HomeYou Shall Have No Other – Updated Dec 31, 2010
My hand there my hand
Chronicles 1:11 Solomon
Thou hast asked wisdom and knowledge for thyself, that thou
mayest judge my people, over whom I have made thee king
Not one of yours though the pale of it is rising
The way a bird will will itself away and wax between its
pinions the sun with great benevolence will kiss
The bird come from plumes is a fist from the blue for the one
true Earth
The one that says I love you and I love you please come to me
completely
I will give you of sanctuary I will give you of myself
I will give you of all that you want be it black be it white
The bird that was there felled my eye like an arrow
beak askew in shouting so loud it could not contain
The bird be it crow be it dove it is remembered
Forget not that for you would not let it go you Earth who art
under me mouth like suckers that reach out lips to tongue a
nose ajar with blood
I am the way I am the way the tongue says but not the light
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An ethical subroutine and the conviction of being wrong
If as the need to find my fingerprints slip the brown of your arm
were a wish for completeness
If as the larynx were an assassin grown from desire for killing
If as leather were the only skin for it carries faithfully from inside
dark to outside light the warmth
The weeping for yourself when you find the heart in its purest
delusion
Not by way of denial but of ownership that is a contract with the
eye
That eye then, were it in the blue hour of the day, were it where the
retina has borne its faithful hole
Not that it has seen too straightly the sun and burned into the
knowledge of blind
Not that I may look up from your aureole changed for the time
your current passes through me like a life worth receiving
Not that, and not that either, but this… please, no
pull not the th…
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[Note: WP text editing and visual structure is very limited]
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…because it knows that you are worthless
on my little wicker pulpit
when they all come down to meet us
they will bring the stones and beat us
they will lift a child to sunshine
they will lift a child to be there
they will take the child with them
for they tell you it is theirs
and you want that they should take you
with the child that they are taking
and you move your foot to stop them
and you raise your hand to sign them
but they’ve seen your small transgression
the one that you would do so
they would want to take you with them
they will make the Earth its better
to become the trodden victim
and its crying for their meekness
and its crying for their loveness
and it knows that you are worthless
when your toe lays down its touching
yes the Earth it will not bear you
but the earth allows you entrance
and when it has you where it wants you
it has all the wrath of children
and the warmth of those who left you
and it will not let you touch it
where you think that it should let you and that’s where you will be always
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And sing their hymns an octave higher
I am kneeling in the garden watching their yellow lift into light. When they all come up to meet me they will bring the Earth to greet me they will lift my child to sunshine for they tell me it is theirs.
And I want that they should take me with my bloom that they are taking so I raise my hand to sign them and I move my foot to stop them but they’ve seen my small transgression and sing their hymns an octave higher.
They will make the Earth its better to be more the trodden victim and its crying for their meekness and its crying for their loveness. And the Earth it will not bear me when my toe lays down its touching
for it knows that I am worthless. Though the Earth allows me entrance it has all the wrath of children and the warmth of those who left me and that’s where I will be always among the garbage and the flowers.
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The next one is a first draft. I will rewrite it here and you can see the way I work.
