Mark Weiss
A Suite of Dances XXVII: The Forest of Whence
No ideas
but in music.
No music
but in things.
She thought she could sleep through death.
All those trees.
The serious business of walking upstairs.
He begins to see the beauty of unresolved thoughts.
Each pot its own desert and I
the bringer of water.
The book of supposes.
The lost stories.
The tree cleft by shadow.
The day fled
sae aerlie.
Goody Two-Shoes and Goody Gum-Drops
go for a stroll to the quiet place.
“We love to watch the dogs be dogs.”
Undulant as the sea
and the song
above it.
(she the sea
and he the song)
Suspected
that her milk
was the poison.
When I was a boy I was the Jew of Malteds.
There was a lake
there was a shore
there was a child
taken
and returned.
Assumed its shape.
He turned
his face.
We say
“the living
center,” “the dead
center.”
What needs to be said.
And then
the story.
IN THE FOREST OF WHENCE
Into the mountain, and notes
the forms around him,
even as the hound
slinks forward.
Come, she said, I have brought
you met
a
phors. What they've always
told him, even she who sought
to drag him under.
In a lean time,
would eat
the hand
that feeds it.
No answering savagery.
THE GIRL AT THE VIOL
A whisp
er of a girl. That
which most delights
glinting, an ember,
this flutter of leaves.
A breeze, a breath,
floats there.
Airs for the luftmensch,
airs to wear.
Affairs of the heartless.
A hole in the wind.
A guide as to where to sit.
Sits like a dog, a twirl
to the perfect place.
She was he was they were.
“Who gives receives.”
“But you go first.”
Rob them of even the signs of their distress.
The moon to Pierrot.
The moon to the werewolf.
They ate like wolves—a long time, and a long time again.
Ondine undulant,
the flick of tail
that caught him.
“Let us roe,”
he said. She said,
“and watch for that bit of foam.”
Such that it seemed for a moment
the clash of rocks.
Nothing.
And nothing to bring back.
AFTER THE PARTY
Walking home along the beach, I told her
about Hippolytus and the horses
rising from the sea, their manes
the foam at the crest of the waves.
She shivered. “I can't
do this, I don't see
those things.”
And that was that.
Back from his walk. The fire blazed in Dove Cottage.
As I stumble, damn
you, you are
always there,
damn you.
Best to walk,
not to stumble.
Take your
self a
way from me.
A
weigh a way with.
Made in the mouth
the seven
heavens, los siete
cielos. Rhymed
theology. Not whorf
nor whoof
of.
An olive complexion.
Green, black, brown--
olive. Nonetheless,
your shoes are white as white,
your sweater mustard yellow.
Beyond the guards are other gods,
and none evade their fates.
Adjusts her daughter's clothing. “Oh
I'll wear this,
if you insist, but I won't
notice.”
The sound of wind.
The smack of silence.
That little dog
her shadow.
Suppose for a moment that the first crops
were bait for protein.
Will I live to mourn my father?
Outdoors away outside forest wilderness prairie field garden house home room desert ocean.
VETERAN'S DAY
Seven decades later my mother
remembers
life on the base.
How much fun it was to be young, together,
far from home. "Strange," she says,
"it was everywhere. But we never noticed
till they had left."
LST
“Head
down!”
But he didn't listen. My mother
points to the picture. “He was a good
friend.”
But he didn't listen.
Each text tells you its principles.
Cloven, cleave
unto.
Who is it comes from the desert?
Let impulse be innocence.
The tell-tale stories.
By water.
“The good times” retreat
into myth.
Squeezing words out of light
and light out of words.
I groan, a contented carnivore.
GRAMMAR
May I fuck you and the horse you road in
on.
Would that I could fuck you and the
horse you rode in on.
I have fucked you and the horse you rode
in on.
Did I fuck you and the horse you rode in
on?
We learn to accept all manner of loss.
He knows it's all he's ever known.
THE LORE
Fodder for the mill.
And weariness gave her perfect health.
Puts on her magic boots and becomes a
soldier.
Teach the seasons in their season. SummerFallWinterSpring
gone too soon.
Puts on her boots and becomes a soldier.
The noise of this life's factory.
The idea of thinginess
clung to the thing of it.
It was the thing of it he clung to.
THE THING OF IT
Famous killers and their nameless
victims.
