Issue 23: Patricia Farrell
from Handshoe
(after Max Klinger Ein Handschuh (Paraphrase on the finding of a glove))
this is
a game of chance
throwing the ice
into the air
and watching it fall
and for your next
impossible trick
you are angling to
catch it in the glass
holding your breath
for an instant
at the event horizon
skating perfectly
on the meniscus
but as you follow the trajectory
the glass performs
a topological manoeuvre
flattening and freezing
as you hit the surface
opening a hairline crack
can’t know where you is
a fissure in the think
how is it happening
at this end of the room
sure sure
you were
echoglossolaling
at the other
or does this is
in a beginning
an heteronomous
categorical imperative
of justice
to speak
the unthinkable
next move
wobbling super-saturated
on its catastrophic edge
it all makes
too much sense
*
as if you were a poet
nonsense
using a multiplicity
of devices
to structure
your surface-making tools
are these the facts
that poets like
like that handshake
was a challenge
juxta enjambement
and position
of the upward downward slopes
repetition and changes of the mixture
spreading the earth
and doing the loopholes
so work
you superficial bastard
you are now the author
of a personal quote form
and it is on the front line
and are you trying
to break this
without separating
it’s an image
speaking with the borders
celebrating this
occasional courtship
this pagan failure
and who
would read the next job
a different
congenital frequency
which is where
without permission
there is a sudden
sharp noise
the voice breaks
is it a crack down
or is it cracking-up
crack on
was that a joke
humour is the
holy of the
wholly holey surface
the sound of symbols
re-
sounding
*
a stone hits the window
and you cracked your tooth as you fell
something you slightly non-specifically
broke
to reach what was inside
just a moment
a small resounding moment
of perversion
a turning aside of itself
but contrariwise you see
to crack means
finding a solution
so blind drunk
you can’t
see anything
despite
intensely
intimate
interrogation
eggs into the mixing bowl
the lightning is not cracking
no up
you’re on the floor
at the frontier
excellent
where the earthquake
cracked the walls
and the roof collapsed
enciphering
thin lines and narrow spaces
tracing and marking down
a translation
from chance to skilful
light and deft
dancing delicate
rolling through
beyond the dead-end of the flaw
which way will you fold your soul
performing acts of perverse
versity
*
you need
a bargaining chip for gaps
light the conceptual stunts
transform the devices
skip the delay
configure the melting ice
here are the facts
you have not
you are not
all here
but listen
how pretty
now
a moment of silence
or to turn your head
the force so cold
crack
come back
now
small
and vast
calling
calling it an accident
an instant
epic
poetic
force flashing
to get the last word
the first would help
the excursion terminated
or run forever
after the penultimate drink
Patricia Farrell is a poet and visual artist. She has collaborated with other writers and artists, most notably Robert Sheppard, as well as the installation artist Jivan Astfalck, on the project B*twixst, exhibited in Birmingham, Portsmouth and Cologne, and A Space Completely Filled with Matter with the dancer, Jennifer Cobbing. Her collection, The Zechstein Sea, was published by Shearsman in 2013 and her latest publication is High Cut: My Model of No Criteria (Leafe Press 2018). She completed a PhD thesis in 2011 on poetic artifice in philosophical writing.
Copyright © 2019 by Patricia Farrell, 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.
