BIENNIAL: POEMS

MICHAEL JOYCE

B L A Z E V O X [ B O O K S ] Buffalo, New York

Biennial: poems by Michael Joyce Copyright 2015 Published by BlazeVOX [books] All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without the publishers written permission, except for brief quotations in reviews. Printed in the United States of America Interior design, cover design and typesetting by Geoffrey Gatza Cover Art by Michael Joyce First Edition ISBN: 978-1-60964-215-0 Library of Congress Control Number: 2015937799 BlazeVOX [books] 131 Euclid Ave Kenmore, NY 14217 Editor@blazevox.org

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4.3.12 To start with two lines then in black and white and continue to see a way in them. 4.4.12 Across the street the dog barks at something beyond the line demarcated by the invisible electric fence 4.5.12 How to ease these excitements of mind the crow now gone mute, the morning empty 4.6.12 They talk after breakfast in the room below while I have slipped away to this.

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4.7.12 Seeking to widen the horizon that divides itself between what is called the true and what the visible 4.8.12 ostre comes up the hill this morning in her holiday attire: platinum hair over striped chemise, wobbly on high heels 4.9.12 In the blur the far-off figure fading or coming into view 4.10.12 My mother died this day three decades ago, how much more here can I be than this moment? 4.11.12 Still life: white brick rectangle of Breuers Ferry House afloat against a backdrop of dark fir and cedar. 4.12.12 The patient blink of the cursor a mark now that the irrevocable can be reversed by something less tactile than erasure was once.

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4.13.12 settles despite complaint poem (rain) against itself 4.14.12 Curiosity an irritation, the wayward, the way words come to you and go away a narrative, a way to go 4.15.12 The space between seen differently each day, or so I wrote before my assault makes the trapped wasp thrash between the panes 4.16.12 this awaiting, this momentary calm 4.17.12 The first day of an illness as if setting out on a journey hoping to meet yourself upon the way. 4.18.12 desire destabilizes form in its longing what flower shall I name as an instance?

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4.19.12 Two women laughing at the intersection outside, I go to the window but do not see them. 4.20.12 Add a parenthesis and the word, this, is housekeeping, the house where I live 4.21.12 Weekend noise of machines contra naturam retracing imperceptible margins 4.22.12 Begin with an article, an action follows the stone amulets in my pocket I keep losing 4.23.12 A riddle is a form for this difference: is what a fast slows a thing? 4.24.12 A carved stone bear, its back arched, an invoice, a blue cloth for polishing a screen. Yeats as list maker, P. Muldoon. what life isnt dailywhat poetry isnt everyday? B. Mayer.

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4.25.12 Such silence le bien-tre 4.26.12 I think myself alone here in my body. 4.27.12 Here the heart of things is the heart of things 4.28.12 vagrant silk of the dreamers dissilience issues forth from the hospital night 4.29.12 my resurrection spent in stage business 4.30.12 Qu'est-ce qui s'est pass? marks that which puts both itself and what is in question

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5.1.12 a light rain garlands the lilacs the girls once wove into crowns 5.2.12 grey Providence a siren disappears into its own echo 5.3.12 maiden cellists lip coll'arco, smile suppressed, whilst she waits to pluck the satyrs score 5.4.12 a week exactly after a walk-through of his own passing he remarks his dead fathers birthday 5.5.12 the here, the the, this this, the mark of this inescapable rhythm that Creeley and Basho both trod better long before 5.6.12 tell how far are you here where you are

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5.7.12 nowhere yet the lack of separation; I recall a photograph placid pewter sea and overcast, horizons bead a solder flux 5.8.12 he bid me come the man on the shore 5.9.12 in the parable the servant waits outside the kitchen in the shade of the thin tree in the courtyard its dark pool already shrinking under the suns ascent, shadow swallowed into its vortex 5.10.12 last night and this morning come differently to a man who has sons 5.11.12 abidance and collimation inflected, interstitial light 5.12.12 It is not true to say I have walked back to smooth the stones along this path before going on for here are neither path nor stones, nor a before or after moving

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5.13.12 four copies of a journal publishing three poems arrive where they lay on the table, crisp and as yet unread 5.14.12 as we sleep, houses and in storms, trees according to Transtrmer, wander from their places, for a time distorting this platted village 5.15.12 he peers into the screen as if a well your name scribbling itself upon its surface 5.16.12 ache of dawn follows the clamoring of birds rain lingering, moan of a long train resounding 5.17.12 deformation itself a pattern discovered dcollage and appliqu this much alike 5.18.12 stone drill rattles on iron treads iron pterodactyl pecking bedrock

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5.19.12 is this involute rhythm a form of me or the metric of a studied symmetry 5.20.12 today we commence in sunlight leon: tous se termine 5.21.12 emptied caravanserai deserted carnevale 5.22.12 Taihao, fashioned from baby's first cut hair, Shuxu, Wang Xizhis rat whisker landscape brush, Shanma, of mountain horse mane, Dong Langmao, winter wolf, good for forming chrysanthemums 5.23.12 a name in a poem Andrew said carries great weight with it 5.24.12 in the morning Times comes word American poetry has changed overnight

