The physical thisness
of the question
available qualities
spinning infections incubation.
Because everything noted,
circulation,
oblong rebuttal
post neo anti macro
prenatal capacity
turns inward,
swinging plaintively
release phase obvious
carries forward. . .
Suppressed direction alone
tends to happen
exactly in terms
of waxwing.
I recommend
upending the oblong
structure of reinvention.
Move deeper this idea
allowing
forehead cool
(Don’t forget to breathe.)
footsies warm repeat
associated and now
like anybody else
damaged vision
downward dog
truly bleeding the role
where you have
sympathetic emergency of focus.
Probably impossible
but you promised.
The acupuncturist leaves
one in for the road.
—Gary Lindorff
Poet’s notes:
This poem rises from the attitude that the world is not a logical, coherent place. Only the very surface of consensual reality is comprehensible. In fact we have all but lost control of our destiny. Once we look a little below the surface, if we dare, we see chaos. Still, we go on pretending that things make more or less sense. But I think it’s time to admit that a nonsensical approach to understanding the world might be just as fruitful or effective as proceeding by logic.
In this poem the language is dodgy. It refuses to hold still. Just when it seems to be saying something intelligible it swerves off, like when the lead of a pencil breaks mid sentence. Take the sentence “Suppressed direction alone / tends to happen exactly in terms / of waxwing.” Waxwing is a bird. So the promise of “exactly” is completely misleading and we are left with the image of a bird, however we picture it . . . something wild, beyond our grasp.
I find myself attracted to this kind of poetry when the world, as I experience it, seems to be spinning out of control. It’s homeopathic poetry. I react to the craziness of events with my own brand of craziness, only the craziness I offer as the antidote is the opposite of the craziness of world events. In the world, the craziness is a cover for even more profound incoherence. In this kind of poetry, the craziness is surface but right below the language there is a sanity that comes as a surprise. For example the last two lines: “The acupuncturist leaves / one in for the road.” Maybe the acupuncturist left a needle in by mistake but the metaphor is all about healing beyond the literal treatment. And there is the double meaning of “for the road”. The needle that the healer leaves in could be, just as the poem says, “for” the road or for the healing of the path we are walking.