The names of politicians on every
tongue.
but in music.
No music
but in things.
She thought she could sleep through death.
All those trees.
The serious business of walking upstairs.
He begins to see the beauty of unresolved thoughts.
Each pot its own desert and I
the bringer of water.
The book of supposes.
The lost stories.
The tree cleft by shadow.
The day fled
sae aerlie.
Goody Two-Shoes and Goody Gum-Drops
go for a stroll to the quiet place.
“We love to watch the dogs be dogs.”
Undulant as the sea
and the song
above it.
(she the sea
and he the song)
Suspected
that her milk
was the poison.
When I was a boy I was the Jew of Malteds.
There was a lake
there was a shore
there was a child
taken
and returned.
Assumed its shape.
He turned
his face.
We say
“the living
center,” “the dead
center.”
What needs to be said.
And then
the story.
IN THE FOREST OF WHENCE
Into the mountain, and notes
the forms around him,
even as the hound
slinks forward.
Come, she said, I have brought
you met
a
phors. What they've always
told him, even she who sought
to drag him under.
In a lean time,
would eat
the hand
that feeds it.
No answering savagery.
THE GIRL AT THE VIOL
A whisp
er of a girl. That
which most delights
glinting, an ember,
this flutter of leaves.
A breeze, a breath,
floats there.
Airs for the luftmensch,
airs to wear.
Affairs of the heartless.
A hole in the wind.
A guide as to where to sit.
Sits like a dog, a twirl
to the perfect place.
She was he was they were.
“Who gives receives.”
“But you go first.”
Rob them of even the signs of their distress.
The moon to Pierrot.
The moon to the werewolf.
They ate like wolves—a long time, and a long time again.
Ondine undulant,
the flick of tail
that caught him.
“Let us roe,”
he said. She said,
“and watch for that bit of foam.”
Such that it seemed for a moment
the clash of rocks.
Nothing.
And nothing to bring back.
AFTER THE PARTY
Walking home along the beach, I told her
about Hippolytus and the horses
rising from the sea, their manes
the foam at the crest of the waves.
She shivered. “I can't
do this, I don't see
those things.”
And that was that.
Back from his walk. The fire blazed in Dove Cottage.
As I stumble, damn
you, you are
always there,
damn you.
Best to walk,
not to stumble.
Take your
self a
way from me.
A
weigh a way with.
Made in the mouth
the seven
heavens, los siete
cielos. Rhymed
theology. Not whorf
nor whoof
of.
An olive complexion.
Green, black, brown--
olive. Nonetheless,
your shoes are white as white,
your sweater mustard yellow.
Beyond the guards are other gods,
and none evade their fates.
Adjusts her daughter's clothing. “Oh
I'll wear this,
if you insist, but I won't
notice.”
The sound of wind.
The smack of silence.
That little dog
her shadow.
Suppose for a moment that the first crops
were bait for protein.
Will I live to mourn my father?
Outdoors away outside forest wilderness prairie field garden house home room desert ocean.
VETERAN'S DAY
Seven decades later my mother
remembers
life on the base.
How much fun it was to be young, together,
far from home. "Strange," she says,
"it was everywhere. But we never noticed
till they had left."
LST
“Head
down!”
But he didn't listen. My mother
points to the picture. “He was a good
friend.”
But he didn't listen.
Each text tells you its principles.
Cloven, cleave
unto.
Who is it comes from the desert?
Let impulse be innocence.
The tell-tale stories.
By water.
“The good times” retreat
into myth.
Squeezing words out of light
and light out of words.
I groan, a contented carnivore.
GRAMMAR
May I fuck you and the horse you road in
on.
Would that I could fuck you and the
horse you rode in on.
I have fucked you and the horse you rode
in on.
Did I fuck you and the horse you rode in
on?
We learn to accept all manner of loss.
He knows it's all he's ever known.
THE LORE
Fodder for the mill.
And weariness gave her perfect health.
Puts on her magic boots and becomes a
soldier.
Teach the seasons in their season. SummerFallWinterSpring
gone too soon.
Puts on her boots and becomes a soldier.
The noise of this life's factory.
The idea of thinginess
clung to the thing of it.
It was the thing of it he clung to.
THE THING OF IT
Famous killers and their nameless
victims.
The names of politicians on every
tongue.
