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  CONJUNCTIONS

  Bi-Annual Volumes of New Writing

  Edited by

  Bradford Morrow

  Contributing Editors

  Walter Abish

  Chinua Achebe

  John Ashbery

  Mei-mei Berssenbrugge

  Mary Caponegro

  Robert Creeley

  Elizabeth Frank

  William H. Gass

  Jorie Graham

  Robert Kelly

  Ann Lauterbach

  Norman Manea

  Patrick McGrath

  Rick Moody

  Joanna Scott

  Mona Simpson

  Quincy Troupe

  William Weaver

  John Edgar Wideman

  published by Bard College

  Contents

  To minimize the need for your device to wrap long and indented lines of poetry, you are encouraged to allow the contributions throughout this e-book as large a reading space as possible, by using full-screen mode, landscape rather than portrait mode, and/or as small a font size as is comfortable.

  John Ashbery, Four Poems

  Lyn Hejinian, Two Poems

  Myung Mi Kim, Siege Document

  Brenda Coultas, Three Poems

  Arthur Sze, Quipu

  Jorie Graham, Six Poems

  Michael Palmer, Three Poems

  Mark McMorris, Reef: Shadow of Green

  Susan Wheeler, Each’s Cot An Altar Then

  Ann Lauterbach, Three Poems

  Clark Coolidge, Arc of His Slow Demeanors

  Gustaf Sobin, Two Poems

  Alice Notley, Four Poems

  Tessa Rumsey, The Expansion of the Self

  Anne Waldman and Andrew Schelling, Two Landscapes

  Forrest Gander, Voiced Stops

  Tan Lin, Ambient Stylistics

  Marjorie Welish, Delight Instruct

  Laynie Browne, Roseate, Points of Gold

  James Tate, Two Poems

  Honor Moore, Four Poems

  Leslie Scalapino, From The Tango

  Bin Ramke, Gravity & Levity

  Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, Two Poems

  Charles Bernstein, Reading Red

  Mei-mei Berssenbrugge and Charles Bernstein, A Dialogue

  Rosmarie Waldrop, Five Poems

  Martine Bellen, Two Poems

  Peter Sacks, Five Poems

  Reginald Shepherd, Two Poems

  Barbara Guest, Two Poems

  Donald Revell, Two Poems for the Seventeenth Century

  Paul Hoover, Resemblance

  Elaine Equi, Five Poems

  Norma Cole, Conjunctions

  Jena Osman, Boxing Captions

  Ron Silliman, Fubar Clus

  John Yau, Three Movie Poems

  Melanie Neilson, Two Poems

  Robert Kelly, Orion: Opening the Seals

  Nathaniel Mackey, Two Poems

  C. D. Wright, From One Big Self

  Peter Gizzi, Fin Amor

  Carol Moldaw, Festina Lente

  Charles North, Five Poems

  Robert Creeley, Supper

  Brenda Shaughnessy, Three Poems

  Malinda Markham, Four Poems

  Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Draft 38: Georgics and Shadow

  Nathaniel Tarn, Two Poems

  Peter Cole, Proverbial Drawing

  Fanny Howe, Splinter

  Anne Tardos, Four Plus One K

  Roberto Tejada, Four Poems

  Andrew Mossin, The Forest

  Elizabeth Willis, Two Poems

  David Shapiro, Two Poems

  Camille Guthrie, At the Fountain

  Susan Howe, From Preterient

  Cole Swensen, Seven Hands

  Susan Howe and Cole Swensen, A Dialogue

  Keith Waldrop, A Vanity

  Will Alexander, Fishing as Impenetrable Stray

  Juliana Spahr, Blood Sonnets

  Jerome Sala, Two Poems

  Leonard Schwartz, Ecstatic Persistence

  Catherine Imbriglio, Three Poems

  Vincent Katz, Two Poems

  Thalia Field, Land at Church City

  John Taggart, Not Egypt

  Renee Gladman, The Interrogation

  Laura Moriarty, Seven Poems

  Kevin Young, Film Noir

  Jackson Mac Low, Five Stein Poems

  Rae Armantrout, Four Poems

  Anselm Hollo, Guests of Space

  NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

  A Note from Open Road Media

  Vraiment,

  Poetry can be so many more things

  Than what people mostly believe it is.

  —Anselm Hollo

  Four Poems

  John Ashbery

  A NICE PRESENTATION

  I have a friendly disposition but am forgetful, though I tend to forget only important things. Several mornings ago I was lying in my bed listening to a sound of leisurely hammering coming from a nearby building. For some reason it made me think of spring which it is. Listening I heard also a man and woman talking together. I couldn’t hear very well but it seemed they were discussing the work that was being done. This made me smile, they sounded like good and dear people and I was slipping back into dreams when the phone rang. No one was there.

