Runaway: New Poems by Jorie Graham (2020)
Runaway: New Poems by Jorie Graham (2020)
I
MY SKIN IS
parched, on tight, questioned, invisible, full of so much evolution, now the moment is
gone, begin again, my skin, here, my limit of the visible me, I touch it now, is
spirit-filled, naturally-selected, caught in the storm here under this tree, propped up by
history, which, I don’t know which, be careful, you can’t love everyone-
brought to you by Revlon, melancholy, mother’s mother, the pain of others,
spooky up close in this mirror here, magnified to the 100th, brutal no-color color,
what shall I call it, shall I pass, meandering among the humans, among their
centuries, no safe haven this as if, this spandex over a void, no exception, god
watching though casually, paring, paring, a glance once in a while-what am I
missing-what am I supposed to do now suddenly, what at the last minute here-
what is there to fix-are we alone-am I-packaged so firmly for this short
interval-vigorous skin, doomed outsideness of me-sadder & no wiser here,
blown up, so close, so only here, I see you net that skeins me in, tight inside my
inwardness-at this border judged-at this edge bleeding when hit-as was for a
while-didn’t know enough to leave-didn’t see the farewell-right there in front of
me-must it always end this way-must I ceaselessly be me, reinvent you, see the
artifice us, feel hand-to-face the childhood gone, the starlight the wind the gaze the
race, the stranger not knowing, the unsaid unsaid, unseen unfound-look how full of
void it is this capture, this skin no one can clean, and thoughts right there
beneath-of course you cannot see me for this wrapping-I notice the cover of your
face, the dress you hide beneath, you sitting there, reading me-pay mind, pay it
out, peering as we are at each other here-dermal-papilla pigment-layer
nerve-fiber blood and lymph, can we still fit into this strictest time, so quick, one click and
hurry up-we’ve been trying forever now to get out of this lonely place-inside’s inside-
the movie of the outside was all about exploring, we explored, we found what we
should never touch, we touched, we touch, what’s so unusual we say, you are now
mine we say, this is the feature coming on, this future, so full of liking & fine dis-
closure, a bud-tip pushing aside its sheath, then standing there, very whole now, very
official, open to damp, heat, stippling, shadow-to freckle, slap, beauty or no
beauty-please help me here as I can’t tell-the trees don’t know-the wind
won’t speak-the gods should but their names are being withheld-because some of us
are murdered, and some of us have mouths that keep saying yes, do that to me
again, I know it hurts but yes, I am an American, I like it harder than you’ll ever
know, this is Tuesday, the day rises with its fist over the harbor saying give it to me
and the day obliges, saying more, more, do you want more, and the torch of dawn
says more, yes more, ask for my identification, my little pool of identification, here
on the only road, arrested again among the monuments.
III
SCARCELY THERE
[for J. A.]
After the wind just stops you still hear
the wind’s wild almost, its approach and retreat, and how it kept on
circling as-if-trying, as if about-to-be, an almost-speech,
loud, full of syntax, casting about for
life, form, limit, fate. To be bodied. To strut. To have
meaning. How easily we wear ourselves
as if it is nothing to have
origin, whirl, outcome,
and still be.
After the high winds stop you’re forced to hear
the freshness of what’s
there. It smacks, shimmers-this sound of
the scarcely there, this adamantly almost, all betweens, sub-
siding till adjustment-and then the wide re-blanketing evenness sets in. . . . Gone
all that acceleration, that shooting up & back, futurist, furious with naming and naming
its one price. Oh nothing holds. Just the rattling of the going and
coming together of things, as if matter itself is trying
to find something true to
say-crazed investigation, tentative prophecy, trying on savage
shape- widening without be-
coming-is this the one last war now, finally-but no, only more of notion’s
motions- more more the wind says, break grief, loosen possibility, let vague
hopes float, sink-let other debris slip into
place. Rootless mind. Shallow whirling of law and more and yet more law
brocading the emptiness. Then suddenly
all stills. It is near
noon. No more
spillage. No more gorgeous waste of effort. No more
out-tossed reachings of green as if imagining some out there exists-hovering inhalations, then as-if-hiding, then all coughed-out at once in a tumble-too much,
too many, disconcerted, un-countable. Yet
no dream. . . .
After the wind stops you hear fact. You hear fact’s plan. It is huge.
The tree does not escape. Things are finished forces.
You hear a name-call from far off, tossed, dropped. Someone gives up.
Light rips here from there. Where birdcalls cease, you hear the under-
neath. Try living again day’s long pitched syllable-ooze
hums after the high winds stop & your final footprint lifts off & no matter how clean
you want it to be
nothing is ever going to be gone enough. Oh oak, show us up.
