POEM
Rage, sing, biblically accurate etymological angel,
there is a man in the house and he cleaves his snakes,
he cleaves his snakes from the spur to revolt of the meat
of the world and its loveliness, pillars descend in long,
innumerable avenues. Yes, there was all this material
and then there was a working through the material, as if
plowing through dirt in a marble courtyard, yes, it was
architectural too, precisely, there was the section drawing
at eye-level and the plan view above, and the plan spilled
down into the section, but here is another thing, in her novel
the violence is represented as random and therefore existential,
when really it is consequential and material. I have learned
that genocide is common, often happens at the same time as war,
and is comprised of crimes that can be proved. It is not mythical;
it is the logical conclusion when any desperate and exclusionary
group of people is allowed to do anything. A precipice lies
under the earth. I don’t mean the structure of Hell, or Las Vegas,
or ash, but a ladder of writing that comes from the ceaseless generation.
What can I make when something like literature should exist and is made
of language. Inscribed on the cup. Is the voice of the potter’s town—
Rungspeaker, who is my name, who could bloody the whole house,
did you write anything down about how cold you got? Where icebirds
for kingfishers prompt, correspond, render helpless in axelight
the same sound the same filled up with wings— In the Ghetto
Nuovo the old clamshells rattle and sing of mutation in dirt inscribes—
what— legible as movement, did you write anything down about
how cold is the death come inside now to sing of material spurs onto
violence that’s neither random nor existential and bring them at once
through the— what— video, uselessness, silvery wrapping and there is
a light and it never goes out— the food is ready— the air is silver—
the garden is painted. Look at your drawing; cut like you draw the line.
Today is December 19, 2024, and everybody can see the US executives
call any violence they don’t profit from terrorism, while we style
the strife of glory to the purpose of those that do it: To die by your side,
well, the pleasure, the privilege is mine. Inside the wild house
praying right now: As we verge we convolve with the dirt.
To inscribe in what image, in what concave folder, I’ve learned
how to strengthen my muscles, now I must sharpen my bones
POEM
I wake to a ball of dough that takes up the whole screen.
I dreamt of a friend who helped me along a great journey
of mountains, and small painted rooms, and a turnstile,
and I am grateful for his friendship. I dreamt of bombs too,
that could find me, but still I was protected. Still, how will I speak.
Although it doesn’t have impressive guile, it is full of life
still it is, and I trust the friends that I trust, and I want to ask
what you think of this book, song, essay, coast, and the many homes
I’ve never seen and won’t. I don’t want to go to that wedding.
I’ve planned to be out of the country in fact, I’ve planned to be
in court. For the poets and lawyers will go back to back,
once the sage and serenely attending committee of angels
in outfits of wires and oil assembles behind the booth. Now—
She stoops a kneel: Law is that which licenses in blood
certain transformations, while authorizing others only
by unanimous consent— photographs of sculptors bent
round shades of twilight, when, by defying the law, they lay
bare the juridical order itself. What the candles are made of,
when chores must be finished, how work must be shared
in the passing of objects from courtyards and whether the objects
in airspace can rest, a house of God measured in answers
glowed before these scattered men like a visible thing.
And what did they make? Capital cities and statues
of marble? Castles and battlements? No, they created a day.
Listen again, council— How sweet are these figs.
Blessed be those that planted them, watered and tended them,
picked and dried and shared them in the sun idly with those
who bring the best parts of you into the world, who see you
the way that you want to be seen, which is the gift you give
each other. So you give yourself to the world, to the ocean
embroidered in mazy bureaucracies, intricate silver links
of supply chains in thrall to American terrorists spinning
their sanctions of force to suit zionist cucks on vacation in Europe—
And blessed be those who withdraw from their work when the
time is right, who force the wretched voice of the contracted weapons
to bend to their will through withdrawal, and by so doing create a day
NOTE: “Law is that which licenses in blood certain transformations, while authorizing others only by unanimous consent” is from Robert Cover’s Nomos and Narrative.
Emily Martin is a writer and teacher from Brooklyn. She is most recently the author of My Salvation Lateral (The Elephants, 2024), Marking a Salt Ridge (Erotoplasty Editions, 2023), and the chapbook Dependence, the Joistrix / How you are made (Hiding Press, 2023).