for Roswitha Kempf
in memoriam



     Lucidity
     hallucinates



        All great
        things are
        difficult
        and rare.
           — Spinoza



SPEECH



Web

Web, not
magic but
weapon, trap

web, not
dead but
sensitive, living

web, not
virgin but
intensely
pregnant:

in its
center
the spider waits





Speech

I speak of woodland
birds    of suns
              that are not put out
              by inanimobile
              stones

              by live
              blood    by stars
              that do not cease.

              I speak of what impedes
              sleep.





Things

mixed
at random:
the end the infinite
the very

the hour and its
arrow
the limit and the after
the target

the just so and the overly
as well
— beauty and its
beyond.





Exemplars

Plato
fixing forms

Heraclitus
culturing fire

Socrates
loyal to his Daemon.





Primer

From poetry,
this first
lesson:

“a arara morreu
na
aroeira”

[the macaw died / in the / pepper tree]





Maeiutics

To generate is dark
slow
form     un
              formed

to generate is
silent
firm
force

to generate is
opaque
work:

only birth
screams.





John

I

Of clay
the worker
and the house

(of clay
the name
and the work).

II

The worker-bird
rises early:

to construct its
house
to construct its
song

to win — to construct —
the day.

III

Bird makes
work and
work
makes bird.

IV

Hard
impure
labor: to construct one’s self.

V

The song is before
the bird

the house is before
the clay

the name is before
life





or C.D.A.

I

The ox is alone. The ox is
alone. The
ox.

II

What a century, my God!, said
the rats.

III

I missed the bus
(and lost all hope), therefore
I guarantee
a flower bloomed.

IV

Oops, Carlos: I think
I wrote a poem!





Proverb

I

A bird is worth
more
settled in
          hand
than the flight
of the bird past
its blood.

II

The woodland
song is worth
more than the vivid
white silence
past human
blood.

III

Open light is
worth more
than austere
primeval night beyond
blood.

IV

Bird is
worth more
blood is worth
more.





AXIOMS



Axioms

Always better
to know
               than not know.

               Always better
               to suffer
               than not suffer.

               Always better
               to undo
               than weave.




Without hand
stone
won’t wake

without tongue
song
won’t rise

without eye
sun
won’t exist.





Flight

To have
wings
is to not have
brain

to have
brain
is to not have
wings.





Newton (or Gravity)

I

The apple
falls
and stars
dance.

II

Abyss attracts
abyss: I fall
               into
               me.





Sun

Sun,
unconscious

Sun,
its black pith

Sun
aureoled by light





Kairos

When bird
alights

when mirror
wakes

when hour
ripens.





Letter

From
life
expect no reply.





On the Only Hand

— it’s prohibited
     to turn back
     and weep.





Police

Guilty
or
complicit
we never have
an alibi:

perforce, we’re
here.




Hamlet

     more philosophies
     than things!






THE ANTI-BIRD



The Anti-Bird

A bird
its nest is stone

its cry
gray metal

its eye
aches in space.

A bird
weighs
and hunts
amid garbage
and boredom.

A bird
resists the
skies. And perdures.
In spite of.





Facts

...facts
are hard stones.

There’s nothing like fleeing.

Facts are words
spoken by the world.

(Extracted from “A hora da Estrela” by Clarice Lispector)





Nakedness

Nakedness
Dense
body bitterly
impure.

Nakedness.
Fever
inchoate
totality.

Naked to
the core
the cry the garbage
the ignoble.

Naked
to the bone
to the impossible
truth




To eat
wine
to drink
bread
in this light (natural?) of
unreason.





Fortune Teller

What’s impalpable
but weighs

what’s faceless
but
wounds

what’s invisible
but
aches.





Memory

Scar, maybe
not indelible

blood
now
stigma.





To See

To see
the back
of the sun the
womb
of chaos the
bones.

To see. To see one’s self.
To say nothing.





Of Power

Teeth: positive.

they grasp
their prey
incisive
they cut

Teeth: decisive.





Eros II

Love doesn’t
see

Love doesn’t
hear

Love doesn’t
act

Love does
not.





Theology

I’m not a god, Thank all
the Gods!
I’m live meat and
salt. I can die.





COCK (nocturnes)


Cock

The cock crows and
night
deepens
into full mid
night: the cock
is black.

Abyssal cock — invisible cock
crows
and everything quiets more. In the
void
alone — opaque — per
sists
the black
cock.





Cats

I

Secret
cats
leap

rise up in
to abstract silence.

II

Cats
flow in
black: phosphoresce

scratch windows havok on
specters
sniff out every
rustle.

IV

In sleep
less vacuum      in lucid
midnight

caution: cats
acting up.
In a secret
hour
waters
sleep

(deterred rivers
                inert springs
                        introverted ocean)

in an im
possible hour
flux
        ceases

and this is the
star: crystallized
love.





