Current Work
21 Feb long fragment
Revs: 20 Apr 2017 08 Apr 2020
my /body/ within
you,
[was
my first book]
was my first book [a book] [a first beginning] [it was]
a step,
inside
really /
a step of madness <an inversion>
travail of [my] meandering, (inside you)
in the dark.
[We think / of ourselves
as lovers
[but time reveals] less
[as] a [worn? dirt/] path
between [the] sheets [of our bed]
[than]
[the distance between us /
has become]
bronze[-like,]
hammered [thin?]
[adaptable / ]
/until [and]
the air [between us] [is]
moist, reverberant[ated][ing]
between sheets of hammered
bronze, which rendered the air moist, reverberant
[rendered][ing] light & sound
the torch light, [the candlelight,
on the dresser /”please,]
[“please, be careful that it doesn’t drip”]
elongated, drawn
in thin strings of orange light
by a faint breeze
by
my breath
(by my [your] breathing) [as]
the air drew [drawn,] wet the air was wet
across my fingers, [your mouth] seized
upon my lips bromos (βρομος)
that grain-bearer
stirred the turgid waters /lifted.
[me up, as]
I drank it, was turned, [in turn]
[and] was inverted
[or at least lost]
in the course of things
[“likely, you haven’t in the course of your life
Had the occasion of a different <dark> lover
Have you]???
Those words more designed to hurt,
to push
us apart
a facile way
to end things
which
inclined /to cover my nakedness, I seized [and seize] a white [linen] shift [sheet], [that had been pushed of the bed during our lovemaking, there] lying at my feet. My fingers thick, crude I had seen it before, admired it, but no matter, I was cold, and did not want to walk unclothed [nor <let that hard-fought> see my erection slip]. And the wind, periodically, whirled around me. Which assured me of my choice. [you were no longer
presset close, enwrapted
[were we to pause
and begin
later]
inclined /to cover my nakedness I seized what was lying at my feet I had seen it before my fingers thick crude my face swollen and sound distorted what I cried but no matter I was cold and did not want to walk unclothed the wind periodically swirled which assured me you presst close enwrapted
and
as I walked,
the distance [across the room] slowly, muted
[this <momentary or new> finality]
muted all sound.
2.
In one dream, I awoke, (how had I fallen asleep?)
to your screams
[then, quickly]
your arm [fell] had, fallen across my chest
[&] I drew you
closer, felt
myself stir <repetitive>
I turned [in turn], put
my mouth to your white [why white? brown] breast,
covered
with ornamental [saffron-coloured] salt,
your beauty
made coarse & white [ornamental] with sea-salt
a lesson for each lover, who
yielded /in dispute
dis-spirited
a reminder that
the first one who walked
[on the ground,] had [dark saffron] breasts
and a mist arose, pendulous???
around her [/]
she-who-suckled
came first (that
is what [when] I saw
ha’ adamah
hard at work, the
sweat rolled down
her dark, muscled back (the garden, burst
beneath her fingertips
[”]you awoke [me”], you and I covered by a white sheet,
encircled / [me with] by words, our reading /[to one another] aloud deep/ into the night still /in the air I felt the heat of you, I hoped you felt the heat of me stirring. You wanted to [to press closer to /against me / to] talk about your dream, which I [we] did I had the same dream, but I thought, as the passion passed, [but [and] kept that thought to myself]
[3.]
when,
I am gone, they
will write
he, like so many young men,
was
swept out,
extinguished,
freed of rumour,
freed from [the] darkness
but [and] saw nothing in it.
[six months, underground] [and] I knew nothing but ardour
[and for that]
I will be relegated to salt-bearer
he-who-discovered-salt or [the] salt-sweeper
3.
(when I awoke
we lay, entangled you, naked,
verdant,
your palms and fingers
red-clutching,
[were] coarse,
white,
quartz blades
[“<you> tear me all apart”
“go ahead why don’t you, fill me”
[torn][rendering][tearing the diaphanous, <line?>filled with cuts]
the shift
I had much admired
[it was my heart blood, you]
stained /up to your elbows
in murex dye you /
smiled a feral smile
[<all> flora and fauna, gathered]
/ bleak
[it is best to plant
[a kiss]
when the soil is warm /]
the night lay about our feet [bodies], the moon
a thin weighted crescent, presst
us /
to the ground
of Egyptian cotton
stained with <how about she is stained with murex or> to her /yr elbows / bleak
the night [darkness] lay
murex dye lay about our feet, the moon soiled
the moon, in thin crescent soiled presst
us /
to the ground.
