the intricate evasions of as (part two)

the intricate evasions of as

selected poems1980-2010 (part two)

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. Regimen Against Ennui

2. Heraclitean Projection

3. Poem

4. Blasphemous Intimations of Mortality

5. Wrath

6. “simplicity of the utmost”

7. Supplicant

8. Alexander Meets Diogenes

9. Sour Grapes

10. Not So Pedestrian Gadfly Under Guise Of Country Bumpkin

11. Skid Row

12. Macho Furtive Strut

13. Incompatibility, Or Two Separate Worlds

14. Lily

15. “child like/paper snow”

16. No Haven

17. “conceives the word”

18. Cat On A Killer Stretch Of Asphalt

19. Standoff

20. Increasing Your Odds For Survival In The Animal Kingdom

21. The Quick And The Dead

22. Attic Black-figured Loutrophoros, Early 5^th Century

23. Deconstruction

24. Rag Collectors

25. Lustily

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REGIMEN AGAINST ENNUI

They enter the new world naked

- William Carlos Williams, “Spring & All”

I know all

This sounds trite but

Before you call it just

Another day,

Leave two galvanized

Pails full of water

Under the stars,

Then hit the hay.

Get up

At the crack of dawn,

Go straightaway out

And

As you watch the stars

Being washed away,

Empty the pails in turn over

Your still numb stark-naked body.

You are now clearly

And fully ready

To greet a brand-new day.

HERACLITEAN PROJECTION

Absorbing

sun

drenched

chameleon’s

calculating

eye

watching it

watching me

change it-

self looking

easy as π.

POEM

Like that

Ruby-throated humming

Bird that moves by

Making us stand still.

BLASPHEMOUS INTIMATIONS OF MORTALITY

Was wirst du tun, Gott, wenn ich sterbe?
Rainier Maria Rilke

You fuck,

I keep telling this

Fly around my head,

Take a flying fuck,

Fuck you. But when

I die, dear God,

Who will fuck

The fly? You?

ii.

spleen on the fly

Oh, yeah?

You want some fuckin’

Dead meat?

I’ll give you some,

You cocky mother

Fuck her, God

I done

Swat her,

Good.

WRATH

Unknowingly

Crushed almost

Suffocated

By my wife’s pillow,

The badly

Bruised innocent

Centipede surfaces

And retaliates

And stings her fore-

Head good. She

Springs from deep sleep, strikes back

Blindly this time sees

She finishes the job off

Good.

simplicity of the utmost

complicity

SUPPLICANT

High above the ruins

Of Ancient Messene

And below the lone village restaurant,

There is a haggard dog chained

To a large, earthenware jar.

His view of this once-rich

City is indeed magnificent, truly

Uplifting to the spirit, but

As he knows it by heart,

He prefers to sit on his haunches

And turn his back on it,

Looking up instead for any sign

Of the bones he prays the gods

Might find it in their hearts

To throw down to him.

ALEXANDER MEETS DIOGENES

gone to the dogs all right

and cynical a cur as any he knew

this purebred jackanapes blocking his sun

light would soon find his ass jumping

through hoops clearly over a barrel.

SOUR GRAPES

Succinctly.

One of them poet words.

Sounds queer

like you was a damn dwarf

plumber sucked down some wife’s horny

crawdad hole of a cunt

and just staying there, period.

There oughta be a law

against words like that.

Never could

say it

anyway.

10.

NOT SO PEDESTRIAN GADFLY

UNDER GUISE OF COUNTRY BUMPKIN

Now

Look here

You-all

Certified highfalutin’

City-bred dandies,

It’s sho ‘nuf

High nigh

Impossible, so

Why in tarnation youse tryin’

To outrun a horse-

Fly.

11.

SKID ROW

fool-

hardy

pigeon

taking off

down

precarious

flight

of run-down

steps,

falls

hard

upon

crumb

bum on landing.

12.

MACHO FURTIVE STRUT

Walking,

That familiar shaggy stray

Cur straight ahead

Shagging a bitch

On the sidewalk—

How when

Passing by,

We each give

The other

One last acknowledging

Sidelong glance.

13.

INCOMPATIBILITY, OR TWO SEPARATE WORLDS

Sappho supplicant, hers was religiously high-brow—

Nuns versed in poetry, divinely delicate Greeks.

His? One where offal-eating Huns ran roughshod,

Licking bare-ass pussy-whipped artistic geeks.

14.

LILY

She had an unearthly air

of innocence

even the nuns were ashamed of.

15.

child like

paper snow

flakes open

eyes wonder

16.

NO HAVEN

he eyes the heavens

infinity

the earth declines

17.

conceives the word

perceives

the world within

a mind

less deception.

18.

CAT ON A KILLER STRETCH OF ASPHALT

Believe me, what looks like

A flattened weather-

Beaten chamois de-

Composed on

The asphalt isn’t shamming.

19.

STANDOFF

Watching

The cat poised, watching

The tall, motionless grass,

Ready to pounce on to

Whatever it is, it waits

For it to make its move,

It must

Remain perfectly still

Until the right

Time comes,

If ever it will

20.

INCREASING YOUR ODDS FOR

SURVIVAL IN THE ANIMAL KINGDOM

My three-year-old niece

Wants me to draw her favorite

Animal—a wolf—so I draw a wolf.

That’s nice, she says, and then asks me

To draw a boy and a girl,

So I draw a boy and a girl—

Biting her lips, she then asks me

If I could please draw them holding swords,

Just in case

Her favorite’s thinking bad, bad things.

21.

THE QUICK AND THE DEAD

From out of nowhere,

Smart lizard darts

Onto hot deadly stretch

Of killer asphalt,

Grabs stupid grass-

Hopper’s ass before

Coolly high-

Tailing it back

To nowhere.

22.

ATTIC BLACK-FIGURED LOUTROPHOROS,

EARLY 5^th CENTURY

After the mourners finish,

(The chin-strap fixes

The jaw shut),

Another black hole opens.

23.

DECONSTRUCTION

Near brimming candlelit cemetery

Under a waning gibbous moon—

Ring of rusted barrels emptied of lime

Next to an ashen shovel, light.

24.

RAG COLLECTORS

out gathering winter

scraps of sun-

light on the lone

sunlit corner.

25.

LUSTILY

from the dingy

balcony

the housewife’s

crisp

white under-

pants

and sheets

applaud

accordingly.

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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: Arabesques Review, First Intensity, NO/ON: journal of the short poem (Japan), Poetry Salzburg Review, Smoot Drive Press, The Southeastern Review (Greece).

Anthologies: How the Net Is Gripped: a selection of contemporary American Poetry, Stride (UK), 1992.

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 a 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 first making Part One and now Part Two of this too long labored over manuscript freely accessible at last.

a facqueuesol paperless book