Michael Ruby from TRANCE POSITION The hope in the measuring box and all-night toy store of sitting without registering the fossils or parking on the meridian of deceit In the perfect position to hobble the lost private eye and open the practice of rarifying the time-honored lozenge To the whole banana split and racket central Not the sky rolling through our nostrils and implanting its insignia Not the water relaxing our navels with a hodgepodge of togetherness and pretzels Not the land believing Your Highness Opening the po’boy lollipop to the whole shebang and rascal shop Everything at once in the hallelujah hills and broken down sandwich place And listening hopelessly to the sideways parlor game The implausible reckoning in the far fossil To words in ones and twos always known for their savoir faire and pineapple Appearing for reliable judgment in Mandarin or learned on operating tables in hot and cold rooms Within the soft predilection and icy hippodrome of our desires In response the clavicle and practiced anticipation of early-bird specials and lively night rides * Is there a trance? Boy, the ranger plays with himself You’ve seen this outside the movies This is not hard to imagine Is this a valid skein? Buttoning the mascot Is there a trance? He lay awkwardly on the ground, his knees up Borodin Small potatoes and honoraria Hillbillies and the sedges of Gomorrah It’s ovuh, baby Come with us into the orange room Is there a trance? Perforce an irrigation canal A siphon To regulate the teeming Peace for formulae Orson Welles handkerchiefs Ice dogs Leg irons Cesium Seizures Is there a trance? Jack and Jill thought the wrong All purity has been stained by sinister imaginations All purity is sinister Ba-ba-ba ba-ba-ba Flavor rises and onions sabotage Manufacture seasonable Custard offer The prey preordained on the favorable Friday OK In the opinion of magisterial songsters and all-around swashbucklin’ They’s angels, Mr. Dovewrinkle We’s runnin’ after them, leapin’ thee fences Leapin’ thee fences above the ocean *Michael Ruby is a poet, literary editor and journalist. He is the author of seven poetry books, most recently Compulsive Words (BlazeVOX, 2010), American Songbook (Ugly Duckling, 2013), The Mouth of the Bay (BlazeVOX, 2019) and The Star-Spangled Banner (Station Hill, 2020). His trilogy in prose and poetry, Memories, Dreams and Inner Voices (Station Hill, 2012), includes ebooks Fleeting Memories (Ugly Duckling, 2008) and Inner Voices Heard Before Sleep (Argotist Online, 2011). His other ebooks are Close Your Eyes (Argotist, 2018) and Titles & First Lines (Mudlark, 2018). He co-edited Bernadette Mayer’s early books, Eating the Colors of a Lineup of Words (Station Hill, 2015), and Mayer’s and Lewis Warsh’s collaboration Piece of Cake (Station Hill, 2020), and he is co-curator of the Station Hill Intermedia Lab. He worked for many years as an editor of U.S. news and political articles at The Wall Street Journal.Flay us, there’s nothing more to say20 O rambunctious Beccafumi14 So stop and take the receiver off the hook, play that song about ragaster sauce19 Open season13 Sesame10 Decadent to the bruised shin18 The nape pressures smells and the balloon escapes5 Not doubloon16 Quintanella17 Take the significance of King Kong6 Rocky Raccoon7 Monkey plunge1 King Kullen8 Say the lion song lost its striation15 Tooth and nail21 Postponements peeing away9 Porcupine bread destroyed—canceled out23 Faint as a rocket emerging from another universe22 Cyanide trigger2 Race day12 Precisely in the twelvemonth in the sangria in the lovable restriction on poisons11 Borages4 And with regret the position falls on the outside24 Selvage3 And the Cy solved one problem and created another25 And the inside hung down like a bat26 Another in a crevice27 Goodbye28The forecast falls2 Think of the tendency, inescapable4* Throughout the ordeal and transplant3 Downhill, everything5 If the word bleeds9The run won’t end soon8From water to water6Until you have actually seen it (him)1 Don’t expect hatred to die7* We can’t orchestrate civilization Take it to the primary object Whole ozones of our interest rates We can’t insight the Roger pocket Take it hoedown and ogre Whole okra Boy Scout If alligator shoes and handglider We try the caboodle sandwich We speak to eradicate our Powell Private solutions of silver Languages ice cream polish We have to poke a ropper Take it hambone through pout In pieces bilge and measurement The brain itself a harbormaster Assembles positive monster breath The world omen of privation From pieces randy and Hollister We can’t dislodge the somnambulist Take it beyond Bala Cynwyd Whole organizational imperatives We can’t heist an android Take it to the binder of bogger Whole pinecone and knowledge breaks
“MASTER O MASTER SEATED BY THE FIRE” —Wallace Stevens I Master oleaginous O master parallax Seated four-square By the fire of our squall Master powderpuff O master houseguest Seated alligators By the fire hobbled II Master We didn’t Wrong the patooties Master Arm’s length Isn’t enough Master Open season On falafel Master We never tire Of your Hullaballoo Your Control climate Master Throngs Smell This Polished Sandal Master Fortune Smiles on Sausages Master If doilies Can’t Impregnate Porches Master Free With Power Possibility Free With Our Holiday And All-night Sandwich Master Free with our Televisions Sizzling To no end Master Free with our Implications And tethers Master Free with our Umbrage And Phone Personality Master Free with our Ontology Our Hysterectomy Master Free with our Understanding Our Pelvic bone Master Free with our Undulation Our Incrustation Master Free with our Humbug Our Paralysis Our Persuasion III Master Olmec O master polygon Seated bouillibaise By the fire destined Master stratus O master paragon Seated pork By the fire frustrated Master operagoer O master placemark Seated hoplites By the fire warden Master committeeman O master pointillist Seated northward By the fire Risperdal Master locksmith O master tailgate Seated ominously By the fire elephantine Master register O master peashooter Seated effectually By the fire brilliantined A SMALL CIRCLE OF BRIGHTNESS rings a rising silence & oakens to tolerate purified timepiece silence & fried illegible portraits everything rippled together memory punts an intensification of melody canceled forthwith whosoever elevates rye times for segue to breathe four eagle beats & lime the same basis for oil time bring fellow eggbeater season home from questionable objects to run change ports specific rank & number aims for hidebound brine omnivorous logic drains brake conditioned & plausible paralysis forsaken pupils for all before religion paled underneath royal liner dovetails enter for solitary Lincoln wronged for rock discharge pools inside purulent chemical danger field longitude & breathing solid individual angle razzes power pullback tails fellow permanent rhythms & Margo performs infinitesimal alternation from sage faucet to irregular booth seam aims again to premise further elfin messages relief time horrors for Burlingame option tracking before loss purse for rising jack bow to large house toil eat forth organ circus & run with oats THE END OF OUR LITTLE WORLD 1 The breath of held immigration End toystore presumption of rods Of margharita lollipop dogshow Our percolated time of east legal Little purple wagon rock World sump rest till do 2 The bell curve teeth register End righten purchase discretion Of filly semblance togetherness Our hopscotch torch proposals Little bursar praying Thomas World oaks through diligence World tones to lose discharge
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