I agree--what a thrilling piece of work, Randolph! It was so moving to me to
see time figured as a girl child, for a change Although I've long cherished
the mythic boys who come out of nowhere in an empty boat (Moses, Scild
Scefing, etc) and the small boy of time that Bakhtin appropriated from--who
was it now, Ficino? Cusa?--I wanted to give a cheer for Florence!
Candice
on 2/6/02 4:17 PM, Erminia Passannanti at [log in to unmask] wrote:
> Randolph, this piece is MAJESTIC!
>
> (Bravo,,,,)
>
> erminia
>
>
>
> On Wed, 6 Feb 2002 19:00:43 -0000, Randolph Healy <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> Arena / Breaking
>>
>>
>> What clock has the most moving parts?
>>
>>
>>
>> She lies naked in the sand
>> her body covered in butter
>>
>> the floor covered in flour
>> with which she is also powdered.
>>
>> The sky is so blue
>> the same sky over us all
>> Earth's atmosphere
>> thin as a layer of paint on an apple
>> where purely natural weather
>> no longer exists.
>>
>> So happy
>> granular
>> quartzmicafeldsparmagnetite
>> the product of chemical and mechanical disintegration
>> a loose incoherent mass
>> the staff of life atomised
>> impressed on an edible emulsion of fat globules
>> her square metre of skin
>> singing in every nerve.
>>
>> I let her at it
>> keeping half an eye on her through the patio door
>> while I sweep calculating the five and a half hours till bedtime.
>> It's a lovely day all the same
>> each gentle breeze full
>> of every radio wave there is.
>> Our radio picks out one.
>> Real, inverted, diminished.
>> From a story of countrywide floods,
>> the population stranded in trees, a detail:
>> in a home for the mentally handicapped
>> the attendant absconded
>> leaving the inmates manacled to the walls
>> For some reason I think of the attendant
>> as a child perpetually besieged
>> to the pin of their collar just shovelling shit.
>> The inmates, what a word, whatever their age,
>> perhaps quite a broad range, are or were, legally,
>> forever children.
>>
>>
>> can nun spar
>>
>> Imagine the hooting and honking
>> everyone high as kites
>> so long deprived of tactile joy
>> kicking and splashing as the water rises
>> screams of hilarity as some start to float.
>>
>> bell gong whistle,
>>
>> so much meat
>> caught in god's industrious teeth.
>>
>> Florence has gone upstairs
>> stands in the en-suite shower
>> holding her hands to the water
>> as if in supplication.
>>
>> What relief it must have been
>> when each day finally ended
>> and they slept
>> wet mouths open to starlight
>> coursing through a darkness
>> cold enough to turn breath solid.
>>
>>
>>
>> Randolph Healy
|