Collecte Works (9 page)
Authors: Lorine Niedecker
SHE
These failings tie you up with home. For me it's just unknown distance.
HE
My dear, I care a great deal for the pear-shaped of the lute species.
SHE
It's hard to glutinize in leafless time.
HE
Who has unsettled you about this matter?
SHE
Oh—appetizers, upholders of the law . .
HE
Drizzlers in the sink.
SHE
My faint memory of viscera should be certainly viscarra.
Let's rush the blood to some other point.
HE
I suppose it's profound to guess whether . .
SHE
(plucks the mandolin)
Prayerful inebriate shelters his wings.
HE
(blows his cigarette smoke white in the dark)
I shall never be able to enlarge my scope as I wish.
SHE
Have you been to the proper authorities?
HE
Don't be nemeebic.
SHE
I love you despite the coconut on your tie.
HE
Would you be traditional in buttering your bread?
SHE
Not if there were plums to placate the ardor.
HE
Then what are we waiting for?
(Grandmother candles her hopes to an empty room, has them blown by the wind at the window, trudges the length of the night)
News
To wit, the lover said.
As a young woman
I saw that
done
no child
no enlightenment.
We approach the dignity
of the ad.
Or successfully maintain
a humorous relation
between the ayes
and the nose
(got to give the asses an eye)
Faces slander
O I see
faces
slander.
Find body
of ashamed man.
Labor leader flogged to death,
believed in destroying home, church
and civilization, radio caster said,
no right thinking people
could deny it
said
People should know
who the floggers are
how the air mind
gets a raise
and the extravagant
broadcast
without mercy.
The issue wouldn't have been brought up
if your husband hadn't been killed.
The police described him
as an intelligent man.
Lilies
of the kind
look she's right.
The flag go hang
in the war market
to which the farmers
of this country
bring their products.
Duck
wobbler
for all intentions.
They separated
not legally,
the world has no notice.
His old wife illegally starves
his mother
nothing left
eats
dies.
You
got food?
I'd like to keep my hat and coat
reasonably clean
on the walk from New York
to California gate unless I get work—
will pay $10.
My shoulder worn
over and down Payroll Hill
fashions mornings after.
Raw wind, rain,
one month going into another
what the hell
Frail limbs are proportionately low
Buy a limb today.
And while we walk
we ride
footgear alert
to beat the sweet tenor
of their sentiment
(they keep their trees away from us)
a tour of the tines—
rise and sore
life term.
1.
subconscious
2.
wakeful
3.
full consciousness
1.
subconscious
2.
toward monologue
3.
social-banal
O let's glee glow as we go
there must be things in the world—
Jesus pay for the working soul,
fearful lives by what right hopeful
and the apse in the tiger's horn,
costume for skiing I have heard
and rings for church people
and glee glo glum
it must be fun
to have boots for snow.
Troubles to win
and battles to bin
and after
a tare in the side
of all my ties
and barn
dances.
A country's economics sick
affects its people's speech.
No bread and cheese and strawberries
I have no pay, they say.
Till in revolution rises
the strength to change
the undigestible phrase.
Lady in the Leopard Coat
Tender spotted
hoped with care
she's coming back
from going there.
Jim Poor's his name
and Poor Jay's mine,
his hair's aflame
not worth a dime
or he'd sell it.
Scuttle up the workshop,
settle down the dew,
I'll tell you what my name is
when we've made the world new.
There was a bridge once that said I'm going
and a cistern that said What Ho
and the stick said lying on the ground
how am I to grow?
When do we live again Ann,
when dirt flies high
in wheeling time
and the lights of their eyes see ours.
For if it's true
we're the dung of the earth
and they the flowers
from stock that's running out
they need to be planted over.
They'll never know
the weeping diff'rence, Ann,
when the whole world laughs again.