the intricate evasions of as

selected poems1980-2010 (part one)

vassilis zambaras

 

 

 

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This endlessly elaborating poem

Displays the theory of poetry,

As the life of poetry.  A more severe,

 

More harassing master would extemporize

Subtler, more urgent proof that the theory

Of poetry is the theory of life,

 

As it is, in the intricate evasions of as,

In things seen and unseen, created from nothingness,

The heavens, the hells, the worlds, the longed-for lands.

 

                            Wallace Stevens,

                           “An Ordinary Evening in New Haven”  

  

 

 

 

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     table of contents

 

1.   What Is Not White

2.   The Origin of Species

3.   Terminal Disease

4.   “unbelievable white”

5.   Cliché

6.   Prehensile

7.   The Spiritual Nature of Anticipation

8.   Bookmark, “Selected Poems,” William Carlos Williams

9.   Vigilance

10. Song of No Rhyme, No Reason

11. Aurora

12. If Light Were Like A Void

13. “solitary white”

14. Cowards Don’t Leave Suicide Notes

15. Sorrow Is

16. Advent of Winter

17. “delicate sculpture”

18. Driven

19. “white shoulders”

20. Untitled

21. “ship/wrecks”

22. New Found Land

23. Depression in Ft. Atkinson, Wisconsin

24. The Presentiment

25. Heirloom

 

 

  

 

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1.

 

WHAT IS NOT WHITE

 

 

white comes                            from afar

                  

                     as far as     what                    longing

 

for forever                                brings                       for whatever

 

                    reason

 

                                 closing

                                                 in

 

 

.

 

                                                                        we think

 

the world is not

 

                           white we think it is

 

 

 

.

 

 

 

(what is)

 

 

white we know,

 

what white we know                                    

 

white will never know

 

we know

 

.

 

Let us go.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2.

 

THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES

 

 

On top of poems are written

Other poems, thus

 

The destruction of the world’s

Perfected.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3.

 

TERMINAL DISEASE

 

 

Unworthy the ink

ejaculating

 

octopus spits

out black pus.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4.

 

 

unbelievable white

 

lies behind it

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5.

 

CLICHÉ

 

 

Broad daylight.  Strange

coming

 

to terms with it, as if

it were something

 

out of the ordinary

out of the blue

 

nothingness.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

6.

 

PREHENSILE

 

 

Grasping, but not man-

Handling the language,

 

As if the poem were,

So to speak, a glass

 

Mandible.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7.

 

THE SPIRITUAL NATURE OF ANTICIPATION

 

 

Anxious, a-

spiring

 

to be heard,

as an

 

embryo’s heart-

beat

 

hard to grasp,

to see

 

the next leaf

over-

 

head breaking

away,

 

to Fall.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

8.

 

BOOKMARK, SELECTED POEMS,

WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS

 

 

From dry fragile still

fragrant yellow-

 

green stalks & leaves placed

between the descent

 

of winter & the locust tree

in flower stems

 

the scent of spring.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

9.

 

VIGILANCE

 

 

Vigilance is in sighting

The lance

 

Being thrust into air,

Watching it, following

 

Its arc

 

Ever watchful of gravity

Inscribing your signature

 

Indelibly there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

10.

 

SONG OF NO RHYME, NO REASON

 

 

here,

there—

 

a

non

 

se-

quit-

ur

 

ci-

ca-

 

da

wind-

ing

up

 

in air.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

11.

 

AURORA

i.m. Robert Lax (1915-2000)

 

 

mystical

 

morning

donning

 

mystical

light,

 

mystical

 

ritual

unfolding

 

calling

 

mystic

mythical

 

flight.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

12.

 

IF LIGHT WERE LIKE A VOID

 

 

It would be like leaping

Out of the blue in

 

To nothinglikeness.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

13.

 

 

solitary white

 

chapel’s calling

 

 

sea’s bluff

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

14.

 

COWARDS DON’T LEAVE SUICIDE NOTES

 

 

So sorry

 

I couldn’t

 

Say goodbye.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

15.

 

SORROW IS

 

 

a lone flashing

 

oar down the river of no

 

return.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

16.

 

ADVENT OF WINTER

 

 

snow

 

 

white

 

barbed

 

wire

 

 

neck-

 

lace

 

hanging

 

 

throat-

 

less

 

song

 

 

bird.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

17.

 

 

delicate

sculpture

 

across your

face, snow

 

flakes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

18.

 

 

DRIVEN

 

edge of the ice

red

 

of the flower

blade

 

of the knife

of the road

 

the turning

 

harrow of

 

snow

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

19.

 

 

white shoulders

the dream

 

ploughs

through

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

20.

 

UNTITLED

 

 

seed pods bur sting

 

in cemeteries

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

21.

 

 

ship

 

wrecks

 

 

memories

 

harbor

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

22.

 

NEW FOUND LAND

 

 

to the old country

boy

 

pulling his small toy

boat across

 

the street the

seas aside

 

walk.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

23.

 

DEPRESSION IN FT. ATKINSON, WISCONSIN

 

 

Remember our pale, blue

picket fence, Dad?

 

We painted it,

as good as new.

 

You stepped on the gas

instead of braking,

 

shot the Chevy thru. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

24.

 

THE PRESENTIMENT

 

 

Verily we feel

Our bones shall follow

 

The wake,

To wake

 

In the dark

Of the morrow,

 

To find the glow-

Worm’s glimmer,

 

Its spineless undulating underbelly

Underpinning

 

Our very marrow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

25.

 

HEIRLOOM

 

 

Keep what I give you

a covenant

 

we shall inherit

the unimaginable

 

immaculate loneliness

of galaxies.

 

 

 

 

 

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:

 

Some of these poems first appeared in the following magazines and anthologies and I am grateful to their editors.

 

Magazines: Kater Murr’s Press (UK), Poetry Salzburg Review, Shearsman, Smoot Drive Press, The Southeastern Review (Greece).

 

Anthologies: How the Net Is Gripped:  a selection of contemporary American Poetry, Stride (UK), 1992; Visiting Dr. Williams, Poems Inspired by the Life and Work of William Carlos Williams, University of Iowa Press, 2011.

 

A few of these poems were also published as In Credible Evidence, a small fold-out booklet by Bob Arnold at Longhouse Publishers, 2010.

 

 

Author’s Note: The Intricate Evasions of As is an unpublished four-part manuscript of 100 selected poems written between 1980—2010; each part is introduced by a segment taken from a passage by William Carlos Williams from his Prologue to Kora in Hell. Here is the segment in its entirety with slash marks indicating where it is divided. ”. . . . those inimitable particles/ of dissimilarity/ to all other things which are/ the peculiar perfections/ of the thing in question”

 

My thanks to John Mingay and facqueuesol books for making Part One of this too long labored over manuscript freely accessible at last.

 

 

 

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© Vassilis Zambaras 2020

a facqueuesol paperless book