Indecipherable-green sound us. Stilled leaf-chatter quiver up
again, rustle the secret rule we’ll never catch
in time. To be late
is to be alive. This Sunday. All things are mention of
themselves-as the dog barks, the air-conditioner
scours its air-and each thing takes its place. But look,
keenly, adamantly
a road has appeared-a sense that something is happening striates
the open air-there is a limping in the light, a tiny withdrawal of light from
light, which
makes a form
in the gully-you haven’t changed much it
says-children still appearing out of nowhere now, so violently, heavy with
life-they dart, they breed, you be the ghost now the surrounding tunes up,
as if it is all going to begin again, though this time without you standing here
noticing. . . . So
notice is given. The look on the light
is that of an argument about to be made and won.
Yes you were underneath history for this while,
you were able to write the history of being underneath,
you were able to disappear and make the rest appear.
But now it wants its furious place again, all floral and full of appearance,
its fourth wall, its silvery after-tomorrow,
all ramping-up now quite a spectacular dusk.
This page is turning. It is full of mattering.
Our unrealized project glows in
your mind. The animals lift their heads for an instant
then back. New shoots in the parched field. All the details are important you think but
no, even the ruins look like they might be fake-important but fake-
though we must learn what they have to teach.
This is the way it is something murmurs, circling,
out here, in the middle of summer. Which summer was it was
the last of the summers. All the children are
returned home. Day turns its windless
folio. You stay, it says. We pass here now into the next-on world. You stay.
UN-
blooming mother’s fists
tighten daily.
Swipe at bed-
cloth. Jab at
emptiness. Dig
into their own
palms till blood’s
drawn & trapped &
no balm will undo the
rot inside. Stiffening
fury. Stony
stunted held up
victorious by the
stringy arm,
up into the humming
room-un-
opening-ready to
strike if u
come near, who had been
so proud of her long-
fingered hands,
holding them out
in front for us
to see-who’d been a
hand model in her
youth-sd this again
& again, finger-
tips pointing thru spring
air with tip of
cigarette for
anecdote &
vodka-once w/
onyx holder
punctuating every
thing-smiling,
carnelian nails unhooking the
veil over the un-
transcendent-let it
rip-& there, look there, see the curve
shudder in the ripple
Michelangelo makes
right there-extended in-
dication-though all so
swift-gone now-look
there- the opposite of
sorrow-look-even the angry descent of
those hands in rage
upon me alive w/in-
vestigation-hurry-evening
falls, look there, see it light
the far
limb, squint, do not be
visionless- touch it-something
might be there-
something not able to get
away-trapped-spiraling-
oh
clenched
clubs to which life
shall be
reduced
now
summoning us with stumps-
farewell to
touch-mother-
who loved yr hands
most of any body
part, who loved yr
self little but so loved
touch-the surface a score you knew to scrawl mold bend, knew to
rip into-what
were u looking to re-
lease- tentacular furious careful-also
tapping- also pressing gently to feel for
edge-loved steel stone wood iron wax melt of
acetylene till yr glove
burned through bc u
cld not wait
to feel the ridges the immanence the shudder of
limit-of
self-loved
punctuating everything w/
a wave. And laugh. What
is laughter
now, strange thing this
new body
won’t do. The wind goes over us.
It says what it says.
It does not say why.
Sometimes the earth says
break down shake free bend bend but that
is wind in it
trying to convince
us there are many
ways of seeing
things. There are not.
IV
THE HIDDENNESS OF THE WORLD
The lovers disappear into the woods again. The war is
on. The blizzard on, in its own way. Also many interpretations
on their way-of fascism, of transcendence, of what you mean by
perhaps when you look at me that way. A minute more and then a
minute more you look. And then? And then-everything would have been
different. But the lovers are in the woods again, the signifier is in
the woods, the revolution of the ploughshare in, clod-crumble in, cloud-
tumble, hope and its stumble in-everything would have been, could
have been different-do you not think-and the war still on-and
would you have gone-could you spare an arm, an eye, a foot is a thing
one hopes to keep, one’s stop and go, one’s step, one’s only way
which could have been another way, but wasn’t. Do I have to end
in order to begin, I ask the light that lingers on the trees-between the
trees-the lovers have disappeared into again. I cannot breathe. This verge
is taking up all of my life-is it my time or space, I cannot tell-this being here but then
not here, trying to suss out all the fundamental laws-like sniffing-in the day I
think-the human laws, the commonalities we call our word-to-word thing, our
love-what else shall I think-that emotions have no significance? life no validity?
We’re going to see a movie later on. There is a terrible thing inside of me.
