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from Variant Time

Emily Martin

001

Induce nothing first,
hours of rushing shade
long ourselves and are patient,
for then you became a great gift
not beautiful but cute
hate work but will keep
on paying attention
to whom you owe, but don’t
try to find them right now,
come back after pause or mistake
or the shame of discontinuity
offers yourself up for judgment:
Evil betide me if I do not cross
the threshold every day
and enter a space that is not a space
but commitment to tending
gaps draw their extensions
to point to bright flapping
the scree bed of sky
the shape of absolution
that does not exist but
in tiny and delicate writhings
they meet on her outfit
unsewn and unpastured
the cull was debated
the minister still plans
to kill all the mink in the field
need to strengthen my muscles
my rigor with bits
that turn toward, though
technological death
has a less embarrassing pull,
and sometimes hanging out
in a group can be scary, especially
when you don’t have a common
project. What becomes the project
when you don’t have one already
in the park in a circle
talk of music and work
stories vibrate my throat to the stars
and I meet them in bed later
strung out and organized
on a stage the stones
would have little pieces
of painted Velcro
stuck to them, so they
could balance strangely
and impossibly the children
are still shepherding under the table,
the lamb is trapped
in glowing marble, the river
rocks don’t shine at night
but when there’s no night,
when it’s only the brightness of day
and they’re always underwater—




*

Sheerly the eyes
poured in avenues
[decrees] [the threshing] [winnowing]
[flung up and poured sheerly,
the eyes and the through of picked thread

Eyes spilled in scales
ride the afternoon’s threshold
that made me give in to the arc of the day,
that told and told and in that telling made
itself out to be some final word
as opposed to a tic in a drone

Sheerly the eyes
spilled in spring and summer worksheets
fill with pulsing scales and waves
in the middle of the ocean
become horizons we longed for
untouching, those variants encrust
and erode any dream of relief, sleep or product,
smiling plays out remembered
observations of a movable scene
cut loose and rambling down rivulets you know
and rivulets you don’t, those variants
that disgusted you once draw you back
down avenues and tendon blades
[and terror] [and shimmering]
in variant time the repulse draws you back to voices
offstage, inside of you and yet to meet
or lost long marbled blades
whose sun would never set,
as if another shining threshold,
dispersed through the day in its droning and radiance,
thirsts by the pool without end

The repulsion draws back to itself
those eroded versions and branches
untouching am I one
to you sheerly untouching
in variant time the repulse draws you back
to proliferate voices that freak me the stations and wires
they each and each and each among the nestless come
where the sun never sets
you go into the threshold,
which is a marble veil
which is a practice, activity or process
which is a threshold of soil that radiates earth light
go into it it spills out where is the friend




*

And impossibly the children
turn the ring to the east
the children turn the ring
to the east turns the chorus
turns the ring to the sun
turns the chorus to the hunters
to the sun hunters turn, for and trembling
to take part in the general hunt:
those who use violence to prevent the removal of suffering
those who require sacrificial masses
and explain eternal hunger
in a stage whisper, split the sun
in two and manufacture scarcity
from excess it’s not necessary,
but he says it and it is so, and it is
in the bright glass case
between impulse and act
a silent scream tells
the secrets of the future
in the language of sand pipers

I know nothing of mining,
nothing of cliff faces
or their brutalization,
just to hesitate the brambles
under two suns,
lift our throats and spread
our work jelly of milk
made clear in permanent day’s
excarnation by birdsong.
I sat in the theater and watched
the defleshing of the dead. Brightness spilled
out from cut marks suggest
romance?— it’s between you and yourself Emily,
Please help quickly. Protect your drawings,
for they are pictures of drenching waves.

I wanted more and more
I wanted to linger and stroll out
I wanted to keep myself occupied I needed
to look in my pockets for an unexpected guest,
a tiny piece of algae crawling from the sea.
I needed to make eye contact with someone I didn’t know
across the room, across a table, I don’t know where
you’re looking because I don’t know where I sit
on your screen and I’m only looking at myself,
veins glaring in gold will you watch from a distance
as I act like you’re not there,
tacitly treating each other as owners
of our things and therefore independent
in the wide bright
in the sky, bright mangled sleeps
transform to work on variant time,
to sit and stare at the light
that climbs up through the earth
and out from the tiles
the work jelly spills milk
made exposure to live
as if on a spit
I wander through trees of streaks
that leave no shade
and I lie on the beach as the day
turns to evening but brings no relief
for the suns never set and the night
is inescapable as noon

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How you are made

Emily Martin

002

There was calm on the day
you were born before and after
the party nobody died,
no branches cracked under feet.

Congelation, this mereness
This ardor and starlight and chantilly gelatin, who would ask the ones beating you for help?
long cracks in a grey glaze,
painting into the wet wall
            “in this section there is much crossing of hands”

Well I had many events going on, on wove paper a line drawing
tells you where the weight is falling, in conversation
he will through ample resources, hide a knife inside the cold cranberry.

            transparent enough to be refused
            what I want, how can a still image tell you so much
            about the ways she solved her problems as a child?

