Issue 29: Adam Piette
For Geraldine
/
the sentence gets longer the more you cut it :: develops its own
momentum, like a plant on fire, doing its own thing :: as dark sign
it reflects on form of its going, furtive,
energised as crime :: side-stepping the fifth
republic it launches its core imperial project, out there in
the sands :: passengers get queasy as turbulence fries their daemons ::
one says to other, the clouds, see, are digressing, clefting, balloon-
ing over desert, puffed up by simoom ::
there's a gesture sprouting off palm, fierce bloom ::
its syntax troubled, broken at (sigh) suffix, subjunctive, mind a moon
in a whirl of mistaken case, erroneous semes :: the dubious light
intensifies heat's force as it builds up,
the verbal text-heart about to unzip ::
little lyric cuts its own ice, don't you think, lightens up the blight ::
//
the songbirds stiffen as the water dries, but that's all right, we store
field recordings :: she's looking right at you, from interstices, where
the colours they flash from thickets :: bastions,
outposts, trig points, meshed networked landscape droned,
bursting with deletions, constituents:: the goddess in the clau-
ses resolves the contradictions as cool as the metaphors :: she
has her admirers, connections good, socialistic :: phalanx cre-
ating relations, shell-shocked & scary,
a space of passion outside their snobbery,
in the shrubbery? :: as the sentence inflects, shines lights on mystery,
secrets of others in the crypt :: take care, shelter, mannerisms
cut short, economical with the truth,
for the word & name seek you out yes both
of you:: such blessings to be stalked, yes :: it comes the end in spasms
[Adam Piette co-edits Blackbox Manifold with Alex Houen. He has co-curated this special section with Ágnes Lehóczky.]
Copyright © 2022 by Adam Piette, all rights reserved. This text may be used and shared in accordance with the fair-use provisions of copyright law. Archiving, redistribution, or republication of this text on other terms, in any medium, requires the notification of the journal and consent of the author.
