 |
| La Blanchisseuse, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec [Wikipedia] |
La
Blanchisseuse
Though
she knows
smoothing
cloth
how
to smooth a cloth
on a
flat surface
how
to scrub a stain
how
to warm the irons
to iron, bite off thread
tie a
knot, restitch
a
raveled seam
how
to cut from yardage
the
idea of a sleeve
to
fashion a shirt
for someone else
though washing
sewing, she’s looking off
sewing, she’s looking off
beyond
a world
of
fingers on cloth
of
lye, of steam
undermining
the
weave of labor
the
dour distraction
of
indoors.
 |
| Noah Eli Gordon [rob mclennan's blog] |
from
Noah Eli Gordon’s The Year of the Rooster,
Ahsahta, 2013:
Are
You Ashamed of the Indifference with Which You
Greet the News of
the Death of Pinochet
Lyrically,
country & western music is a combination of the trials
&
successes of everyday life. Gilbert & Sullivan are a combination,
but
the satirizing of society of the Victorian period hardly seems
relevant
to
our present concern. Pitched lower than a trumpet & higher than a
tuba,
the
French horn is not a combination. What, exactly, is fearful symmetry?
The
two largest individual optical telescopes on Earth sitting atop Mauna
Kea?
Thousands
of small photographs combining to form the image of a wolf?
An
object held in one’s hand having potential energy, a combination
turning
motion, position, & mass into a balanced definition? I’ve never
held
a
French horn, but think I would enjoy the equilibrium of its potential
heft?
The
Year of the Rooster
[excerpt]
.
. .
(––––––––––––––––If
you ask
(––––––––––––––––when
Rooster’s talking
(––––––––––––––––your
listening
(––––––––––––––––isn’t
apt enough
(––––––––––––––––to
hear it
.
. .
Two
seasons later
it’s
the shell of a beetle
baking
in the sun
brittle
in the sun
I
watch over you because you need me
Forgive
the systematic contortion
of
removals, from a coarseness comes
a
fiery magnetism, from an anxious dream
an
encroaching boredom
After
four hours
dawdling
with the wardrobe, I leave furiously
a
city & its wintering sheen, remove
the
hens, then those for whom
the
remaining space is responsible
.
. .
It’s
my fault
rummaging
through dead-ends of daily experience
capitalizes
on gratuitous snowfall
to
sculpt some metonymic purity
La Blanchisseuse - nice!
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