And I in my snow globe will miss the leaves falling from the trees I will not mark it,
I will stay in the room of carpets and roll up my anguish in a doll’s costume and then they’ll
            see it, o they’ll see it they’ll see it then won’t they!

Up and down the aisles I read once and quickly
considered how highlights hit my image and congealed
the surface of your letter into my reply, as isinglass at twilight
paves the insides of mussel shells, smells just as disgusting

No one talks, no one moves like this morning
show landscape of jellied shards, very nice
belongings that will punish you if you are bad
and make you who you are: you eat it, you’ve eaten it, it’s time to go.




*

Seduction of this
It was beautiful. It had a hatch.
An idea or treatment
For trees burning on the inside
May include
Different temperatures of feet and the sun—
the other one—
and ought not angels’ constipation
turn a brief exchange into a gift?

How you are made in a bleakness         
            bleak and merriment         
            bleak and not without
            merriment, hatching into and out of
rainbow light still reflects in your shadow
as you change your mind like so many dancers rehearsing
glances held over glass and flame I will read them
over and over your wild and tiny addresses, leapings and grimacings
weep below the turnpike, morning light at kitchen table why would anyone else be in love with
            these pieces of light like I am in the morning
cloak this that delighted you once, surprised you enough that you built your whole life around it,
            eluded you long enough to keep at it forever, there’s no end, there is infinity inside you
            and you can be a sportsman to it, a comedic sportsman.

I read your letter again
in variant time, in the aisles
of rehearsal, in the hatch I need your help
to add a silent e to milk
the sound and get the torquing right
in any time of day’s last words surrendered
to an iridescent bruise, to be the surface
and the underside at once




*

Lovely, lovely soup. Lime soup, I want to remember
your mind’s graceful container partaking, torn to pieces this depth
out of nowhere bucolic, which world and how much a part?
Spent your life on the ocean for an audience of one,
leapt into the arms of circumstance
            when she calls
            does she wear bracelets
and on this very midnight cease
to want to talk to me, or put me in this scalar light
white pieces of cloth I will have to, graceful container, tear to pieces.

in a half light, half ways seen to be one or the other’s best day, swallow repeated begging center
            come off the trees
distress comes off the trees        “Why she painted people sitting up waterclosed?
Hatching into and out of each other—        As if you could make a marbled eggshell in your body
Sitting up waterclosed         “Good hatching everyone, ladies, good hatching to you


Glowing white spider crawls into my cup

But later on the phone— “I don’t feel like that’s who I am as a person”
“I don’t feel like—

tracking supply chains of cashmere or Fiberglas,
angles of reclining threshers
congealed vectoral
lamb underfoot you were born
under a disseminating moon
go with them to their worlds and days
Resplendent world it is not going to survive, it is going to survive, Extinguish

They [all] exit




*

Truly to you I am speaking
in my name I am not dreaming I have gone outside
and come back in to sit at this table and tell you what I think
about the resplendent world and its attendants
it is not a dream to say we have the right to stay alive
without proving our worth I will not, I will go outside,
count the leaves on the trees
how they get to the ground
when the cause is desire to punish,
sometimes I want to punish myself too

What is a salvational practice that depends not on humiliation
What is an oppositional practice that depends not on humiliation
What is an oppositional practice that depends not on your opponent 

This being a cathedral city, we have blue tarps
in fluorescent snow, and inside jokes to brush
against them, sleigh bells on bungee cords,
racked up for wet the snow

The backdrop, which is total war, is there,
and the ceremony once again a dance you are pushed
up against you are ordered to move but have nowhere to go

Certain small packets are made and given
by those who come to grow you up
and take your coat of awe and usher
you into the jellied furnace—
Oh your scrapbooks? Your little ribbon collage?
Whoever drops their mask, or confesses to jealousy,
or doesn’t fear the ridiculous, winds up wretched,
that’s the law. I am not dreaming
I am not on horseback I am not on wings without a head
I could be the executioner of those who use violence
to prevent the removal of suffering they’re combining
aren’t they, they’re getting worse

But when you talk to other people, you’re shocked by what they say, where they’re coming from

Another pane like an iridescent bruise appears down the hallway, just a sidestep away,
another iridescent pane the trees are bare, the veils are out the lightest
of green and lilac and deep red and thinnest blue, the thinnest blue in the air,
slight and more intricate technologies of the dead

That you loved and kept company those others so long in their infinite books, you’ve been
showing them how to use the computer haven’t you, computer classes for the long dead led by
the recently dead, you’re teaching them how to use the internet. Well I just want you to know that
I got your message and I thought it was beautiful.

Truly to you I am speaking in my name
In this section, for a group she calls
There is much crossing of hands, trailing a little behind
they were stopped, wondering whether any had heard
a voice asking at night, in the mulberries, or
How did the daylight get in there
and how will the meaning come out in the morning?

