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from HUMAN / NATURE 4.7 silver of sunlight rising above plane of ridge, white line of jet trail moving across pale blue sky above it, golden- crowned sparrow’s oh dear me in right foreground woman on radio asking about “the red zone,” Brigadier General calling it “a line across which a decision may be made” Secretary of Defense claiming the coalition is closing on Baghdad, regime “under increasing pressure,” Iraqi soldiers can still survive “if they do the right thing” white line of jet trail’s slanting across blue-white sky overhead, cloud lowering across shoulder of ridge below it 4.8 upturned curve of still dark pine branch in upper right foreground, sound of golden-crowned sparrow’s oh dear me, silver of sun reflecting off body of jet passing overhead man on radio reporting Arab dead on Iraq TV called martyrs, hospitals in Baghdad filled to overflowing General Richard Myers claiming we have dropped 750 Tomahawks and over 18,000 precision-guided munitions, Secretary of Defense noting “our goal has been to not have a war” plane of cloudless blue sky tilting down behind circular green pine on the point, oval green mouth of wave breaking into left foreground 4.9 plane of still dark ridge below blue-white sky in the window opposite the unmade yellow and blue bed, tobacco plant leaf in window on the left, golden-crowned sparrow’s oh dear me A-10 Warthog firing 1 ton of depleted uranium in 1 minute, 10 pound rod of solid uranium in each shot fired by tank Iraqi commander claiming “they’re going to die in their tanks,” B-52 dropping bunker-busting bombs on building in Baghdad, “moderately hopeful that Saddam was there” line of sun reflected in blue-white plane, sweptback wingspan of jet against cloudless blue sky overhead 4.10 silhouette of sparrow perched on upturned curve of pine branch in upper right foreground, blinding silver of sun rising above ridge on left, sound of jet passing overhead man on radio claiming “Rumsfeld pleaded agnosticism today,” marine vet admitting “I take no joy in seeing people dead” woman on phone noting it isn’t the Fool but Kent who says “See better, Lear,” no champagne for the man on the right who thought otherwise white line of wave breaking below circular green pine on point in right foreground, white line of jet trail against cloudless blue sky above it 4.11 pale blue oval opening in grey-white clouds above ridge in left corner, upturned curve of still dark pine branch in foreground below it, sound of a gull circling overhead man on left claiming “a portrait is a painting of a person trying to pose,” viewer doesn’t materialize until it’s done man at end of the table recalling seeing Othello five nights in a row, noticing “every time Desdemona died and woke up again, my mind had a moment of hope” horizontal line of grey-white clouds against blue sky in upper left corner, green plane of tree-lined ridge below it author note: H / N (all 1000
pages of it, written in 1000 consecutive days between 10.19.02
- 7.14.05) works as a kind of 'essay' on the relation between things
seen/observed in the world and how such things might be made
('transcribed'/'transformed') as works of written (or visual) art-- the paintings
Kandinsky takes up in Concerning the Spiritual in Art for
example. Every poem has ten lines in four stanzas, with the outer two stanzas
recording things seen and/or heard in the world of 'nature' (the first
stanza on each page 'looking' at things out the window here in Bolinas, the
last stanza at things which I've seen out in the water when I go
surfing), the two middle stanzas noting things seen or read/heard about in
the human world (that is, things made out of language). Thus on every
page, perceptions of actual 'real' things in the natural world 'frame'
what might be thought or said or written or in fact made of things in
that world -- e.g., as 'works of art' or 'transcriptions' of actual,
'real' things/events/actions in the world, which I've noted and 'written
down' in exactly such shapes on the page; likewise in any series of pages,
the two middle stanzas on any given page, which write down or
'transcribe' facts of activity in the human world, 'frame' theperception of
actual 'real' things/actions/events in the natural world. As you can see,
the poems in this selection make reference to the Iraq war, which was
just getting started up at this point (April 03).
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stephen ratcliffe's poems
have appeared or are forthcoming in P-Queue,
War & Peace, Jacket,
Shampoo, The Brooklyn Rail, Green Integer Review, Carnet de Route, and the anthology American Hybrid. His recent
books of poetry include Portraits
& Repetition (The Post-Apollo Press, 2002) and SOUND/(system) (Green Integer, 2002)
and Listening to Reading,
a book of essays on contemporary experimental poetry,
was published by SUNY Press (2000) He teaches at Mills College in
Oakland. |
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