from “The Life of Towns,” a poem published in Anne Carson’s Plainwater: Essays and Poetry…
from “The Life of Towns,” a poem published in Anne Carson’s Plainwater: Essays and Poetry…
Lear Town
Clamor the bells falling bells
Precede silence of bells.
As madness precedes.
Winter as childhood.
Precedes father.
Into the kill-hole.
Wolf Town
Let tigers.
Kill them let bears.
Kill them let tapeworms and roundworms and heartworms.
Kill them let them.
Kill each other let porcupine quills.
Kill them let salmon poisoning.
Kill them let them cut their tongue on a bone and bleed.
To death let them.
Freeze let them.
Starve let them get.
Rickets let them get.
Arthritis let them have.
Epilepsy let them get.
Cataracts and go blind let them.
Run themselves to death let eagles.
Snatch them when young let a windblown seed.
Bury itself in their inner ear destroying equilibrium let them have.
Very good ears let them yes.
Hear a cloud pass.
Overhead.
Entgegenwärtigung Town
I heard you coming after me.
Like a lion over the flagpoles and.
I felt the buildings.
Sway once all along the street and I.
Crouched low on my heels.
In the middle of the room.
Staring hard.
Then the stitches came open.
You went past.
Death Town
This day.
Whenever I pause.
Its noise.
Town of Finding Out About the Love of God
I had made a mistake.
Before this day.
Now my suitcase is ready.
Two hardboiled eggs.
For the journey are stored.
In the places where.
My eyes were.
Like a current.
Carrying a twig.
The sobbing made me.
Audible to you.
Town of the Sound of a Twig Breaking
Their faces I thought were knives.
The way they pointed them at me.
And waited.
A hunter is someone who listens.
So hard to his prey it pulls the weapon.
Out of his hand and impales.
Itself.
Town of the Wrong Questions
How.
Walls are built why.
I am in here what.
Pulleys and skin when.
The panels roll back what.
Aching what.
Do they eat—light?
~
sam of the 10,000 things 