from Lost Parkour Ps (alm) s *

 

  by Laynie Browne

 

 

 

 

 

Ps(alm) for Conspirators

 

 

Conspirators awaken

 

on their pages, in cabinets

 

and fences, in states of such

 

I have never seen

 

Or states I have loved

 

as dearly as delirium

 

 

They key or call variously

 

Where I am taut they flag

 

 

Without such pulleys, levers

 

trance and delicate nets

 

I am lost

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ps(alm) for Emptiness

 

 

Emptiness is capitulation

 

a catapult pulled

 

Insistence isn’t an argument

 

for augury

 

here, ruby page ends

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ps(alm) for the Devout

 

 

Spirit practice

 

Try making dinner

 

Be less tired when someone else is

 

Patience is not a clock

 

Listen paradox,

 

you speak through your eyes

 

Not those eyes

 

Forehead touches earth

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ps(alm) for a Name

 

 

Invocation of intonation

 

 

Each time is essential and

 

 

Each voice through this essential prism

 

 

is also your voice

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ps(alm) for Honest Sadness

 

 

   1.    Moving away from the universe as I know it, meaning not

               coming home, as in what is a home? 

 

   2.    I’ve been disappointed by a mortal. 

 

   3.    Unimaginable the way presence may change you.  And
                then abandon. 

 

   4.    You live so far away. 

 

   5.    And you, I won’t even speak of you. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ps(alm) for Hermione

 

 

Egyptian memory dabbed

 

on her neck

 

rumored burial of cove

 

plucking breeze of rose

 

gossamer elixir

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ps(alm) for Lament

 

 

One day cannot replace another

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ps(alm) for Disintegration

 

 

Sitting on the bare ground

 

Overture in the wrong theater

 

which days are you spilling?

 

Heedlessly mechanical bells

 

Strip mining correlations not

 

meeting a gaze—Do you live in a

 

building?  Rubble rock surrounds me

 

Inscribed in a palm in fire

 

still I do not see it

 

The space is prepared not because

 

you seek a dwelling but because we can

 

coax ourselves in no other way except

 

in the sculpting of blankness

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ps(alm) in a Foreign Language

 

 

Jades is “J” my souvenir well

Vying festoon or

Sacrament tour of the heart

 

A tout with vines consulting

beauty of mesh genomics, armor or

Trove as injury

 

O sorcerers, o miser, o heroine

this voyage of moon treasons a confit

Your taut joint entanglers of fate

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ps(alm) in an Airless Room

 

 

In an airless, airless, airless room

 

Why are we using “their” definition of

“success”?

 

What is monument?  Monumental?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

* Parkour, or, l’art du déplacement (the art of displacement), is an activity with the aim of moving from one point to another as efficiently and quickly as possible.  It assists in overcoming obstacles and experiencing freedom.  There is no list of “appropriate moves” and it is not a sport but a mental and physical discipline.  As a method of ambulation parkour makes an apt metaphor for spiritual practice.  Psalms are commonly associated with “praise.”  However the book of psalms contains a great range in tone, content, form and manner of address, leaping as would a traceur.  Lost Parkour Ps (alm) s explores the question, what is the ps (alm) now, as a poetic form? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Laynie Browne is the author of seven collections of poetry, most recently The Scented Fox (National Poetry Series winner, selected by Alice Notley, Wave Books 2007) and Daily Sonnets (Counterpath 2007).  Excerpts from Lost Parkour Ps (alm) s appear or are forthcoming in the following publications: Boog City, Coconut, ElevenEleven, English Language Notes, Laurel Review, Shampoo, Sonora Review, and Upstairs at Duroc.