  Some of these are perhaps people having to do with anything in the world. I wish to go away, on a dark night, to leave people and the rain behind but am too caught up in my own selfish thoughts and desires for this. For it to happen I would have to be asleep and already started on my voyage of self-discovery around the world. One is certain then to meet many people and to hear many strange things being said. I like this in a way but wish it would stop as the unexpectedness of it conflicts with my desire to revolve in a constant, deliberate motion. To drink tea from a samovar. To use chopsticks in the land of the Asiatics. To be stung by the sun’s bees and have it not matter.

  Most things don’t matter but an old woman of my acquaintance is always predicting doom and gloom and her prophecies matter though they may never be fulfilled. That’s one reason I don’t worry too much but I like to tell her she is right but also wrong because what she says won’t happen. Yet how can I or anyone know this? For the seasons do come round in leisurely fashion and one takes a pinch of something from each, according to one’s desires and what it leaves behind. Not long ago I was in a quandary about this but now it’s too late. The evening comes on and the aspens leaven its stars. It’s all about this observatory a shout fills.

  AS UMBRELLAS FOLLOW RAIN

  Too bad he never tried it—

  he might have liked it.

  She saw us make eye contact.

  And that was that for that day.

  Too bad he too, when I

  am

  meaning if I came along it’d

  already be too late.

  Some of the swans are swarming.

  The spring has gone under—it wasn’t

  supposed to be like this.

  Now they watch him and cringe.

  Who are they? Who is he?

  We decided to fly Chinese.

  The food wasn’t that good.

  And oh Erwin did I tell you

  that man—the one—I didn’t

  know if I was supposed to or not.

  He crawled back listlessly,

  holding a bunch of divas.

  It’s hard work getting these out,

  but so’s any thing you’re entitled to do:

  Classes to attend.

  The morning of school.


  Evening almost over,

  they bend the security rules.

  It’s time for another fog bomb.

  Lookit the way they all roost.

  Poor souls clashed together

  until almost the root’s roof

  separates us from our beginning.

  We slew many giants in our day,

  burned many libraries.

  Roundabouts, swings,

  it was all one piece of luck to us.

  Now we’re washed up it’s almost cold

  not bad enough to put up a stand.

  Out of that longing we built a paean.

  Now everyone who crosses this bridge is wiser.

  It doesn’t tilt much.

  Look, the shore is arriving laterally.

  Some people literally think they know a lot,

  gets ’em in trouble, we must rake out

  cafés looking for rats and exploded babies.

  There was one too many last week.

  I don’t know if you’re coding.

  The cop pulled us over

  in a shawl. Why do you want to go around me

  when there are other circulars

  to be had for the looking?

  I never thought about being grounded forever.

  This is Mademoiselle. Take your hat off.

  There’s no need, I was here last Thursday.

  All the best creatures are thwarted

  for their pains. He removed my chains deftly,

  processed my passport with gunk.

  Now two times five geese fly across

  the crescent moon, it is time to get down to

  facts, in the tiny park.

  There were priests posing as nuns,

  quinces and stuff.

  Tilt me a little more to the sun,

  I want to see it one last time. There,

  that’s just fine. I’ve seen it.

  You can roll me inside. On the wings of what perturbation?

  He came for the julep.

  He was gone in an instant.

  We cry too much over

  drowned dogs.

  He came in last week too.

  Said he knew you or somebody else.

  It’s the pain just of replying

  that makes so many of them take up different lines.

  Too many goods—we are spoiled indeed.

  Had we learned to subsist on less

  the changing of the world might be different,

  earth come to greet us. I say, the chairs have grown back.

  The couple sat in the dish drainer

  pondering an uncertain future.

  The kitchen had never looked bleaker

  except for two chinchillas near the stove, a beaker

  of mulled claret, shaving soap smelling

  so fresh and new, like smoke, almost.

  He says leave it here,

  that he comes here.

  OK harness the DeSoto,

  we’ll have other plans

  for newness, for a renewing, kind of—

  picnics in the individual cells

  so no one falls asleep for it, dreams

  she is a viola, instrument of care, of sorts.

  You should have seen him when we got back.

  He was absolutely wild. Hadn’t wanted us to go

  to the picture show. But in a way it was all over,

  we were back, the harm had been done.

  Gradually he came to realize this

  over a period of many years, spanning

  two world wars and a major depression.

  After that it was time to get up and go,

  but who had the get up and go? A child’s

  party, painted paper hats, bowlfuls of lemonade,

  no more at the lemonade stand, it sold out.

  That was cheerful. A man came right up behind you,

  he had two tickets to the door.

  We need starve no more

  but religion is elastic too—

  might want some at some future date—

  if so you’ll find it here.

  We have to hurry in now,

  hurry away, it’s the same thing

  she said as rain came and stole the king.

  MEET ME TONIGHT IN DREAMLAND

  It was an hour ago. I walked upstairs to dreamland. Took a cab and got out and somebody else backed in. Now we weren’t actually on the Dreamland floor. That would be for later. Look, these are the proper plans, plants. They used to have a Chautauqua here, far out into the lake. Now it’s peeled. No one actually comes here. Yet there are people. You just hardly ever see them. No I wasn’t being modest. Some get out on the floor, several a year, whose purple glass sheds an eldritch glow on the trottoirs, as Whitman called them. Or spittoons. Look, we are almost a half a mile later, it must link up. The Tennessee drifter smiled sharkly. Then it was on to native board games.

