Jim Leftwich


Post-American Haiku


"American Haikus (short three-line poems intended to be
completely packed with Void of Whole)" — Jack Kerouac

minutes above cars all those years dirty as a dentist to occupy the lump-graph maybe the eye knows wake up to babbling sand while the commercial hisses cats now and then a blizzard ah the record player nineteen seventy-eight end of a world at my desk except students foist or fist Confucius was a constructed art why and who recognition is where you're at where heaven answers so be it going on, on your own then would the fish rinse in mind how it was and open electricity so I unplug the little tiger slowly, always slowly looking up at the wind I wrote the apron two of them talking again at dusk none of which has ever happened blossoms at dusk doing similar things for different reasons a morning glory and a goat rather than knocks hearing the river no rhythm in a boat we could count that storm of socks on one hand the open itself next time round will be coordinated dusk suddenly but not this vivid twanging together causes two things like that but I forget who what combined with supper through the gate they were knots for a while then students again heard style as fire you are sure it will snow now what I am making is there for anyone to notice following the other order they harness a constructed silence weaving them on a tray as if to sift so, it is an orange when the lights go out the steel rose ladles a train interferes first got into the eye logical hearing doing the work of course the thought is open dizzy the thousand but they were seeing something I walked up and sat down which lately is familiar

interesting in other words as soon as the sky remembering the rhythm of the burning song who says syntax and billboards makes jottings weaving a fish are not suspended sentences no ideas but in bare attention to fragments of things no things but in bare attention to fragments of writing not every poem however orderly lampposts pirouettes see them lit up behind the rhythmic chords clapping amid the sea stumbled upon this statement not enough of a sea to see not enough time enough time as I said the writing there time enough to vacuum the origin there is nobody the line with you most vivid arrangement never change as they say the salad of the sea so much more of now now that it's in sequence blotting mind was not enough to follow the next syllable reduced to enough where there is no path dash there will be no bubble nor foaming the path of the sentence of least resistance there is not as I said there will be practiced composition until it was unfamiliar writing the sea and encountering the seam becomes the center gets in the head like training extract from syntax the experienced given succinctly excessive shredding the given counting the cars —exciting to walk half to letter to think running as if you were going

10.16.2017

Jim Leftwich: Four commentaries / explications

 
 
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