It must not grow. I can hear my own scared space apologizing now to every
thing. Like a lightning bolt come when a blizzard was expected. It looks
expensive in the sky. Breaks nothing but still whacks us like a stick,
hissing you must forget organic life, your little dagger of right/
wrong, your leprosy of love, of hate, of all such local temporary wonders. The lovers
are taking their time I think. The storm appears above the woods like a radio
left on in an abandoned car. Are they apologizing now, again, to the earth,
are they wishing they could stop and hide-let’s be the lucky ones that don’t
go out again-are they standing terrified in their Jerusalem of knowing things, of
things, a couple of lucky ducks, blood flowing normally though maybe a little
fast, because of all the promises that must be made, so fast, my arm, my name,
I swear I’ll never tell, all the impending before the ambulance of the outside
arrives to touch them when the last trees are surpassed and nothing but
this clearing’s left. The light is hammering down its thousand
fists. From war it looks like blossoming. It’s forcing the green fuse. It’s synthesizing
lapse. The huge wild oleanders sway. It all awaits this temporary race-run
run-our race-the great fires seeping deep into this thinnest moment from the
only now-why don’t they wake us-no-we want to sleep-the lovers in the
movie of the woods, I see them from my inner life, I see skin slip, light reach, face scar
itself with time, hair burn, leaf throne itself, and nothing turn, brush, sweat-the fire,
the now-it screams at us year after year-each day so sweet-almost a
duplicate, unnerving us, celestial us, looking everywhere in day for the origins of,
the hidden part of, the natural-wrong search-wrong fires-nothing will be done in
time-no one wishes to become-preparedness is dull-such thirst for this delay,
this looking away, this sanity-the lovers in the woods, really in the outside now-un-
bounded delirium, abstraction, hidden real, dark realm-have no more access to
the day . . . But could it be more beautiful. The wind has dropped. Two cardinals play
in the young oak. They slip and rise. In distance, bells. Wind then no wind. A previous
life, a hummingbird, has found the agapanthus there. It always does. Its blossom
always blossoms just in time. Either nothing is alone. Or everything. You are alone in
the alone. To exit the human is to exit the singular, the plural, the collective, the
dream. The woods have an entrance. From where I watch I do not think I’ll see them
exit who went in, here at the start, the only start, we are filtering them out, are leaving them
in dark, in hiddenness, all excess, all sincerity. Don’t touch. In the
flamboyant interim, burn. Feel this outsideness here. Here on this page. Here in my head.
You. You in me in this final time. My shadow. Haunted. Organic. Temporary.
[after Edward Thomas]
I
MY SKIN IS
parched, on tight, questioned, invisible, full of so much evolution, now the moment is
gone, begin again, my skin, here, my limit of the visible me, I touch it now, is
spirit-filled, naturally-selected, caught in the storm here under this tree, propped up by
history, which, I don’t know which, be careful, you can’t love everyone-
brought to you by Revlon, melancholy, mother’s mother, the pain of others,
spooky up close in this mirror here, magnified to the 100th, brutal no-color color,
what shall I call it, shall I pass, meandering among the humans, among their
centuries, no safe haven this as if, this spandex over a void, no exception, god
watching though casually, paring, paring, a glance once in a while-what am I
missing-what am I supposed to do now suddenly, what at the last minute here-
what is there to fix-are we alone-am I-packaged so firmly for this short
interval-vigorous skin, doomed outsideness of me-sadder & no wiser here,
blown up, so close, so only here, I see you net that skeins me in, tight inside my
inwardness-at this border judged-at this edge bleeding when hit-as was for a
while-didn’t know enough to leave-didn’t see the farewell-right there in front of
me-must it always end this way-must I ceaselessly be me, reinvent you, see the
artifice us, feel hand-to-face the childhood gone, the starlight the wind the gaze the
race, the stranger not knowing, the unsaid unsaid, unseen unfound-look how full of
void it is this capture, this skin no one can clean, and thoughts right there
beneath-of course you cannot see me for this wrapping-I notice the cover of your
face, the dress you hide beneath, you sitting there, reading me-pay mind, pay it
out, peering as we are at each other here-dermal-papilla pigment-layer
nerve-fiber blood and lymph, can we still fit into this strictest time, so quick, one click and
hurry up-we’ve been trying forever now to get out of this lonely place-inside’s inside-
the movie of the outside was all about exploring, we explored, we found what we
should never touch, we touched, we touch, what’s so unusual we say, you are now
mine we say, this is the feature coming on, this future, so full of liking & fine dis-
closure, a bud-tip pushing aside its sheath, then standing there, very whole now, very
official, open to damp, heat, stippling, shadow-to freckle, slap, beauty or no
beauty-please help me here as I can’t tell-the trees don’t know-the wind
won’t speak-the gods should but their names are being withheld-because some of us
are murdered, and some of us have mouths that keep saying yes, do that to me
again, I know it hurts but yes, I am an American, I like it harder than you’ll ever
know, this is Tuesday, the day rises with its fist over the harbor saying give it to me
and the day obliges, saying more, more, do you want more, and the torch of dawn
says more, yes more, ask for my identification, my little pool of identification, here
on the only road, arrested again among the monuments.
