E. Tracy Grinnell

 

 

 

Throes

 

*

 

What Confession?

 

 

The Body

concusses

the senses into

a familiar Illusion

there is no rhyme for

 

 

Who would I therefore deceive?

 

 

against myself?

against you therefore?

for Thee, I, myself

I justify

I go too far

 

 

ahead of myself

the Effigy is

tangled Animals

panoptic glass Eyes

 

 

There is no way

which way?

 

 

 

What is it                          we borrow from the world?

 

 

_______________________

 

 

But what I want is

to actually careen through

space

 

Refusing to name

 

But it's a soul

will not move

from its Rut

 

Neither the memory unhinge

Neither my heart from her shell

 

This the inability

déshabiller

 

There, the Foil

 

come out come out

 

 

_______________________

 

The Address must

Louder

Trumpet

the Letters

 

so May

may make

the soul

in a comprehensive

Key

So it

seems Concrete

 

I lean

to a State

so Near

 

Mine is not the one I mimic

I hear the sounds of recorded images

I tape them to my chest

then when the war starts, I amplify

my own Battle Cry

into the Waters—

and more than a Mere

reflecting pool

They are something to die in

Or for

the Dissociation

I embrace as though

it were my own

 

 

_______________________

 

 

 

And make for the real

as if Beyond

the real

 

and out of this State

I live as a live

Drowned man

 

I will    all while

With eyes that deceive

Ears, which are useless

Skin that is doubled

Beneath the surface

 

I shall never again

have Time so I

ride the Horizon

We cannot make

in a world Without

horizon

 

 

 

_______________________

 

 

But I do live

 

There—in that great Deep

that dying Lake—a monumental

sarcophagus I cannot pry

open

 

Various

Trojan

Shelter-altar

 

even in

discreet Overtakelessness

 

 

I dissect the little Fish

that glide around

my Hands

 

to prove they live

to ask of them

a Prophesy:

 

 

What shall I pry at

you little fish?

 

 

 

_______________________

 

 

But I shall never again have time

 

These wars legion

 

Prone [

] the surface maybe

careening

 

But the Beasts

have Wings

 

 

 

_______________________

To demolish

in a compromised Skin

 

a compromised

Soul

 

Paused to Mine

a Mere mire

 

Sought to chagrin

Empires

 

 

To a Ruin

to each

a ruin

a Face

all Immured

 

Our lesion

Sense-Beauty

Sense-Vitality

 

and the Keys

knocking 'em in

 

A catch

a Catacomb

Views have a way

 

 

_______________________

 

 

 

Pain a folly

 

About to tell the World

 

My folly

 

Is my pain

 

_______________________

 

 

 

My One and Only

 

    *

 

My pain immured

My one and only

 

Fantasy assassins

Of all the little gods

 

You, en face each of course

Its own self, but you — above

all others — are unique

 

Have pried my Eyes

with glass stained tears