Read Online Or to Begin Again by Ann Lauterbach - Free Book Online

toward.
Moved, or turned, away.
    Â 
    Flirty filmmaker deceived I
and her ancestors, soiled her
party dress, whipped her torso,
led her across red rope at the club.
Made nothing absolute happen,
    Â 
    as she stepped away from a better job.
This is a full-service enterprise.
This is gutter and candle,
the informant and the slain.
Outrage, a kind of rash on her face,
on the grainy silent screen
as the director’s mirror breaks open the sea.
6.
    In the film of the painting,
the zip zips open,
dust flies
through the opened edge
the yellow fringe
the crimson tide leave expression behind
    Â 
    mimic and aura condemned and so
    Â 
    open the miraculous envelope.
Read the blank page.
As usual, some German angels
spread-winged, are faced to the past.
As usual, one of them is sleeping.
7.
    I launched a scroll
in the misgivings of January,
after Rome. As I began
    Â 
    writing to the beloved,
something went awry.
« And so » I explicated the loss
and earned a degree.
I watched the escalator rise,
I mentioned positions and hats.
I kept the heart girdled by fact
so that desire and its
accompanying historical grace
filled the auditorium with scholars.
Sleeves, I ’s sleeves, swept over the podium.
The field, I said, is infested.
    Â 
    Have you seen the orchid man?
Have you seen the blue eggs?
    Â 
    Prefab symmetry
lost its magic, its surfaces
    Â 
    purloined from drugstore
polish. I
    Â 
    sets out to mesmerize
having lost, having never found
    Â 
    the blue eggs.
If you catch the light, go.
    Â 
    She might have called it
a fool’s error
    Â 
    the collector crossing his arms directing traffic away from what I might have said–
    Â 
    Did you see? Have you seen?
Infidelity of the page.
Bug specks on the mantel.
Body parts, etc., on the field.
8.
    The mess, the empirical debris
already written
in swank pretense up in the old hotel.
We gave him some money for new books.
His shoe had a hole in it, we could see that
as we walked along the road.
We speak of the person whose
words fall through the sole
of his shoe onto the muddy path.
For new boots.
Error, a splash across a hem or cuff.
    Â 
    I is in the theater
where I will create
the main character.
The audience is assembled has assembled will assemble
its hosanna.
The man his wife the young man
the rumpled sheets the man
the long kiss the touch
the man his wife
her sweater. The luggage the visit
the young man his embrace.
I is in the chamber of birth.
The chorus explodes hosanna in the highest.
9.
    Â 
    The dream’s deception.
The companion moth.
    Â 
    The cold child’s fluorescence
masking its source.
    Â 
    The lover
sitting on an immense blue egg
    Â 
    in a nest of light.
Smile for the camera
    Â 
    dear herald, dear
avatar, we’re not sleepy and–
    Â 
    Perhaps it was only the decorative
jewels of reason’s promise
    Â 
    spoiling our outlook
the prismatic gems
    Â 
    the geometrical clasp
glinting on her neck.
    Â 
    No blood on the cutting room floor.
No ashes on the mound.
    Â 
    Uncharitable hard moments
of the architectural swerve–
    Â 
    bring back normal boredom
bring back the philanthropy of the Golden Age
    Â 
    bring back the sorrow of a single loss.
10.
    How went it?
Covetously.
And now?
Also, but dead.
How goes that?
Sadly.
In what manner?
Mercurial, somewhat imagined,
certainly no longer.
A train?
Also. Gambling?
Evidently.
The small ones?
One by one.
Smoking?
Yes.
With love?
Now and then.
And so?
And so.
    Â 
    The hour going on it was it was
the little nerve pain at the side of the head
    Â 
    the dream from hell
and her bedside reading might be
    Â 
    how numbers are not time and time
is not
    Â 
    singular
what a friend said
    Â 
    at lunch
is it hot enough
    Â 
    in the minimalist cave
is it cool enough
    Â 
    in the cave of modernity
in the studio of the artist
    Â 
    in the preening hello/good-bye of the good old days
so not to be inward, to be outward and onward
    Â 
    with the iPod attached to iTunes
all the