A "he" referring to God may be capitalized or not. 

(is crying now)          show me

is crying now            (what's wrong)

in a strange tree    of atoms    of

too few            more         no wonder

Give me the glassy ripeness

Give me the glassy ripeness in failure

Give me the atom laying its question at the bottom of nature

Send word                                    Clear fields

Make formal event                                 Walk

                                       Turn back

Reduce all to lower case        Have reduced all

Cross out passages             Have inserted silently

is there a name for?

glassy ripeness

in failure

born and raised

and you?

(go back)                        (need more)

having lived it               leaves it possible

fear    lamentation    shame    ruin    believe    me

explain      given to

explain      born of

Absence is odious                        to God

I'm asking

Unseen unseen                      the treasure unperceived

Unless you compare            the treasure may be lost

Oh my beloved                    I'm asking

More atoms, more days, the noise of the sparrows, of the universals

Yet colder here now than in

the atom still there at the bottom of nature

that we be founded on infinite smallness

which occasions incorruption or immortality"

(incorruption because already as little as it can be)

(escape square, wasted square, safety square, hopeless square)

"to all except anguish the mind soon adjusts"

have reduced, have trimmed, have cleared, have omitted

have      abbreviations      silently      expanded

to what               avail

explain       asks to be followed

explain       remains to be seen

--Jorie Graham.  from "The Reformation Journal".  *Swarm*.



       
     
  





  

    

      




The first draft of my answer to the challenge took almost exactly an hour.  My second draft took a little longer.


In my first draft, I consciously used interior flow-breaks like Graham's fragment does.  Otherwise, I simply free-associated.  This I did in my own way, not as she (likely) does: I let sounds suggest new words, and tried to repeat words but give them different meanings (like judicial court/royal court. although I don't think anything in the poem makes my first use of "court" have to do with judicial courts); I tried for unusual word-combinations that suggested interesting images.  I tried for subtly logical interconnections.  Every once in a while, I would think, "better put some logic in here," or "time for something archetypal" or "time for the lyrical," etc.  I was going for a mood piece and verbal entertainment.

 
I'd be curious how someone who likes Graham's work would take what resulted if given an untitled copy of it and told it was by her and seemed opaque.  It is far from opaque, by the way.  One person who commented on it found it unmoving, another thought it had at least one good line, "is there a name in long division for the product of the divisor and sunlight?" which I also am fond of.  The latter added that the text needed work.


I agreed, so the next day reworked it.  Poem, the persona I use for most of my omnilexical poems, entered it, but not right away.  He'd been sidelined for several seasons, so I was happy at a chance to re-activate him.  I wouldn't have if I hadn't begun to think the text I was working on had a chance of becoming a good poem.  It isn't yet, but I like where it's going.  Here it is again, with commentary added:
 










Poem, after a Long

a fragmentary title

Poem, unsure whether                       or his thoughts

fragments suggesting Poem's uncertainty

blonde quotients spanning the court             blonde music            unfiled rain

not sure who I stole "blonde" from for things other than

hair, but it's become a mannerism of mine

the judges take           

"judges," now, to set up later change of the meaning of "court"

nothing complete down to the robes         postponed trigonometry lingers

incompleteness for the mood of uncertainty, "trigonometry" to keep
 mathematics prominent--math being a subject because it was on my mind due to
 my working on mathemaku while writing this poem


the unknown whereabouts of palaces                  uncompartmentalize possibility

the royal courts have vanished, leaving behind palaces; I like the idea of
 compartmentalized possibility as something palaces uncompartmentalize,
 or make more fluid or happy--I think . . . 

is there a name in long division for the product of the divisor and sunlight?

Poem suddenly knew;                    still, the missing           the . . .

I decided to make this an upbeat poem versus Eliot, the originator, with
Pound's help, of these kinds of poems in English, in my (tentative)
 view; hence, Poem ascends from uncertainty.

Poem returns, and returns.    He takes stock:

May is the fifth planet from the sun                more known to the Aztecs than "than"

Repeated words such as, "fifth," are still important' "Aztecs" connects
 to "palaces," and is intended to deepen the poem 
chronologically.  I like "than 'than'"--a way of describing the Aztecs as 
primitive, and of sounding like Stevens, who is this text's main influence, I'm fairly sure.

sine comes in later                     the pretext, "although," remains to be heard from

"sine" is an intentional pun; I frankly don't know how "although" is a "pretext," but may figure it out.

beyond the dividend, beyond how, Poem knows:

I think I'm saying that Poem has some kind of knowledge that transcends to merely rational, or mathematical.

spring is              can anything?                           the ancient Egyptians?

I can't have a pome without spring; the Egyptians are a variation on the 
Aztecs--and very much linked to trigonometry, for me


Poem returns, and returns, and returns.          

repetition for architectural reasons, to give form

slow Aztecs                 slow remainders               

disconnectedness and arrestedness

formalize the concern        sine concern           

it's been                     so long                                  so (long) as              

I take a lot of things from poems by others that I've written about; Bob
 Grenier has a poem that in part does interesting things with "along"/"a long"
 that I remember here and the other spots I use "long" in, including the title.

as it makes


Poem understands without.         somewhere the glide of  a canoe,

Another mannerism of mine is to use prepositions as nouns.  Prepositions
 may be my favorite part of speech.

the abiding "although," the wrench and plumb      

the lament is not his

regardless of the moon's owner, the moon's ownership       progress persists

five places beyond the decimal, excellence, he strides                 Pythagorus almost

delinquent bonds make honey      (beeway?)           so long as the harvest produces                      

rude missionaries of jazz       none minions or administrators 

refusing to grant the effect of hopscotch on "although"


only that            and a polka two places left of the decimal point                      

multiplicands of crows          always, eventually, the felt answer,

the drowse toward 

          the untaught sunlight


palomino but not risque--yet         the formaldehyde on low        the moon's palaver

"Palomino" from a week or so ago was still on my mind, apparently.


naming the affirmation unlawfully 

a long,  

so long


as

I ran out of gas ten or fifteen lines ago when revising.



More on this poem as it evolves, assuming it does, in due course.



       
     
  





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