BERNEVAL

Smoke. Fire. Memory.

Tracy K. Smith
The Body’s Question

I crumple paper to encourage the flame,
And for a brief moment everything is lit.

But the logs haven’t caught,
Just seem to smolder and shrink
As the heat works its way to their center.

Getting to what I want
Will be slow going and mostly smoke.

[…]

Years ago during a storm [….]
While you added kindling to the fire […]
We sat in that room until the wood was spent.

We never left the room.
The wood was never spent.

“Joy”

The two temporal modes, a present failing to ignite and a past of toasty warmness, resolve themselves into a perpetual potential.

And so for day 1592
23.04.2011

Fabric. Fabrication.

Tracy K. Smith
The Body’s Question

Remember my own bright shirt
Like a defeated flag
Among the heap of clothes

“Night Letters”

The image stands out — all the rarer because there are few similes in this body of work and because of a hint of flutter (“defeated” “heap”). Reminds me of a title full of assonance by Michael Holmes: Got No Flag At All — dropped in here like a name on the pile.

And so for day 1591
22.04.2011

Tracy K. Smith
Life on Mars

Let your fingers do the walking.

I think of your hands all those years ago
Learning to maneuver a pencil, or struggling
To fasten a coat. […]
At night, of the fingers wrangling something
from your nose, or buried in the cave of your ear.

“Song”

Dog walking.

Give a man a stick, and he’ll hurl it at the sun
For his dog to race toward as it falls. He’ll relish

“Eggs Norwegian”

Walking on.

Perhaps one day it will be enough to live a few seasons and return to ash.
No children to carry our names. No grief. Life will be a brief, hollow walk.

“The Speed of Belief”

The genius lies not only in the control of the enjambement but also in the gestural carrying on and a sense of a constant contemplation. A walk through the hollow. A short walk.

And so for day 1590
21.04.2011

How this fragment of the poem deals with owls remains to be re-segmented.

“Ululae”
this mome nt tha tone th ism omen tt h at on
ethi smo men tt hat o net hi smo mento us is

this moment that one this moment that one this moment that one this momentous is

Rearranged holes:
mome tone omen at men hat net us is

An instance of what earlier was …

“Filigree”
my great story / migratory

Selections from Phil Hall The Little Seamstress.

And so for day 1589
20.04.2011

Influenced by one of the translations (“El Gran Collage”) I keep referring to John Robert Colombo’s 1974 chapbook as The Grand Collage when is it “Great”.

200 copies for private circulation by the poet’s friends. Translations done by friends.

The Colllage, Great and Grand, is by Ludwig Zeller.

Excerpt (snippet for other collages):

We make and remake the Great Collage; we are made
     and remade by the Great Collage.
We transfer and transform and transfigure and trans-
     fix the Great Collage; we are transfered and
     transformed and transfigured and transfixed by
     the Great Collage.

Colombo has dedicated the poem to Kurt Schwitters, collagist extraordinaire.

And so for day 1586
17.04.2011

Throughout War of the Foxes by Richard Siken is a painterly voice.

“Landscape with Rotten Fruit and Millipede” begins

I cut off my head and threw it in the sky. It turned
into birds. I called it thinking. The view from above —
untethered scrutiny.

“Landscape with Rotten Fruit and Millipede” ends

It made no sense. When you have nothing to say,
set something on fire. A blurry landscape is useless.

“Self-Portrait Against Red Wallpaper”

What would a better me paint? There is no
new me, there is no old me, there’s just me, the same
me, the whole time. Vanity, vanity, forcing your
will on the world. Don’t try to make a stronger wind,
you’ll wear yourself out. Build a better sail.

Another encounter with canvas.

And so for day 1585
16.04.2011