Beyond Leucadia
E. Tracy Grinnell
There—
I put myself well
at ease
that the abstract,
dreams are also
limited
for me who the concrete
the real
what can I do?
in the narrow mirror
showing the part for all?
disparate temperate
fraction
troubled into revelations
confusing a halo for scattered light
refusing my knocking against the walls
against windowpanes
in the darkest night
from heights I can’t imagine so I
drift into ether’s
web
Helen,
i
*
endeavor
your endeavor
a city is a merciless one farewell, dear City
I am him and he o, reckless landscape
sufficing
against me
waiting to see clearly
There— to tempt myself
and then
to struggle
the entry to Hell fills me
with
hope
Who feels herself here to be armed
would be the most vain words
Who cannot enforce it
what is cruel, is cruel
it that is whatnot
it that cries out
it flies at
it makes
it masks
it marries
it shoulders
it shuns
it must
it will
it can
it won’t
it can’t
it will
it goes
it rings
it dares
it dies
it carries it
it weaves
it, that is
would not be that
so outward in the empty
open place?
It
is false. it is little. But it works the eye
*
from inside
See
I had no air
I thought of your face
but I could not come to
what is it
that you
assault it
til its gone?
mine is the unlit space
that
I love
*
I love
in order to kill these sentiments
how these years look
already
changing by the hour
what is important
whose life?
*
so amused, indiscreet, Brutal
under rapture of my soul
There—
ill-advised—
attentions revise themselves
or go to sleep
Upon the others
what happens
Upon this body?