Excerpt

Nodes

nodes

Extract translated by John Minahane

      i.
               (prologue)
 
 
          nodes
               this is what nodes are
               sets of paratexts                  nodes
               stories immersed in stories
               rules for rescue teams                                                                        
               segments of composed realities
               nodes from behind every pavis
               bunches of coloured banners in the wind
               in a land that isn’t good at connections
               (let harsányi’s thoughts be sacred)                                         
               an invisible land where even big-shots vanish
               zamkovsky and his wife ludmila built a cottage                           1475 m.a..s.l.
               little precious little information about the system
               even if we need not go to the skies
               monuments pantheons mausoleums temples
               in order to understand fully
               how invisible merely designated things
               (tannins almond-essences acidities)
               are to be grasped
 
               (ambrose lost the hastings sword at the petynka pool
               so much weeping so much grief
               i told him he was enchanting and he vanished)
               at some time then he must appear /
               (he smiled)
 
               / in forty four almost a thousand years had gone
               when they landed there whence they had embarked
      during history’s longest day
      in full strength once again
               they drew caledfwlch from the trunk of fate
               with a sustained bombardment they woke up rollo
               guillaume to montgomery
               time and time for the legends
               of the west
 
               thus we were formed on its margin
               by leavening to a statistical average
               from linguistic chaos
               one day like a supernova
               we will gush forth
 
 
               vi.
               (children)
 
                      ah again again i’ve looked into
               a land of stumbling dreaming eternal games
               through the eyes of [animator(s) cook(s) rocking-horse rider(s)
               pram-pusher(s) sleeper(s) au pair(s)…] (m./f.)
               stood there like gesticulus at the crossroads
               and days left gasping in the polka dot jersey                                maillot à pois
               stay behind us with long legs
 
               in cadiz for the first time cyprian hush-shushed against the atlantic /
               for legends sagas   myths a foundation
               / uprose)
 
               just released from zoomex
               the noise-makers with peonza against the floor
               were constantly testing the firmness of the universe 
               on wooden steeds the celestials
               poets fortified with almasia
               ever and anew leave the reptileworld
               beaten
 
         (he smiled)
               at some time then he must appear
               (i told him he was enchanting and he vanished
               so much weeping so much grief
               ambrose lost the hastings sword at the petynka pool)
 
               the xix century in the form of grandmother
               rolling onto the toddler
               bystrice plums on a tree in the orchard
               rurale and she’d cook something occasionally
 
               like the pumpkins on great rye island
               without her / them
               they grew
 
               (swaddled in a manduka
               he surfs the hallway runner
               upon a tricycle)
 
               i have examined all the courtyards in our district
               autumn sad and winter cheerless
               pushing you in your pram
               with the name of a holy martyr
               they gave me nothing but it doesn’t matter
               just that i was with you
               is enough for now
               for your deeds yet will be
               written in the books
               of chronicles
               of those parts
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
             
 
 
               ii.
 
                      entrance::::halt:::mezzoropa::system of rubble-heaps:                          fuori le mura
               (though this too is a regular place for poetry like any other)
               here we found ourselves with the soul of a stalker
               prestige sleeps together with sleeping beauty
               halted periphrastic tense
               (neither helveticisation nor brusselisation will await us)
               into the zone secretly stealthily /
                                                                           chapel
 
               we ceased to believe in our own land and hence in the world
               (sperm on the silken backs of harlots)
               through various byways we approach the goal
               without having the least notion of the system
               (ah love by means unknown we’ve changed the states
               to compossessorates / the owners
               as always unknown
               the ninths paid)
 
           /  from distant ages we’ve entered the forests collected and observed
              if the pine-needles drifting in space are an architect’s statement
              naos today is empty        the faxes forgotten      the tapes erased
 
              from as far back as my vinyl memory reaches
              i have been removing bugs from systems
              with a whisk my only weapon
              i’m a frontiersman
              i guard the world
              paral.lel
 
 
              q.s.
 
 
              coda
 
              i have beginnings and sometimes i know the endings
              (if you were here you’d see
              how your fame is growing)
              whither go all the threads of the road
              of the ends of ethereal roots
     in webs wove by spider feelers…
     to the last mighty leap to
 
              the first alluvial
 
             
              the beginning of the weave
 
 
              where the wanderer unties the nodes
 
 
              to /
 
              …