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5.25.12 mourning dove, dove, dove 5.26.12 not quite able to awake after stupid dreams unable to fold a fabric squarely, still there on return 5.27.12 the faces behind the headlights along the highway at midnight remain now that the early morning fog has dissipated, lovers gone home 5.28.12 cellphone as an ontological device, txt to&from a body not ones own, in service of a constructed self, future a fleeting transcription, lost 5.29.12 alone with ones ambitions as if in a room of strangers 5.30.12 distant motor ceases finch song remains

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5.31.12 a lone poppy this spring not visible from here 6.1.12 the red of it seen today 6.2.12 once long ago watching sky writing disperse behind a twisting bi-plane, hand to brow a visor against the glare, Jones Beach windless below 6.3.12 empty thump of car doors as the church-goers disembark then make their way in sunlight to enter the wooden ark 6.4.12 where have I gone I ask at the station the platform is empty, sky threatening 6.5.12 draw a line from nowhere to here then another, parallel, at a distance following logically from the first

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6.6.12 a rail ticket to a far shore comes from SNCF in an email I would be as a nun dedicating her morning to absence 6.7.12 wait quietly for the hour to pass 6.8.12 sweeps the stone floor then sweeps it again two separate acts for the one who attends 6.9.12 in her dream she says she discovers what seems an unknown fact: that one can be with her and at the same time be somewhere else 6.10.12 where doubt locates itself is what differs this from prayer 6.11.12 A day that begins backwards continues so throughout: lines written on the previous day's account debit decollage horaire

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6.12.12 Au lit like Proust, but in the wrong district and a century after, in a two star hotel Plus heureux however, even waking at six to that number and its doubles 6.13.12 The tourists hurry along the Seine in the in-between hour through cold rain, Notre Dame dark, bullies taunt one another between bank and bateau-mouche 6.14.12 Rabbi on a bicycle, son in a basket, along rue Saint Paul Clack of heels on the cobblestone collonade of rue du Prvt 6.15.12 Wake again trying to recall how to tend to one self 6.16.12 After a thump and the howl the plump woman in pink lay on the rainy pavement of Rue Rivoli, the taxi driver argued his innocence in the night, the blond witness having crossed to shriek at him. 6.17.12 Dark-eyed Ariane, the utterly pure, presides behind the bar along Parmentier squeezing orange juice and making caf crme for her quipe of brusque devotees

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6.18.12 angry for another anger for oneself 6.19.12 The afternoon an expanse between appetite and hunger walking in the dust and sunshine of Brooklyn piers 6.20.12 upriver awaiting the boat to nowhere, the tide favorable, offering brunch to the aging sailor and his bride 6.21.12 outside the heat no escaping the heat 6.22.12 dream a damp cavern beneath a stone walkway through which chinks of sky and sunlight: life, I knew, my heart filled with gratitude and loss in witness of even these few fragments 6.23.12 rakes wave pattern adds back the sea

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6.24.12 a day lost in the arithmetic solstice as simple as that 6.25.12 A case of mistaken identity: Joe Goulds pages, not Joe Brainards, in Estlins notebooks among the daily studies of Marion I catalogued that summer in the Patchin Place attic 6.26.12 it is impossible to ready everything for where we are eventually going 6.27.12 river gilt in last nights twilight through a thin curtain of bamboo, then just beyond the cedar fence a fawn haunch passes slowly below 6.28.12 the silence of animals no different than this 6.29.12 staticky Telemann for two clarinets as I wait on hold until a woman in Maharashtra wishes me good morning

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6.30.12 for the djinn of vestibules the day is a garden 7.1.12 In my brother's poem our mother celebrated New Year's on her birthday in July before we were born Now 30 years after she died, she waves from en liten segelbt this sommarmorgon on Lake Malaren 7.2.12 Duncans question of where the sun is vis vis each poem vivid here this Swedish morning, distant shore through trees 7.3.12 In the rossengrden the black-capped parus major flit among the columns snatching crumbs among the woven reeds of wicker armchairs 7.4.12 What and by or to what are these birds called who put the light to sleep these hours after midnight? 7.5.12 sommormorgon light floods the edges of the shades at four a.m. and I don my sleep mask to return till drmmen maskeraden

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7.6.12 the scent of a lioness lingers among the sleeping fig trees 7.7.12 puts words before his desires, as on an altar or the way the stitch domesticates the dithyramb 7.8.12 all night the rain in the cour intrieure upon the green tables a Swedish perturbation spinning southward sur Lle-de-France 7.9.12 along the Gironde the mourning doves sing their low desire in Charentaise as a choir of ten thousand hlianthes turn their faces vers le crescendo du matin 7.10.12 swallows swoop and twist in the garden courtyard after rain the buzz of a moto unraveling the morning along the estuaire 7.11.12 Port-Maubert to Royon and back in a crooked line at 00:31 a.m. the creatures in order: hedgehog, owl, hawk, two rabbits, two cats, lone fox

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7.12.12 Think to draw a line, top to bottom, upon the travelogue, then live on either side of the place this mirror describes 7.13.12 Friday le treizime Bon chance everyone 7.14.12 Deux grands cigognes circle the bull en point in the field on the edge of the marsh near La Grange des Marais this holiday morning 7.15.12 juste avant minuit mugit le silence just before midnight the silence roars 7.16.12 Dome of blue serene above the reeds of the marais at the end of the chemin yawns the rivers expanse