III
SCARCELY THERE
[for J. A.]
After the wind just stops you still hear
the wind’s wild almost, its approach and retreat, and how it kept on
circling as-if-trying, as if about-to-be, an almost-speech,
loud, full of syntax, casting about for
life, form, limit, fate. To be bodied. To strut. To have
meaning. How easily we wear ourselves
as if it is nothing to have
origin, whirl, outcome,
and still be.
After the high winds stop you’re forced to hear
the freshness of what’s
there. It smacks, shimmers-this sound of
the scarcely there, this adamantly almost, all betweens, sub-
siding till adjustment-and then the wide re-blanketing evenness sets in. . . . Gone
all that acceleration, that shooting up & back, futurist, furious with naming and naming
its one price. Oh nothing holds. Just the rattling of the going and
coming together of things, as if matter itself is trying
to find something true to
say-crazed investigation, tentative prophecy, trying on savage
shape- widening without be-
coming-is this the one last war now, finally-but no, only more of notion’s
motions- more more the wind says, break grief, loosen possibility, let vague
hopes float, sink-let other debris slip into
place. Rootless mind. Shallow whirling of law and more and yet more law
brocading the emptiness. Then suddenly
all stills. It is near
noon. No more
spillage. No more gorgeous waste of effort. No more
out-tossed reachings of green as if imagining some out there exists-hovering inhalations, then as-if-hiding, then all coughed-out at once in a tumble-too much,
too many, disconcerted, un-countable. Yet
no dream. . . .
After the wind stops you hear fact. You hear fact’s plan. It is huge.
The tree does not escape. Things are finished forces.
You hear a name-call from far off, tossed, dropped. Someone gives up.
Light rips here from there. Where birdcalls cease, you hear the under-
neath. Try living again day’s long pitched syllable-ooze
hums after the high winds stop & your final footprint lifts off & no matter how clean
you want it to be
nothing is ever going to be gone enough. Oh oak, show us up.
Indecipherable-green sound us. Stilled leaf-chatter quiver up
again, rustle the secret rule we’ll never catch
in time. To be late
is to be alive. This Sunday. All things are mention of
themselves-as the dog barks, the air-conditioner
scours its air-and each thing takes its place. But look,
keenly, adamantly
a road has appeared-a sense that something is happening striates
the open air-there is a limping in the light, a tiny withdrawal of light from
light, which
makes a form
in the gully-you haven’t changed much it
says-children still appearing out of nowhere now, so violently, heavy with
life-they dart, they breed, you be the ghost now the surrounding tunes up,
as if it is all going to begin again, though this time without you standing here
noticing. . . . So
notice is given. The look on the light
is that of an argument about to be made and won.
Yes you were underneath history for this while,
you were able to write the history of being underneath,
you were able to disappear and make the rest appear.
But now it wants its furious place again, all floral and full of appearance,
its fourth wall, its silvery after-tomorrow,
all ramping-up now quite a spectacular dusk.
This page is turning. It is full of mattering.
Our unrealized project glows in
your mind. The animals lift their heads for an instant
then back. New shoots in the parched field. All the details are important you think but
no, even the ruins look like they might be fake-important but fake-
though we must learn what they have to teach.
This is the way it is something murmurs, circling,
out here, in the middle of summer. Which summer was it was
the last of the summers. All the children are
returned home. Day turns its windless
folio. You stay, it says. We pass here now into the next-on world. You stay.
UN-
blooming mother’s fists
tighten daily.
