White Blood of a Poet
Alifair Skebe
I.
The moment of ecstasy is the moment of breathing
in and out of the lungs, a deep diaphragm breath
(there never was a diaphragm, he said)
mathematica erotica
of burning holes in burning ships and thoughts fleeting,
uncharted, blown like aerospace chips.
How excited we get at the possibility of tomorrow’s news,
of trash day.
Charting thoughts fathoms deep, surfacing.
Freud’s iconic image on a smashed penny.
For two quarters and a copper, a circus machine spat out
an embossed likeness of the man’s white-bearded visage.
To engrave the face, requires the machine, the poet, the mind.
Freud beams on a nightstand or a tripod for soap
in a borrowed room, sleeping and waking;
to think of the self, in betterment of health.
To “be good to yourself” means
rest rather than play
(and always a romantic getaway)
the place where he won’t stop you from singing
or rip into your soul
flight
Psyche smote from the cliff—
Athene in her hand.
II.
She said something was missing.
They’re like beads on a string.
Bead-words shimmering with
no connection but the string.
(Did she know that is the art?)
Hejinian doesn’t give me pleasure
like Nerval or Pound,
and even Stein—a true Modernist;
she breeds poems
like pedigree pups.
I do hope it’s sunny in Austin this weekend.
III.
The skin expands too quickly in relation to becoming,
the former being loss and gain that quickens the skin
no longer a little egg
and little feet
little hands
the picture of transparent organs
whereupon loss and gain imprints the mind
a few pounds of flesh
(what is my worth?)
a signature, a heartbeat, a breath between lung and tongue
like blood it is, Faust in his
drawing room
(I in my cap)
consternation once held
for hibernation
a loss—a dream
a gain inside
without speaking, natural bond
my flesh is your flesh
my body given
a pattern of wanting
(desire)
has even its limits.
IV. Cloudbridge
waves of white
begging—
this is all I know—
this is all I can ever know—
disappearing into vantage point
a peak
distance varies
side beside
wave of valleys
piecemeal peaks
patterns of limit
horizon climate
inclement weather
postpone desire
flesh under wing
black crow descends
his eye—a thousand rivers
seen blank and coursing
a thousand skyless
nights and days
Promethean exertion
casts his stone from embankment—
a cloudbridge
what is below must be Earth
or together inherent
pattern of sun
here is where the sun shines
here is where light touches
bleeding heat
wounded waters
flow down
V.
Did I say what I wanted to say?
Just as simple as desire
(desire is no simple thing)
bareback water drowning serpent
heifer swan white white white
this thing called mass
quantity shorn
against creek
let coursing flow
like dam could break
want not the same as dream
transmutation
key into door
eyehole peeping
door not curtains
double and French-paned
VI.
roughly twelve glass panes
separate sight from seen
blessed for the dirge worn
time-spent lastly virgin
motion sickness
movement to beyond
second sight
blind—the wise in apathy
avert eye
pheasant waits in the corner
of the scene
as framed oil painting
Blakeian poison deity tap root
down sun ray
beats heat
gold yellow power
method surely drowns
(my life was lost in translation)
breath hollow
coarse
transforms itself to inner light
compass points from center
out radius
the point is lusting from the body up
read Hecuba or Hades
so sudden
redden poise peruse
lusting like mice
lust is a ruse
read shock Ra
double helix turning on itself
death in life
deaf
Alifair Skebe is a visual artist and author of the poetry collections Thin Matter, “El Agua Es La Sangre de la Tierra” (written in English) and Love Letters: Les Cartes Postales, a book of poems and collaged, text-art postcards. She is an English/Writing Lecturer in the Educational Opportunity Program at the University at Albany.
