Lissa
Wolsak
Working Note: Please refer to "An Heuristic Prolusion" in the "Reading/s" section of issue 5 of HOW2 for a statement of how this prolusion came into being.
From Pen Chants or nth or 12 spirit-like impermanences
(New York: Roof, 2000)
underburden the
art of each
as he had now, no
so much so
Brunello, Tiagnello, Sassicaia…,
Traviata…sung through
unbroken carpet-vines
form a common breathing passage
around the route of the
river taxis
recently scorched vineyards
who has misled the earth
enclosed in my bones?
~
to distort thought
I will send more leaves
posed as birds
so spoke the omniana
whose mountains sop love
all else temblor
we followed and luffed
in our ultralights
~
io! io!
below, a series of honorific umbrellas
and may another accept
a parish visit to a bunker
a heavily armed Mass
nuptual parades that resemble fights
counseling-in-a-bag…
in terrorem
in loco parentis
in media res
in puck-lit wheat
tears of things
crushed of all genius!
a glue upon my
kundalinis, in cold mischief
I insculpt
the gasp of individual perception
~
toe over a leaf
this is our salt
salt language
the carrying skin
I leave to another pen
~
A note lit on my shoe
or the impress of monotony
when not calm of heroism
what ````` says, is also yours..
early will I ululate
this Esso night
share the alley
oyez!…do.
~
o sovereign ostrich, muzzled raven…
to qualify wine and waves
bind all birds
in simple snake-fury
open the catacoustic forest
~
that there alone, incults
my quietist camel-father
during his samadhis
girdled by lililess hills,
epi, turps, sud.
Within parting…kiss us
~
The destination of all sung poetry
organs of walking
uncoffer lakelight, schoon
people at their most innocent
what final urge
is not met by
ritualised fainting
embodiment of seizure
gravid habit and fear.
Yma Sumac, on that scarp
ebbist…. nimbi kneeling
o soil,
what mouth-torch?
~
elliptical hand
in mock hand
draw close to me
belly-bitten grasses,
shadow-milks,
my fallen twin whose
fork lies incused in my hair
~
my rowan, as much the rose
unlisted meanings of space,
mix-witness riant
shade and activity
~
yet I will not
omni-bear
dispeopling simulacrums,
social furniture…,
fuck puny fiction, pornocracy,
and pandit classes,
I emptied my purse
and inserted a gnat
o godmother
I am mostly silence… distaff
but it is not so
as I have heard from ````
that blindfolding eliminates stress…
~
But up!
Let us finish each others songs
for whom shall I
suppose my country does not blush for me
who will serve as food for truces
what relaxation lies
behind cosmoses
we lutes, enceinte
walkabout
in despairs of peacetime
untied from
malevolence of misrecognition
~
parents of craving…,
lock our stutters
à rebours,
runners carry a
burning leaf a
fence of legs
from what homes
they were torn
absent us from ..
siege-engines,
empathy industry,
buy-backs for
our holy instant:
black with civilizade
or tethered in poses
of execution
~
evolve transeunt light semé
of candles on their graves
give to them the
mystery of
their
fear
~
for ghosted sex
what stimuli
stand we
snashed upon
privacy and desire,
else pulled back
deft wombs,
furbished a tutti
mismoving
zool
vis mortua
infantilized
helicity
of a forest razor
secret stings of
welcoming and escorting
~
But in a journey
which I made
hurried forward
battling against a breeze
which caught both the wis
teria and skirts of her kimono
crickets, wasp and praying mantis
carry flowers and a small cage
a secluded fisherwoman
trailing her foot in the water..
partook, in suss-chordal
water
the samurai’s desire
to adopt a child
~
o, thoughtic sleeves,
enclued side-swipes..
moteting gyro-vague and
part-time wooer.. kyriist,
fib-snout and booze-bonding
perfecto-distingo at San Marco..,
do not rescind space
pangless between atoms..
but at the shadow of
species and ideas
for the love of
the covering animal
~
people thought they got hurt..
here too.. spark-over
that cohesion of prey..
pled Soutine
~
alivo vie and deepy day-depth
diggable abacists
hear their Gnossiennes and
infigurable critiques
rising from within
detach them from
light astonishment
tare
~
where on,
unvarying and sandalled, yet
.. philharmonic,
euphuist and canyon wren
embraced them closely in..,
the tatami room fell silent
as snowblink
to kineticize..
~
merit of having
conquered the depths
devolved upon Magdalen
someone twirls around her
on skates
experimenting with air-beams
her hair is flirting with her neck a bit
BIO:
Lissa
Wolsak is the author of the long poems THE GARCIA FAMILY CO-MERCY, Tsunami
(1994), and PEN CHANTS or nth or 12 spirit-like Impermanences, Roof Books
(1999). She works as a metalsmith in Vancouver, British Columbia.