Flowers

Flowers —
black on black —
unexampled

opaque
flowers (no
stars at all).

They’ll never
know they’re
flowers.





Nocturnes

I

To surpass the
face: black
love
constellatedly
alive.

II

To choose your
void. To be dissolved.
To take shelter in the abyss.

III

And the mirror
anulled: this is
the infinite.





Night

To hide (to forget)
the face

to inter (to occult)
the light

to darken
love to
sleep.

To watch over
what is born.





Prayer

Lady
of beasts
and spheres

Lady
          of blood
          and abyss

          Lady
          of shriek
          and anguish

          Lady
          nocturnal
          eternal

          — hear us!





FIGURES



Nunc

Midday crystal
acid

midday shadow
less love.





Circle

The circle
is cunning:
curls into its
own envelopment

autophagically.

The
explodes
— galaxies! —

opens
itself
pulses

self-multiplies

divinitycircle
perplexed
(perverse?)

unicircle
devouring
all.





Star

Star sterile
splendor
selvatic
solitude

useless star
impetus
energy
chaste abso
lute love

star star liquid
dementia
hard star pure
explosion,





Metals

Metals are born from            earth’s
deaf patience                           are founded in
                                                    silence

The metals grow
ferociously
(vibrant crystals
            couple).

The metals pulse
cruelly
never sleep or
dream —
meditants.

The metals
deeply
intertwine

metals chant in
time’s
core.





Dove

Coos lust
disturbed
            skies

gray
wings
ash Aphrodite

(love
exact blindness).





The Goddesses

Eos
bitch:
freest

unpetaled
and eternal.

Athena
Invisible
web

of
wind
of light
of
mist?

live
web
sign and
watchword

mind unites all
things.





Jewel

Gem’s
blithe
shine

crystal’s concise
light: order
           alive.





Amethyst

Violet
sign

violet
threshold

violet sur
            passage.





Desires

A cat
and a happy
sunflower.

A nameless nakedness.

An immaculate
wine.





Cocoon

Cocoon:
hidden

work
sleep’s
work

silk:
work

future
butterfly.

Sleep:
work

meta
morphosis’s
ardent weft.





Narcissus (Games)

Everything
happens in the
mirror.

=

Spring
empties into very
spring.

=

I read
my hand:
my only
book.

=

A god
I eye
eye
to
eye.

=

Life has us: we have nothing else.

=

Light is
in us: we illumine.

=

The adventure
— the
            venture —
to flow
forever.

=

Never to love
what doesn’t
vibrate

never to believe
in what doesn’t
sing.

=

We see by mirror
and riddle

(but can there be another
way to see?)

=

        The mirror dissolves
        time

        the mirror deepens
        the riddle

the mirror devours
the face.





VESPER (finals)



Game

As the tunica is one
alone,
dice roll
on green.

As the tunica is
unique,
dice
are necessary.

Six white faces and the
signs
that will decide
possession:

a movement, a
risk,
and the decision
imprinted
on green

The tunica
will remain
        intact.





Tablecloth

White cloth.
Integrally white.

(Material but
suspended
in whiteness).

White
that forms give birth to... ah,
so white a
veil

to receive the blood
of all
things.





Door

The stranger
knocks:
in the inner amplitude
there is no reply.

It’s the stranger (the brother) who knocks
but there will never be
a reply:

welcome’s country
is far to go.





Lullaby

To hear a
bird
is it now or
never
is it
childhood or
pure
moment?

To hear a
bird
is
always

(aches deep in
thought).





Fishing

I

Riverbank silence
of fishes
riverside not even
waiting.

II

The water doesn’t cease
and the river
never passes.

III

Riverside
lucidity
the
stone

and stone is
stone: it doesn’t germinate.
It’s enough for itself.





Natal Landscape

I

Blue distant theory of
mountains.

II

Archaic mountains, belly
of a perfect Sun
of an infinite
Moon

and the winds of August, the
mist
eliding mountains
suns and
all.

III

This star...
Mists

Not a murmur.
Nothing.

We pass (and the Sun
withers).
There will never be a return.





Ballad

Angels are
free.

We can suffer
we can live
the sole
occurence

— angels are
free —

we can die
innocently

— and angels are
even
free of innocence.





Apocalypse

A star
attracts
the light

a star
sucks up
the rest of the
rest, silence

elides the gods, im
plodes

ends dies
most
finally.





Angel

I

An angel
is fire:
it is consumed.

An angel
is gaze:
it introverts.

II

An angel
is crystal:
it dissolves.

An angel
is light
and is put out.





Vesper

The evening star is
ripe
and without any perfume.

The evening star is
barren
and most high:

after her is
only silence.



•—•—•—•—•

First posted by Berkeley Neo-Baroque Gang of One, 3.16.2006
Under continuous revision
Reproduction rights granted upon request