In Defense of Nothing. Peter Gizzi

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In Defense of Nothing - Peter Gizzi


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      perspective. This place where

      sight informs the eye as gate

      to phenomenon, a bridge to

      impulse the imaginary. Simply

      she was feeding bread to pigeons

      in the park. So begin this sentence

      with rain and square the surrounding

      flat with common traffic. I

      move through, to get here. If you

      want me, you will find me in

      the garden of vestiges, next to

      the sweet water cistern. Where

      the old port remains, a water

      mark on granite, abutted with

      grass and a stone path leading

      to other places that for the moment

      I am not interested in, as I take

      serious your claim to provoke you.

      And I will follow your instructions,

      however silly, however sublime, until

      you have found me, indistinguishable

      from what you call your self.

      The way I wear you about my

      mouth, as a crease, deepening

      every time I smile to look at you.

      Look at me. I’m serious, I must

      find the way, to say, we have arrived.

      For it is you who instruct me in

      the laws of perspective, these many

      converging lines, drawn to perception.

      So that I have become only a star or

      an asterisk or a compass rose. Signifying

      location, this possibility of place. True.

      It’s been said that the burial of the dead

      is the beginning of culture, as we know,

      no other. And I remain raw.

      Vapor digit tapping at my wrist,

      the talon, the dorsal fin and the panther

      claw. The value of negative space

      and the rationale of talisman does

      not parse, will not parry from this

      dearth. As emotions surround the edge

      of the planet adjusted to actual people we meet.

      What could the difference of this construction

      intend in a world of moments, merely

      fragments provided to express conversation

      or random noise signaling gray space,

      to be inserted within an imported structure?

      Birds migrate over cityscape and arrive

      in my backyard to a mutiny of peaceful

      dawn. Then a description of equality

      is scored, as a rhetorical flourish is installed

      for testimony. I flag. I stammer.

      A banner to the burden that all things

      that are, must not be, in me. Only,

      will you not smile when I wave?

      STILL LIFE WITH AUTOMOBILE

      He was going to take it to the next town.

      Though the park was empty

      the pond bristled with life. He had

      not an answer within 100 sq. acres

      or it was only answers that tweeted about.

      Who was this lonely figure in a landscape

      and once he is made known

      would the narrative slack and come

      to a warm bed and slippers?

      It was no no and yes yes all afternoon

      on the thruway. It was a big state said the signs

      and so did the sky say big state.

      THIRTY SENTENCES FOR NO ONE

      It begins with socks in a drawer and continues to laundry bags to the future. In the Food Mart everything is above the child’s head. Always looking up. Always lifting our eyes to heaven. The horizon is your mother’s repose on the divan after daily chores. Outside rain repeats rain. I remember wanting hugs but was given food. I have grown into the sweater my aunt gave me. I was born on the third chapter of the novel forever asking what happened in the beginning. In the beginning sky. In the beginning earth. The aquarium is a prism at sunset in the library which articulates light on the spines as both a constant and ephemeral beauty. Come over to our house. I have grown into this sky I wear about my shoulders everywhere I am. The hamper in the mind is endless. Let me work my image into soil and treebark and leafstem. This is not who I remember. The first body was an environment a land-mark on the frontier of tomorrow. The body of discourse is an apology of abuses and I am without reparation. In the meaning of the day the way one turns and looks—eyes for hands. Today the stranger the exile and spook are in my shaving mirror. In my dream you are real. I am as one who each day stands behind the tapestry and receives the needle to pull the thread taut and pass it back through. The design is no one’s. Is there justice in every sentence? Then I read “death is not being unable to communicate but no longer being able to be understood” or something like that. Grass was the first species to cover the earth. I am incomplete. Indeed. All that was left is the state and the miles under my feet.

      POEM FOR JOHN WIENERS

      I am not a poet

      because I live in the actual world

      where fear divides light

      I have no protection against

      the real evils and money

      which is the world

      where most lives are spent

      I am not a poet

      because I cannot sing about

      lost kingdoms of righteousness

      instead I see a woman in a blue parka

      crying on the street today

      without hope from despair

      I am not a poet

      for there is nothing I can say

      in smart turns to deflect

      oncoming blows of every day’s

      inexistence that creeps into

      the contemporary horizon

      I am not a poet

      but a witness to bear the empty

      space that becomes our hearts

      if left to loiter or linger

      without a life to share

      I’ve seen sorrow on joy street

      and heard the blur of the hurdy-gurdy

      and I too know what evening means

      but this is not real—poetry is

      and from this have I partaken

      as my eyes grow into the evolved dark


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