20140417

Lucy Wilks


52 Transpositions after Oulipo



on matters of import / on maturation of the impossible

our voices / we fly

are studied / though stumped


la belle dame / the bellowing damnifies

avec / but we withhold

merci / meridians


furrows / fuscous

on a log - a lizard's / logic - your load

thumb-print / of frankincense


rosellas / rose-red

at table / tablet -

their feet their spoons / felicity a spore


your tree-creeper / my tremolo

wrapping in spirals / wreathing a spiritualist

the yellow-box / with yes


take-off / a talented ointment -

fast and slumbrous / fatally I smoke

at once / an onset


new world voyage / next I'll worship vulgarian

of a naked / of a narcissistic

conjuror / connoisseur


creation / I credit you

of the birds / with the unleavened bread

a violin in your heart / of a virgin heat


the matchless gift / the matronly gigolo

of Krishna / of Kufic

consciousness / consensus


until I till / until I tinkle

I cannot / I cannibalize

worship / this wrack


scarlet robin / sceptred rock -

where have gone / as I goggle

your snows / let me soak


spiky plants / spiracular planxties

of a spiky man / of a spiracular manatee -

still yet succulent / some sudoriferous


my sticks / my stiles

my staffs / my staggerers -

linseed oils them / lipography opens them


Richard of York / the rictus of youth

gains battle / gallops beautifully

in vain / in Valencia


I'm dead / I'm debonair

of waking / of waltzing

in the night / in nihility


noise has / nomads

left a residue / legitimize resistibility

like a burning stone / like a buried stop


knotted and gnarly / though labile and Goethian

my complex of nerves / I compliment the nestlings

at the pit / on your pith


capaciousness / capers

has emptied / enamour

me of glee / me of glimmers


dreaming I'm / drifting I'm

a black cat / a blameworthy Catalan

with white fur / with a wide furore


a spinebill / Spinoza

alarms / alights from

the pineapple sage / the pious antelope


lovey dovey / loyally downtroddenly

dovey lovey / downtroddenly loyally

lovey dovey / loyally downtroddenly


if only waking / were operosely wandering

were a ripple / a rite and

not a trauma / not a travesty


prolific pen / promiscuous pendant -

condense to their gist / conduplicate the gladness

the peripatetic / of the periwigged


primitive / prior

jubilee - two / judiciousness - typical

Phrygian palms / physiognomical palpitations


musically / mutually

I'm more adept / I'm more mosaically ad hoc

asleep / asparkle


a labyrinth / lachryma Christi -

my ball of yarn / my ballast of yarrow

your aria / your aristocrat


your adagio / your adaptability

travels / treacles

around corners / around cornucopias


on a white wall / in a wide wallow

one enormous / one enterprising and

black snowflake / blameless snuggery


I forget / I fornicate

my geography / with geophysics -

blank nostalgia / bleeding notables


let me dwell / levitate my dying

electrified / eliding

by enigma / all enquiry


I rosin my bow / I rotate my bower

to die / to diffract

with smorzando / a smoulder


earnestly / eccentrically

desirous for / desultory for

a wasted thing to do / a waxen thither to dodder


you forbear / you forebode

with my nescience / my netting -

I dream your knowing / I dribble and lacerate


a valley / what value

between us / bewails us -

no time for finesse / no tincture but finish


atop / audible

our respective silos / our restive similes -

mountains commune / muslin keeps company


interminably / intimately

I strictly enforce / I stubbornly engineer

my paralysis / my paranoia


anxiety / apartheid -

a slurry of days / a smack of the dead

at the pit / in piteouslessness


Petrarch says / petticoats scallop us -

you drive to flight / you drop a flip

my self-recrimination / on seminal recumbency


sit a little / skedaddle livelily

pace a little / paddle livelily

collapse a little / collide livelily


exposed / exsanguinated

I revert to a / I revoke a

childish hand / chintz handsel


legato is / legible is

the only slur / the only smallage

I'm happy with / I'm a Hashemite with


my sky / my slang

you catch / you cause

blue-handed / bodefully handleless


I'm worsted / I'm wrecked

and bested / and betaken

gratefully / greedily


damaged / dangled

and exhausted / and exonerated

well-worn is ill-worn / whimperingly wounded is illimitably wounded


disarm me / disburden me

of defence / of deficiency -

a pert oeillade / a pestiferous offensive


seduced / seethed

askance into / assentiently into

coyness / cracks


my dear / my decadent

Mr Mesmer - I'm / mnemonic Messiah - so

influentially yours / ingenuously yours


oblivious / obsessed

you navigate / I negate

perfectly / periphrastically


broken steps / brumous stern

in stairwell / of stalemate -

would I weren't impeded / woven I'm a westerly impinged


I dream to feel / I dress to feminize

experience / expletives

I have not had / I hazard haemally


it's a happy / it's a harrowing

vice my head is in / vicissitude my hearsay is in -

the heart of me untrammelled / the heave of me untraversable


my possibility / my posterity

itself / my izzard

exhausts / exits




Lucy Wilks was born in Melbourne in 1960. Her work has appeared in Verse, Meanjin and Southerly.
 
 
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