  Je bois trop.

  In one of these, called “Skunk,” you are a weasel chasing a leveret back to its hole when Bop! the mother weasel, about ten stories tall, traps you with her apron string, patterned with poppies and rotted docks. You see, you thought every noun had to have an adjective, even “sperm,” and that’s where you made your first big mistake. Later it’s raining and we have to take a car. But the game isn’t over—there are sixteen thousand marble steps coming up, down which you glide as effortlessly as you please, as though on a bicycle, weasel in tow. It’s an exercise bike. What a time to tell me, the solar wind has sandpapered everything as smooth as quartz. Now it’s back to the finish line with you.

  You’re not quite out of the woods yet. Dreamland has other pastures, other melodies to chew on. Hummingbirds mate with dragonflies beneath the broken dome of the air, and it’s three o’clock, the sun is raining mineral-colored candy. I’d like one of these. It’s yours. Now I’m glad we came. I hate drafts though and the sun is slowly moving away. I’m standing on the poopdeck wiggling colored pennants at the coal-colored iceberg that seems to be curious about us, is sliding this way and that, then turns abruptly back into the moors with their correct hills in the distance. If it was me I’d take a trip like this every day of my life.

  IN THE TIME OF PUSSY WILLOWS

  This is going to take some time.

  Nope, it’s almost over. For today anyway.

  We’ll have a beautiful story, old story

  to fish for as his gasps come undone.

  I never dreamed the pond of chagrin

  would affect me this much. Look, I’m shaking.

  No, it’s you who are doing the shaking.

  Well, it all comes round to us

  sooner or later. Shrinking with the devil

  in the stagey sunrise he devised.

  And then there will be no letters for what is truth,

  to make up the words of it. It will be standing still

  for all it’s worth. Then a hireling shepherd came along,

  whistling, his eyes on the trees. He was a servant of two masters,

  which is some excuse, though not really all that much of a one.

  Anyway, he overstayed his welcome. But the last train had already left.

  How does one conduct one’s life amid such circumstances,

  dear snake, who want the best for us

  as long as you are not hurt by it.

  My goodness, I thought I’d seen a whole lot of generations,

  but they are endless, one keeps following another,

  treading on its train, hissing.

  What a beautiful old story it could be after all

  if those in the back rows would stop giggling for a minute.

  By day, we have paddled and arbitraged

  to get to this spot. By night, it hardly matters.

  Funny we didn’t anticipate this,

  but the dumbest clues get overlooked by the smartest gumshoe

  and we are back in some fetishist’s vinyl paradise

  with no clue as to how we got here

  exce
pt the tiny diamond on your pillow—it must have been a tear

  hatched from a dream, when you actually knew what you were doing.

  Now, it’s all fear. Fear and wrongdoing.

  The outboard motor sputters and quits, and a tremendous silence

  beats down from every point in the sky. To have digested this

  when we were younger, and felt a set of balls coming on …

  It may be that thunder and lightning are two-dimensional,

  that there was never really any place for fear,

  that others get trapped, same as us, and make up

  amusing stories to cover their tracks. Wait,

  there’s one in the donjon wants to speak his piece. Rats,

  now he’s gone too.

  Yes, he near slipped and died in front of you,

  and you intend to twist this into an ethos?

  Go make up other stories.

  Window reflected in the bubble,

  how often I’ve tried to pray to you,

  but your sphere would have nothing of it.

  I felt almost jinxed. Then a spider led the way

  back into the room.

  And we knew why we’d never left. Outside was brushfires.

  Here was the peace of Philemon and Baucis,

  offering chunks of bread and salami to the tattered stranger,

  and a beaker of wine darker than the deepest twilight,

  a table spread with singularities

  for the desperate and tragic among us.

  Angel, come back please. Let us smell your heavenly smell again.

  Two Poems

  Lyn Hejinian

  THE DISTANCE

  Banned from ships as if I were fate herself, I nonetheless long hankered after adventures

  At sea

  But buckets, lifeboats, gulls, and fishguts on wharves were as near as I got

  Or the beach. The ban was inoperative on the sands, I boarded

  Wrecks. The terns, godwits and gulls were ashore as at sea, and I learned the fine points

  By which one can distinguish between the sandpipers

  Just as I learned that there are many fine points to fate

  Which divulges what comes to pass indefinitely

  So that we can hardly say of things that happen that they were meant to be

  Or that they were not. Like a pupil

  I was ruled by obedience

  To rules I broke. I floundered around

  And enjoyed my choices—I was eager

  To receive—

  But not without perplexity, I was endowed with doubt

  And that is one of the few things I can say of myself then that I can say of myself

  Now, for the most part there has been little confluence. I’ve been swept