All the stars are confused 
when we involve them in our grief. 
And from the strongest to the frailest, 
nothing and no one is willing

to tolerate our changing moods,
our rebellion, our cries--
except for the tireless table
and the bed (a table that's fainted).


from Orchards

Rainer Maria Rilke

( swept the kitchen into a wreath waiting )

A review in a letter: Hank Lazer's N18 Complete

Dear Hank,

I'm understanding the "(Complete)" part of this title as more than a simple assurance to readers that no original notebook pages have been withheld in the making. The big Completeness of this book in my eyes shows up in a collection that opens space for such completeness--finite, infinite, unfathomable--by gracefully remembering that limits and definitions to that space are impossible.

Every handwritten piece of text in the book represents the completeness of the author's life up until and including the very moment of its inscription--cumulative memories, breath, sight, expectations, forgottens, founds, silences, joys. In this case a hand and pen have more sense for accumulation and wisdom than a typed font clearing its throat as a beginning--a new occasion from all previous occasions fitted in the same font. The millions of possibilities for the curves of a cursive 'r' belong to you as you paint them, and your r's seem happy to remind of or acknowledge the r's of everyone else awake in the "early morning" (9), in the completeness of that/your moment. "they/ every last one/ are/ all his own voice" (13). Every last stroke, letter, fraction of shaking experience of a second. Each written word is past & future collected in a fossil of flowing present/presence/presentness.

Hank, speaking of angels playing harps, do you listen to Joanna Newsom? I remember you saying that you think of listening to music as a kind of reading; I think of listening to Joanna Newsom as a kind of writing poetry--in her book-length songs, in her slice of sounds as I am listening exactly, I hear such exact shapes from her that they seem to make sense of the instantaneous sparking of wires behind my eyes and they seem to make sense of the folding progression into next moment(s). Your book has this effect on me as well. My hearing/reading of these shapes are notes that are complete enough in their fluid selves to represent, for me, the cosyness and strechyness of the infinite: "on the bridge/ to sing with/ the sound of what passes by" (37). The result is a fluctuating--or perhaps simultaneous--sense of terror and peace, gratitude, relinquishment.

Joanna Newsom sings "Never get so attached to a poem you forget truth that lacks lyricism," and to that you respond "written right now" (15).

THE HOUSE COMES TOGETHER SLOWLY

SMALL KITCHEN REQUIRES 

OLDER          FEWER WORDS

SITTING          A TREE'S ORIGINAL NAME

SCRUNCHED

QUESTION OF HANGING A CRYSTAL FROM A BRANCH

LIGHT                                          FISHING LINE GRASS

                                       

BRIGHT ROAD                               

A WHITE SPOON

                                                                                             FUNNY

                                                                                          VALENTINE

TO THE BACKS &

UNDERSIDES                                      SMALL BLONDE

OF THINGS                                          HAIR FLIPPING OUT

                                                               THE BACK WINDOW

                                                               AIR         FACE

                                                               IF SHE NOTICES MY

                                                               FOOT DANGLING       SHE

                                                               COULD BE ANYTHING

LAYERS OF SOUND                              CARS    CHIRPS      LEAVES

           RUSTLING       STRONGER   SINGING             AIR          AIR

touching things as
maybe the railing still
holds concreteness 
of the moment we hugged
half a day after
the beginning

walking equivalent of
beating my head
with fists
asking why
can't I remember your face
without waiting

if contact could
shatter the gap
deep in my bones, guilt

why did I never write you back and
should I send a letter to a place
you once were

knew your hair would be shorter 
didn't see the ball cap coming
brim too close to your eyes

Letter to George #2

on Friday 13 full moon, you slink out the screen door with me, midnight porch companion, hearts beat slowly, I sink to the steps to rest my shivering eyes and shoulders and your black-haired head scrubs my bare thighs. our few steps a ship and the moony grass is ocean. no one comes for us and we go inside to bed

                                                             ,

            :                                                d

            k                                                n

            o                                               u

            o                                              o

            l                                                r

            r                                                g

            e                                                r           a

            v                       ,                       e           

m         o                       e                      d           ,

a                                   c                      n           y

            y                       n                      u           t

i           k                       a                                    i           

            s                       t                       g           s          r                    m

,           u           e          s                       n          n         o                    a            .

e          d          u            i                       i          e          f                                  e

m                      l            d                     g          d                                 i           m

o          e           b                                  n                      e                                 o

h          h                       e                      i           t           u                    e           h

            t           f            h                     s          e           d                    r          

g                      o           t                                  k                                 e           g

n          g                                              ,           n          r                      h          n

i           n          s           t                      n          a         e                      w          i

v          i           e          a                      e          l           y                                   l

i           e          g          e                      e          b          a                      w          l

r           y         d           l                       r                      r                       o          a

d          e          e          p                      g          a          p                      n          c






After living here for a year, there are still moments every day when I open doors to step outside and am whipped with the sheer beauty and newness of the mountain views. Breathing greens at high noon, dimming gradients of blues, melting yellow at dusk. The force of each is somehow something like tidy, neutral violence to my system--always unexpected, always incomparable, always all-consuming of the instant and my entire thriving being.

I am experimenting with ways of holding my curiosity and reverence, of processing my relationship to and in this home. I'm winking at names of places around me and getting to know them better, the stories behind. Also the stories forward I am growing myself: here is one edge of Deep Gap as I knew it yesterday evening. I'd like to keep in mind a project composed of these layers of names and shifting impressions.

could be poetry/thought/consequence, w/  poet/thinker/decision treading behind ~


(source: dinakelberman.com)

1st letter to George

everything everyone writes.. I don't know what I'm writing George, what are you writing? we lock eyes, your yellows break it flashing elsewhere, beside & beyond my seat

I pasture the goats and watch them eat me a poem

eat me eat me

eat me eat

at me eat me pasture the goats

            and watch them eat me a poem

                        pasture themg-  -                                                      -   *                               -   *  _

                                    watch them eat me :

the grass                                   *

No pressure to note all the flowers in the field; crushed memory, grass steps

No time for poetry but exactly what is

I’m kind of standing in the crotch of two highways, I think                                               *

two thighs, maybe

a motorcycle cruises by in the dusk, fluffing four black birds above it

Gendrie goes for the clover, Sweetie doesn’t care or

doesn’t mind

There is a brick wall out here

nowhere in the field

it’s you         *         at April        *        ’s party tonight

me, the goats,      then

first day at the diner: Tina, Uncle Bob, Randy, the B-R-D Shooter, Roxie, Lou, a baby. Sending love to Ang & John at home tonight, the ones in whom I found a nest & a nudge