so crane's latin's a little off so
read wings by oriole, by wingbank
Vast the engines outward,     Eastern it toward
speeding
     light & failed
          vision     come home
               to here     where it rains
                    as an infusion     of gypsy song

Jump lightning, jump andalusian dog
o shine pasture   /   pastoral ear of golden
Spanish                                        sesame
which began with the Bronx
   boys showing their waists
     cinched as some great river, some blue
          tongue of the sea

The Typical Hand

In my left pocket is a hand.

As you can see
it is cutting & dividing the parts

of an animal body with a knife
and scissors, etc., in order to see & consider them
a-part.

Now it is rejoining with needle and thread what
had been separated (synthesis).

Now it is taking them apart (seam-ripper).

Now hand is extracting foreign bodies (exeresis).

Now it has added and applied what was wanting (prosthesis).

What?

"Hand has something to say," he said.

Hand is not limited
to looking at the face, tongue, excrement

taking the pulse, assessing the heat
and damp of the skin.
Hand will now educate the eye
to capture hidden symptoms

with finger pressures, types of pinching, deep
and superficial stroking. Hand will describe kinds of bandages,
plasters, sutures, post-operative healing

Hand will cut you now.
(This is the Hand of God.)
The muscle from the bone,
muscle
from bone
to distinguish
a fake from a fraud, blood
from a stone.

Hand is helping the wounds of epic heroes.
Hand is full of dignity and informed of labor practices, fracturing
wishbones. Hand knows
about the Managing Brain & Tricking Craft, how to split / crush
ulnas, carve or quarter
a lamb. Hand is
rupturing something maybe

Maybe your spleen. Hand is severing something now maybe

your head.
Hand, o hand

is doing the work
of the hand (manual) Hand
is so sensitive, intelligent, hand
is capable, cupping you. What
about the question
of universal diaphaneity? Hand is
so keen, cutting you now.

MY LOVE: Odelet

I want to say something about my love. My love is
Not where I am.
Please come in.
Breaker circuit breaker my love is
each each teaspoon in your jeans is
ever you bend down dreamy My love
is my enemy? Dummy drop
your colors, his strings rustle
in a miraculous pieces that my love is
long & I love his long body
& its hairs. My love is
not my enemy & dummy drop
& the longest, yellowest light
He is when it hits the earth
at the longest angle, its
ankles. My love is like talking, &
evening, people, he is a tall
& tall geranium & then evening
comes before the Corinth & many birds.
My loved love taped a butterfly to a
hall a wallpaper. I did. I want to say
he is my shoulders drank from the spring
they drank from him & concurrently
riding on his shoulders from where I see
something Green, Greece, I see
everything. Then he sees the middle
of the universe which is like seeing into the center
of a piece of bread, he got burned
(because it's hot / cold there). My love, I have
a stomachache tonight & wish you were here
to scold me. My love is like talking to think
of the tall geraniums & then the sea
but I still think some things like
my love is like being thinking alone
(it's that private) I want to stand
on my love, I want to stand on his legs, I want to stand on, my
friends

Song of La Piedra Cansada

I know in your ear
the cartilage is beautiful
So I write to you with my fingers
all over the page, you
luminous
literato, you
rakish
sea
grain

I will write to fit inside your full
extension
All the while, whistling
to death





©Eleni Sikelianos.

The Typical Hand is from Blue Guide, and My Love: Odelet is from Of Sun, Of History, Of Seeing; both books are available as the single volume called Earliest Worlds, from Coffee House Press. [so crane's latin's a little off so] is from To Speak While Dreaming, and Song of La Piedra Cansada is from Poetics of the Exclamation Point; both books are available as downloadable files from Duration Press.

Available on the Web are an essay appropriately called Color,
and, at Conjunctions, the poem
Music has been Blown off the Surface of this V i s i b le Star.