Jacket # 9 - Geraldine McKenzie

exorcising

devil out nor strong nor true
whose ample lurch distended
too fond and stricken where I bent
your hoary lies and details sorted
resign the clear role a man one dreams
and patches out of faith and plummets
these are the falls the cankers and rot
love so fostered could cleft the plum world
fuck and ifs a small thought
the wind at my back and itching
next joys come day and good health
thrive this lazy power would cat-like
liquor up dullness old sun her flaunt
and dally mine these holes we dig ourselves
so earthed and risen to tidal whips und welt
it's a bad joke teeth snapper meet my ferocity
clawed and effect what spins chipt words
off the old block and shoulder
to the real so whirld and reassessed
in bleak well I was wrong and wronged
who passed this way and laid the silly flesh
in tender for new work its coming in
and out where thighs dispose and held
for slut a whispered promise in the breaking
shaped and bidden to the last cut
who fingered me and kissed as
traitors do stepping back to count
the winnings stuffed purse bed and bored
the last screw wound up and into
place certain failure as the facts shovel in
swaggered a blunt instrument where lithe it played
master who was good enough and hard
to please fastened close to better beak
the downy nape faked drowning by degrees
made song the eldritch pool and pull
a beaten path its music of submission
was strummed to pitch but over
trace a softness nothing crushed but sweeter for
new tongue could tease out and tangle limbs
in the hot grip and slither roil lets
fill hours I have these subtle hands
as waves flesh for shore and heavy on
o lucky horse muttered with a catch
trawled for pleasure what silver spun
in water woman shape something fishy
unassimilated in the craw fear bone
stuck thought brake and all out
panic in a small room that's an everywhere
done right and left for dead more like
doubled up and dealing from the bottom
this is not what it seems old news
tracked and beaten up your new face
your body without benefit of grace
the centre didn't hold I come round
to the beast in the bed your this and that
with a loose tongue lolloping tender buttons
come who may in proofs so thorned to prick
worm-blown tossed off from this time forth
accounts cleared it's capital risible
to the occasion private laughter boom boon
and exit my hat my cane my dancing
shoes this certain flesh evident holiness
by any light and knowing hand accomplished
here we'll say here

"Full bore . . ." ( prose poem )

Full bore. As at. The statement should be the clearest possible sentence, if it could be trusted. You (i.e. I but reluctant) look back to some other part. As time, its bootstraps, briefcase, flaunt ability to produce whatever was or was not required. Tentative, I address a large crowd. Revolution possible but Ungovernable. The dreamer wakes. Who knows the single face. Shuttling the dialectic. This loose gathering of citizens and their drawing from the streets and houses more of their number to fill and beat the castle grounds. Here where it says. Seizure. Myth. Romantic organ i.e. pump. Sincere relationship with arrows. Pump again. The patient comes to in a white room. Absence of daffodils. Colour as what we believe. Patently something. A reliable context generates endorsement. It took him some time to figure it out, naturally he continued fucking her though they didn't use that word. Insanity as a by-product of language, the eroding suspicion of activity behind the flats. Pinned to the stage/page, one can be distracted by an eloquent curve. What's life really like in America. The first bird is not the first bird. Whose bones she took and ground to dust as would float out the field, becoming. Versions of corn. Weather play. We read it, it was written & we read it. Investigations of 'we'. Who needs the story. Levers, chains, compass. The dimensions, significance in scale. A vague sensation, not unlike. Gaps between these several tongues. Hold to what you know. Obvious qualifications. Fear of Panic. Upsurge and router. In your car, on the way to. We must all discharge our obligations. Proffer throats and grain. The last bird is the last bird. She spoke, well hooked, a certainty. Shored to the bleak. Oblique and lantern. New sense. Irritation. Irrigation by a minor god. Graphic oyster of production. Sibilant beards the muttered/mothered grit. And sea to which returns. Properly invoiced. Accountment for. Number the unequivocal. Poised. A definite edge. Where foams the tawny tide tinder joint port of exchanges. As a last resort, country music. Train ride to story. Which tracks were here laid down. Striations, bruising, contusions, collusion of events. As a centre. As a point from which one might begin. Broken breads and fruit. Seeking benefit. To be made. Well. Shaped to purpose, this jug spout and lipped in grace of task. The five simplicities and their daughters. Where virtue's feminine (and takes us in) her ambiguous folds. Miracles unimportant except where regarded as a practical demonstration by poets. Writing up the people. Their flesh was more solid, their colour brighter and one might observe a particular vigour in their eyes. Religion working. The long day, its cherished shadow. As peace. As cease of pain. Dull folk. Our lot. So salt and ravaged. Him offered immortality and laughed in the goddess face. Did she think he was a fool. This is usually said out loud. A matter of pride. Pricked up and on. Forms of torture not apparent, perhaps a slight. As sleight and sleighed. Way off track. After snow, a new perplexion. Page up. Optimism as a fault lined to read. Where pools, no more than that. Moved. As with a. Sentience. The Discernibly Frivolous One, his confections. Pertinence, impending. Diagnosis as diversion. Verse to rights. Read the riot. Act. Observable disasters following the ad break. Coupled breasts and chocolate. Gloss. His assiduous licking. Evinced a passion for exotic foods, their stranger names hogging all available space. We are. As seemed to say. And less. Mind as menu. Cooking the books. An element of chance is built into every game we. Play/her. Would know my stops and dignity for exit. My song. Plucked, as fucked. Brief air, Where tidal sports the day. Spawns a whelp and baying down the moony prize. Torn of necessity. These shreds. Shriven. Bourne. Terms of harvest. In the final analysis. Rite wheel, the gates and altar. Knife. Circuit of desire, Slow ramp and bloody. This as given out.

You can read Geraldine McKenzie's review of Anne Carson's «Autobiography of Red» in Jacket # 11.