what gates—what gates in which pearls and toads, days

leaping fathoms, of what state, what gate in which something, some, some o four-gated bard river

o going of jeweled mirrors, serac river, what something, which nothing, or none, none at all—

not unremembered, below was invisible, all-involved, at the highest of the high

drawn and bowed and emptied—the tidal voices blooming in themselves, apart, private, furtive—

lit in ornate radium—black array, frog-fat cherries, deep transparent watermelons

experienced of trees dense, dark trees, fluvial, mastering—and the silty viola—

pungent from faraway—jewel sewn to the heart of the blue day—stronger than memory

o Blue Neck all the boles of the dark affluent in trees—on high marrows, the drawn mountain

meandering meanings—and below sealed—and opaque I cannot experience his voice

— for Catherine Gammon

 

 

 

 

from THE AGE OF WATERS

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