65 the whitwash and the tile so the world of Picasso looking out from many angles is simply not an issue of perspective but the way the spanish town draped the hillside to the sea the barrio there the capietra the londoneer pub we found under its high wall so you can sit on the foyer without the white wash walls and your grand eyes sweep takes you down to the blue water and the blue and white striped shirt man with his swhiskers and his blue cap is drawing the small silver fish to his hand you will see the mlater in the market with the fruit of pineapple and the peppers that ou trust not their heat upon the tongue and then among the croquets of solid bread among the lettuce leaves of Caesar we look down and there where the silver fish were massing we saw that life was indeed a circle for what we had taken in on our stay upon the terrace would with short order want to leave our body and carry itself in the dark so that there beneath the high wall with its light that could not be penetrated where our eyes watered so was the cast off of humanity the grey brown pipe and its grey pbrown load the silver fish were eating. ( AGOOD place to end)I remember the squatting on the footsteps one corrugated piece for my left one corrugated piece for my right, and me squatting between them in indignity, the humiliation of women who cannot stand and shoot and care not where they hit so we squat among their shots, the humility, the sound of pee in the whitewash walls and the smell of all the others.Later, an adult, sitting on low toilet
– sound of her peeing in the washroom
Remembering the rest of the family as ghosts or not really there’living for the other’ repeat repeat you know to be numb cholia the way of a humming bird you can’t see it but the wings you do not see come to your ears so that the bird in its path will strafe you like a bullet and leave you bending under the bullets
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Draft Two:
The whitwash and tile
so the world of Picasso looking out from many angles is not perspective but the spanish town draped the hillside to the sea
the barrio the capietra the londoneer pub we found under its high wall
you can sit on the foyer without the white wash walls grand eye sweeps take you down to blue water
blue and white striped shirt man whiskers and blue cap drawing small silver fish to his hand
you will see them in the market with fruit of pineapple peppers
you trust not their heat upon the tongue and among the croquets of solid bread among the lettuce leaves of Caesar we look down
where the silver fish were massing we saw life
was indeed a circle for what we had taken in on our stay upon the terrace would with short order want to leave our body and carry itself in the dark
so there beneath the high wall with its light that could not be penetrated where our eyes watered so
the cast offs of humanity grey brown pipe and its grey brown load the silver fish were eating
*
I remember the squatting on the footsteps
one corrugated piece for my left one corrugated piece for my right,
me squatting between them in indignity, the humiliation of women who cannot stand and shoot and care not where they hit so we squat among their shots, the humility, the sound of pee in the whitewash walls and the smell of all the others.
you know to be numbcholia the humming bird you can’t see
the wings come to your ears so the bird in its path will strafe you
and leave you bending under bullets
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Here is the final draft:
One corrugated piece for my left
Many broken Picassos to the sea
the barrio capietra Londoneer pub under its high wall
you can sit on in the foyer without the white wash wall
grand eye sweeps taking you to blue
and white striped man whiskers and blue cap drawing silver
fish to hand
you will see them in the market amid pineapple and pepper
you trust their heat on the tongue among croquets of bread
lettuce of Caesar
down where silver fish mass we see life is
indeed a circle for what we take in our sojourn will leave our
bodies and give itself to dark
beneath the high terrace sea light so hard it waters our eyes
cast offs of humanity grey brown pipe and its grey brown load
the silver fish are eating
*
after you I remember squatting on footsteps
one corrugated piece for my right
squatting in humiliation of women who cannot stand and shoot
and care not where they hit so we squat among their shots the
shameful sound of pee in whitewash and smell of all the others
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I have since discarded One corrugated piece for my left. It didn’t fit the book, and it doesn’t say enough. After the asterisk, there is some power but the rest is ho hum. So it is one that is held close and no longer revealed. it is broken and left that way.
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Here is another first draft
if there is something – or – where
imagine it below where the shoulders cannot push there way thorugh the fluid of clay, the body then in the soft ground the one with hips turned out the one where the wet child drops wetly where the michaelangelo dirt cannot bring to warm like a meal left on a shelf where the sun never brings that touch of forgetfulness where the dust is bored of itself in tis undending fall its smallest pieces beroken from the skin of the outturned hip pones the swell there in the pants of men the swell that rides the edge of night like a blade so slippery with its onw perfection would you lie there on the knife if you were told it were the beauty of giving throat of tige lily in the farthest bluff from where you stand willing white brown skin to find a way to part the michenalgelo dirt and take you in and do not think thatthis is a forgetting it is not of that where for the 1s and zeros do their counting in a little stashed away sub-routine of death just a short likttle pep-tide shrink of remembrance mjust a tiny bit of androgen just atiny bit of waste where the kill deer is killing itself and onoly finds it s way to broken leg or brokine wing should you come after it nostril widw with the secent of its longely chick like thssmallest ostrich with the largest toes the mind goes on it is the endless blue line that men with yellow machine spread lovingly into the dust with the spit from a held aside nostril and the other ejecting its contents with a lift of the sacs in the pants the nicotine men that chew their way across the flat land with its hairy crocus its softly shooting points of pink