Morning arrived and it did milk him
as we wrestled with birds and were moved
out into the itchy bogs go the quietest
to sit in the juice with our lossless echoes that
halo around you is just another person

︎

8 of Collars

Mary Clark

003

On a new country road with stage fright. I ask all the cooks which way they drive.

It’s very nice–repeated invariably–it is very nice, getting worse, very nice.

Too many dogs on that one.





Red in my eyes while I listened to you. Last night was the ground, tonight the sun and you seemed to control both or maybe just
followed perfectly.

A greyhound is sulking in the corner.
Nothing was promised, but I danced around it for years.












We argued in the town square about what is a town square in a town like this and we argued until it was gone. The bells rang the
finished, more artificial than ever, they made more sense than I could imagine. Ocean is exacting and the neighborhood is louder
than it looks.






A bush burned to show you

            the music at home

            the baby that he brought to work

            he said the work is finished in seeing








There is always flute here



she plays like bleach

            like the magnanimous servant
                       of whom you were jealous






The domestic overlook

is a column forming

can I really look at that

pillar?






Troubled from the jump








at the hotel casino I found a few things

I told the nurse a couple of days and he said how many? More or less.

I tell him I have all the cards counted, my head on the back of the couch

up tight and crazy

                            before sleeping I would have thought
                            there’s always that line
                            that you would sing but never say
                           
                            it would have been outside




the gambler pans for glitches
a new taste like wet death, San Francisco







October was a race and you wouldn’t say where the country

they shouldn’t raise the dead let us down fill the hole

can’t stop anything but go ahead the rocks just getting redder

black t-shirt Utah

it’s before sleeping now

I’m still on my heels

torn up about Babylon



the future is our routine

carried down to the end of day

dragging what’s left








I try to draw the reflection of the fly. The four poster twin with scalloped trim in perfect sun. I could never, obviously, sitting there in
front of the cutting board.

Two friends keep a mindless practice on a gray page, living in a house where the wind is sick with creativity and silence. Every
morning they go to work, milling the empty all
            playing memory lane in the yard.












The mystery of faith proclaimed; she crossed the street and I knew what day it was; 

poverty put her jeans on, went out for a drink, drank the world and wouldn’t tell us what it was. 

Everyone was calling everything juice. 

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Utopia in April

Kathryn Nock

004

I.

Tip that chair back, look up at the sky, we are all
participating in the collective April fools. The cultural
critics would much prefer a Barolo and guess what I
found a ladybug. Where? Way over there.

Last year I watched a mother do a cartwheel beneath a
tree. I tried the other day but I got scared by how fast my
legs flew through the air. I supposed I hadn’t realized how
big and strong I’d become after all these years.

Running circles in the grass the kids let out all these
funny noises, speechless at it all, and they don’t even
know yet how long this all carries on for. There are so
many seasons of cherry blossoms in store. That they are
pink so infrequently, but somehow known as the pink
trees. I am happy infrequently but suppose I am what one
might call a happy person. Afterall, I laughed so loudly
last spring, and this spring I shall be cackling.



II.

We’re on the porch, and we’re eating grapes in the
morning. A tsunami of flavor in every bite, reads the blue
writing on the bag. It's hard for me to think about a
tsunami and a grape at the same time, and I tell this to the
most beautiful person in the whole wide world. They
agree with me and think it must have something to do
with a ratio.

Now the most beautiful person in the whole wide world is
braiding hair beside me while I read about utopia in a
book with a paper cover. I lay my head back on the
wooden bench. I feel the sun on my face after ninety days
of rain, and I close the book because suddenly it all feels
a little redundant.



III.

Sav walks out the door onto the porch holding a pogo
stick, says it's a good way to start the day. Says we’re all
overdue for a good rattle in the morning. Get’s the blood
flowing, we reply in unison. It feels good to say the same
thing at the same time with the most beautiful person in
the whole wide world.

Sav pogos along the sidewalk, with the guy that stayed
over last night watching from the porch, absolutely
smitten. Occasionally I give the guy that stays over with
Sav little gummy vitamins that are flavored with assorted
fruits, when I see the two of them in the living room in
the morning. Here, have two I say, If you only have one it
might make you live longer. We all laugh, but we are so
grateful to be alive and seek long and meaningful lives.

Once, the most beautiful person in the whole wide world
said the best thing about me was my unpretentious film
references. But that was before I taught them this game I
made up where we try to match the days of the week to
the months of the year.

I think the best thing about them is that they’re the most
beautiful person in the whole wide world. Now we eat
gummy vitamins by the handful, and it really does feel
like that one part in that film where a rat cooks a
strawberry in Paris.

Sav waves the pogo stick in the air above their head
gesturing in my direction with a little look in their eye
that says aren’t we so lucky that life evolved in a balmy
era between two glacial periods, and I slip my feet back
into my wooden shoes.