Much /
has [had] been accomplished by following the path
by drinking the brimos [mixture]
what we knew [you knew /we [you] ]
had been changed;
those who had waited, walked others had come back
early / [interrupted us]
my passion /dispersed [ground into the soil]
ever
hopeful of spring
[on a grey day]
[like today]
while my young passion was dispersed
4.
You
had been told, or read those who are,
observed, stay
lovers do not leave,
the old [ancien amant] remain
(so never do you lose me)
yet
even
if you watch me,
day-upon-day,
you will sleep, eventually
& I will leave. (it is time
that you know,
[even] what
we see/ is
not that
which happens.
our [my] eyes [anxious, to] deceive.
5.
(a mist rose) which
A mist rose (from the ground)
I breathed, into your mouth
coated, your eyes
and breasts, /with
my fingers,
damp, with
[with]
[the water of leaving
is bitter]
a bitter water. [bloodwater]
aware /
of what [you] I did
[Someone had formed the ha’ adam after the ha’ adamah.]
when you were my lover, you left [you let me out]
[“plant now”, you sd]
[your] blood, diluted
[blood mixed] with [my] semen
[blood moon]
on the bed [ground] <tie to the red moon?> [ space ] you left
[the moon in red shadow]
[and] me
to stay with an aunt in Texas[????}
xxx
the brimos[ [wine], swirled in my glass
[yesterday /
you rose and walked] [and today you returned]
lingered, in bed
walked, [shadow-marked,
you fell]
eastward into my arms
and asked,
“Can you see /the morning sun rising,
in my eyes?” /
more
I sd / [I see]
all of it [you]
NOTES
(20 Apr 2018?) Well I have no recollection of this poem except for a few phrases. I vaguely remember the ha’adam stuff, reading somewhere about the adam myth or the Dead Sea Scrolls /something like that. I like the switching between regular and italicized text. The poem is too wordy; too much descriptive ‘prose’, too little left to the imagination, the formation of ideas, impressions, visions, sight. Very weak at the beginning; it improves. By the end I liked it enough to want to edit it and see what emerges. One idea is to relate the poem to how I am feeling with O. away. Explore the loss I feel, although that will conflict with the images of a lover.
(21 April) more revisions. Getting better but the narrative is still unclear. Can “Texas” just slip into the poem that seems more esoteric conceptual diaphanous. (later) made some improvements. Starting to cohere. Funny no O. but an illusion to Madeleine G.?
(08 April, 2020)
Notice the new threads I am introducing, especially in the beginning. A bit more semi-eroticism is good. The end reminds me more of standing on the deck at L’s house.
Maybe somewhere in the poem I need to insert (although it is not true) that “wine is brimos” since I may change the brimos to wine at the end … although maybe the early, pre-history parts might use brimos and the juxtaposition to the present might use wine.
(09 Apr)
I was using the word “bromos” to refer to a beer-like drink used at the Eleusisian Mysteries, but today I found this definition and I like the possible “dirt” reference:
Yochanan Ben Hernandez, knows Latin
Answered Apr 21 2019 · Author has 370 answers and 47.3k answer views
The particle “βρωμο” - bromo - in Greek indicates an appearance … textually it would be “bloody” in reference of the red color of the material or thing that you may speak about but it will depend on the context of the sentence. Then again, if the word is exactly spelled as you wrote it “bromos” in Greek it would be “βρόμος” (sounds the same as in English - bróh-mohs - with special accent in the first ó) and then it would mean basically “dirt”, again depending on the context.
105 views · Answer requested by Julian Brown
This change in possible reference, or dual reference, came up at the top of Page 02, “bromos bromos (in Gk)
that grain-bearer”
(07 June)
[new text not yet included]
Part of what I am trying to do in pp. 1-2 is to create a torrent of images, thoughts, phrases, sensations ... that do not give the reader any rest, any pause ... just a rush of images and phrases that don't quite have discernible form (despite the efforts of the mind to do so). I want the reader immersed ... setting up the contrasting introduction of form (meaning) on mid-page 02, which is intended to add some structure, some form, some content ... that makes the beginning of the poem to start to cohere, to have meaning and clarity.
(08 June - 21 June)
[the ongoing revisions in hard copy, which are extensive, are not yet included in the draft poem above.]
