December 31, 2008

When the Mimes Left for Paris

Matt Reeck

          road: fissure opening lengthwise
                  gypsies: descendants of fog
                  dogs: forays from ditches, howling
                  hayricks: confidence men & pagan
                  poplars: silken garments kept in trunks
The man with a bear came up to the carriage. He called out and the bear stood on its legs and pawed at the wood, mewling.
                  fable: a weakness of the heart in children, treatment unknown
                  bandit: spice used to preserve gamey meat
                  jewelry: combustible root-stuff found under trees
                  teeth: tethers upon the month, related to spandrel
                  humor: a Gaelic shell in which the sea cannot be heard
O Moon bearing salt, O Salt-bermed Moon, hanging crooked from the sky, fulgent, full of untold influence!
                  pathos: a look back over your shoulder
                  stormclouds: congregants of evangelical fervor
                  plow: to believe in night, to practice sorcery
                  earth: measure of music, tuned to welkin
                  culture: labial common in old languages
He had five Pomeranians he had taught various tricks. They wore bells around their necks that tinkled as the carriage bore over the rough road.
                  barter: foreigner caught without passports
                  silver: girl of winsome smile
                  handshake: forgotten testimony of dreams
                  shadows: where the skiff bands rest
                  river: desire, incalculable in math
He called himself Telemachus. I found him with his “telecamera” trained upon the shores at daybreak—
                  twilight: danger and shuffling
                  passage: linnet glen and bone-fire lit
                  ground: when the clock is broken, when alone
                  drizzle: happenstance, as in waking
                  steeples: seldom, if ever, anywhere but the horizon
The old wheels sluiced through suck-mud. The barber, hearing of her disorder, prescribed a phlebotomy.
                  history: localizing effect, contingent upon water
                  brutal: mountains empty of bears
                  hilt: where you are, at any given time, in relation to death
                  sanctity: figure of speech of antique use
                  advent: diamond, or a gown of cotton lilies
A lone figure with lion medallion stopped the carriage. He performed a satirical skit on what he said was being played in Paris those very days. No one knew. He clambered into the carriage; the women gripped their jewelry, and the man with the Pomeranians hazarded a smile.

 

Matt Reeck’s poems have recently appeared in Brooklyn Rail, Conjunctions, and Black Warrior. He will publish two translations in 2019: Deep Vellum’s Muslim: A Novel from the French of Zahia Rahmani; and Wesleyan University Press’s French Guiana: Memory Traces of the Penal Colony from the French of Patrick Chamoiseau.

(view contributions by Matt Reeck)