Andy Gricevich; poems

from THALES

What’s everything?
Place contains it
falsely. Grey waves
on the colony
at Miletus
suggest embrace.
He turns
until pyramids
match their shadows,
draws them in
circles. Wants laws
like rising mist.
Against this, a river
to drink. He
and Solon
in the vast
dust.

*

Cleaning raw egg off a wood floor
won’t convince you that all is water. Thought’s
speed. Charging through everything,
incomparable. Slow down!
Too late. 720
moons in the sun
“which beams in Charles’ wain.”

*

A Rod of Amber: Why do you not spawn?

The Olive Speculator: Because I love children.

The Birth of Philosophy

*

elong / casual / ensouled / I / river / Ursa / or / Asia

minor / focus / the / samian / all / that / is / solid

a wave




from EXPOSURES


Indwelling jargon parades
against clockwork, renews
a softer emergence . . . . etched
vs. mist

Music
makes the world
louder by contrast

Cars distinguish
one another

Unmetaphorical
germination
takes precedence


*


sedate at this, but I want to fucking drive
a wedge



*



Form went inside,
so lost itself.

Neighbors of belief
begin to time




Out of ear
shot: leaks, rills
of news. Ends

of lines incur





from EXPOSURES

To rescue
one another
including us

we have to tear away the metaphor
of depth


Time is as familiar
and uninhabitable as the bored ice

Riddled petals
Crawling housewife
at least noted



Shapes argue with the whole picture--every detail
sweats charm and grace, and it stinks--to you.

Park the form in what happens and the attentions.
"I have a dying person on the other end." That they
would cast each other's shadows and not parrot.
"I stitched his Senate shut."



Explosion of birds
from the roof when the car
door slams out of habit


Snout around for signs
of disbelief
blacked against desire.

Fuck spirit
--once.

Eight minutes 'til we fail to weep.

Screen holds twelve sec.

Just ego scriptor in the third thought place.





DECADIC NEWS (return policy)


TEN YEARS LATER
Serial snow covers the absence of the last
as you return to a self you are
for the first time. In layers you flash
in the pan. Clay strains, unfortunate fractures
slow as the salt forming out then and there.





ALL POINTS BULLETINS
lined up around the block
not long since, too long
after sunset’s undertow
brought a story of some ardor
into perspective for “us”
and “your” children, waiting
to populate the song
when I have ceased to sing






PRISONER’S TONGUE (a camera caught it)
at one point the lead
said CUT IT OUT—not
with regard to the

*

emphasis on the damned.
Today’s purple blossom
—except this range






“EXPECT THIS PAIN”
Value is exchanged for Event

why then should my self
not follow the materials
into the well of echoes

all floats. all floats





ANOTOMY
increasing rendition

arches of a toccata over
lapping the tin ear

fingers hardened to limbs
that once scored the shore

scoured clean of clinging noise
the drone of calculation
knuckled down

limb-tips
might have

traced
nocturnes of passing true

felt
around in the silence
softening this wreck





TENURES LATER
In order of appearance the guests ghosts
took on a radiance

reimagined

veiny, swift
and time-consuming

things have accidents
often each other

“so go write some goddamn poems about next”

Christopher Rizzo; Insomnia Auditions

This one out in the interim check
a part of what and how o'clocks

a key they call minor inscape margins noting

a short straw pulled

no reach for next reason

a role for no one but yourself
curtain drawn by light

panes raw dawning




Weak weekday on the drift and sly

then wake to say pistils
opened to alighting an uncomfortable lie

put down the night word

hoarse is the radio
lead throat to silencio but

what keeps awake human static

draft's cold sluice

sharp's intangible





To one extent death

let go into wind a sheet
music for when

windlass whirls in morn

worms and sheaves
segmentations segues

brevity a breath





What left
to leave

a space as much

to keep at
say





Pace nights dream wedge unreason

regress to one part rust and the rest
waste one more

ticks tick more slowly now than else

less feeless
than doldrums beat

all the king's men didn't want to

a ruler's increments don't
star the lineaments

Orion made of stops