from Report from the Robinson Society, Vol. 1, No. 1
Do you mind if I steal a bit from you
1.
In
an imaginary way I am attracted to you
You
offer from yourself a house of water
I’m
a sort of tidal process for you
This
is a third hand relating of you
You
experience the disjointure, the disarticulation
You
lay them out side by side for comparison
The
idea is that you would dissolve yourself
To
keen the terms of escape uproot you
And
you will find the abandoned street
You
don’t think of turning back
You
are independent of nature
Here
you may rise as disguise
Instead
you go away entirely
So now for you
2.
Before
you and I were born logic defined itself
Camouflaged
scrap on which to lay your head
You
borrow a puppet crudely carved in your own likeness
Then
the question: Is a breath inflating your body
For
you are benumbed by this ether
A
part of you might start up and run away
You
may break your arm
You
will know your own tongue
Do
you mind if I steal a bit from you
You
see the sails, I want you to see the masonry
3.
You
were given into my care
I
was given to driving you in my car and around the world
I
kiss you tongue in my cheek
4.
Carry
us in your special drowning wings
And
birds, in this name for air, will be given to you
You
conceal under your tongue bird trinket
Treasure
spurting from you
I
know you put your body in her nest
Could
you hold your breath
You
are to be wrapped securely to rest
But
the dream hand lifts ahead of you
Now
I grow from you, speak solely in your voice
I
see you more greenly, encased in sunlight
You
said that you found my trinkets in the gutters of the city
One asks the other
in
what landscape did a woman trace a dwelling
an
anonymous woman continuous of smoke
how
can abandonment be a symptom of
a
friend of a friend, her footprints’ bereftness
what’s
the use of a tampered with picture
its
reflection warped and wavering, what does
she
want, one line atop another, she ties a suffocated knot
to
make a pattern of inevitability, the sense of horizon
away
from the limits of two dimensionality, what does
she
wait for, in tension, an unnamed body rubbed raw
by
a feeling of warmth disentangling
from the feeling of flight
how
does she help record a history of the scant privation,
the
naked vanishing, why is balance like teetering
Note:
These two poems were composed using lines collaged from the writings of Elizabeth Robinson. Do you mind if I steal a bit from you assembles lines and fragments from Robinson’s books Apprehend, The Orphan and Its Relations, Rumor, Counterpart, and Apostrophe. For One asks the other I used lines only from Apprehend and The Orphan and Its Relations—two of my favorite books (that is, if I had to pick favorites from Robinson’s astonishing body of work). Deepest gratitude to Elizabeth for the gift and inspiration of her poetry and other writings.
