Nicholas Manning


from Novaless

XIII.

real feeling glides
a mode * of manifestation not
easily distinguished * from rodomontade . . .
if perceived * that the substance
is
estimated
by its superficies
filigrane retrograde
or open * in the glass :
a trembling violet (a mirror
a stairwell) the dark garden then
to annihilate the linear * self
-forgetful of the kind
shown
the failing * mixture : a veneer
of affectation not intrinsically
theatrical : admiring *
« the sentiment »
thinking of
the form


XIV.

a tangled screen * of honeysuckle
after listening here
taking
in insidious stratagem
a rainbow gorge or chrome
-dilated spectrum * ever achieving
whiteness . . . deferential
sensations of heart
-sickness
by
an idea
had appeared instead :
human love * is a subjective thing
ipsa hominus essentia
oak rainbow iris
ash or elm
indifferently : in the same lines . . .
it is joy quoted * precisely
accompanied by
an idea


XV.

flew back like whips . . .
leaf-shadows running their usual quick
an agitation more
turnpike
than any road * into light . . .
the grammar of your generosity
resulting * in a new
precisely similar !
instead
of inferring
under black boughs
in a moment of martingales
forming * the stars’ thick traceries
wondering of blank evenings
like the mind * ’s tremors
in this wild reportage
of the « true »


XVI.

such cliffs * like released boughs . . .
in blackest « Nature » unadorned
acquired at the fashionable
a vineal colour : *
grecian
(the consciousness
of having to be genteel) her senses
reveled * her heart rose out its sadness :
a gasp a verspetilian flutter
this writing has *
no memory
eyes as blue as cornflowers
a sudden impulse
it beams
across the still profile
a species of golden arcades
and fiery * obstructions
more than taciturnity
in his zeal to make
all things bright
again

Nicholas Manning's poems and articles have appeared in Verse, Fascicle, The Argotist, Free Verse, Dusie, BlazeVox, MiPoesias, Eratio, CrossXConnect, Aught, Shampoo, Apocryphal Text, among others.

His first chapbook, Novaless I-XXVI, was published in 2007 by Achiote Press.

He has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and is the editor of the new video-forum for poetry and poetics, The Continental Review.

 
 
 
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