Swipe at bed-
cloth. Jab at
emptiness. Dig
into their own
palms till blood’s
drawn & trapped &
no balm will undo the
rot inside. Stiffening
fury. Stony
stunted held up
victorious by the
stringy arm,
up into the humming
room-un-
opening-ready to
strike if u
come near, who had been
so proud of her long-
fingered hands,
holding them out
in front for us
to see-who’d been a
hand model in her
youth-sd this again
& again, finger-
tips pointing thru spring
air with tip of
cigarette for
anecdote &
vodka-once w/
onyx holder
punctuating every
thing-smiling,
carnelian nails unhooking the
veil over the un-
transcendent-let it
rip-& there, look there, see the curve
shudder in the ripple
Michelangelo makes
right there-extended in-
dication-though all so
swift-gone now-look
there- the opposite of
sorrow-look-even the angry descent of
those hands in rage
upon me alive w/in-
vestigation-hurry-evening
falls, look there, see it light
the far
limb, squint, do not be
visionless- touch it-something
might be there-
something not able to get
away-trapped-spiraling-
oh
clenched
clubs to which life
shall be
reduced
now
summoning us with stumps-
farewell to
touch-mother-
who loved yr hands
most of any body
part, who loved yr
self little but so loved
touch-the surface a score you knew to scrawl mold bend, knew to
rip into-what
were u looking to re-
lease- tentacular furious careful-also
tapping- also pressing gently to feel for
edge-loved steel stone wood iron wax melt of
acetylene till yr glove
burned through bc u
cld not wait
to feel the ridges the immanence the shudder of
limit-of
self-loved
punctuating everything w/
a wave. And laugh. What
is laughter
now, strange thing this
new body
won’t do. The wind goes over us.
It says what it says.
It does not say why.
Sometimes the earth says
break down shake free bend bend but that
is wind in it
trying to convince
us there are many
ways of seeing
things. There are not.
IV
THE HIDDENNESS OF THE WORLD
The lovers disappear into the woods again. The war is
on. The blizzard on, in its own way. Also many interpretations
on their way-of fascism, of transcendence, of what you mean by
perhaps when you look at me that way. A minute more and then a
minute more you look. And then? And then-everything would have been
different. But the lovers are in the woods again, the signifier is in
the woods, the revolution of the ploughshare in, clod-crumble in, cloud-
tumble, hope and its stumble in-everything would have been, could
have been different-do you not think-and the war still on-and
would you have gone-could you spare an arm, an eye, a foot is a thing
one hopes to keep, one’s stop and go, one’s step, one’s only way
which could have been another way, but wasn’t. Do I have to end
in order to begin, I ask the light that lingers on the trees-between the
trees-the lovers have disappeared into again. I cannot breathe. This verge
is taking up all of my life-is it my time or space, I cannot tell-this being here but then
not here, trying to suss out all the fundamental laws-like sniffing-in the day I
think-the human laws, the commonalities we call our word-to-word thing, our
love-what else shall I think-that emotions have no significance? life no validity?
We’re going to see a movie later on. There is a terrible thing inside of me.
It must not grow. I can hear my own scared space apologizing now to every
thing. Like a lightning bolt come when a blizzard was expected. It looks
expensive in the sky. Breaks nothing but still whacks us like a stick,
hissing you must forget organic life, your little dagger of right/
wrong, your leprosy of love, of hate, of all such local temporary wonders. The lovers
are taking their time I think. The storm appears above the woods like a radio
left on in an abandoned car. Are they apologizing now, again, to the earth,
are they wishing they could stop and hide-let’s be the lucky ones that don’t
go out again-are they standing terrified in their Jerusalem of knowing things, of
things, a couple of lucky ducks, blood flowing normally though maybe a little
fast, because of all the promises that must be made, so fast, my arm, my name,
I swear I’ll never tell, all the impending before the ambulance of the outside
arrives to touch them when the last trees are surpassed and nothing but
this clearing’s left. The light is hammering down its thousand
fists. From war it looks like blossoming. It’s forcing the green fuse. It’s synthesizing
lapse. The huge wild oleanders sway. It all awaits this temporary race-run
run-our race-the great fires seeping deep into this thinnest moment from the
only now-why don’t they wake us-no-we want to sleep-the lovers in the
movie of the woods, I see them from my inner life, I see skin slip, light reach, face scar
itself with time, hair burn, leaf throne itself, and nothing turn, brush, sweat-the fire,
the now-it screams at us year after year-each day so sweet-almost a
duplicate, unnerving us, celestial us, looking everywhere in day for the origins of,
the hidden part of, the natural-wrong search-wrong fires-nothing will be done in
time-no one wishes to become-preparedness is dull-such thirst for this delay,
this looking away, this sanity-the lovers in the woods, really in the outside now-un-
bounded delirium, abstraction, hidden real, dark realm-have no more access to
the day . . . But could it be more beautiful. The wind has dropped. Two cardinals play
in the young oak. They slip and rise. In distance, bells. Wind then no wind. A previous
life, a hummingbird, has found the agapanthus there. It always does. Its blossom
always blossoms just in time. Either nothing is alone. Or everything. You are alone in
the alone. To exit the human is to exit the singular, the plural, the collective, the
dream. The woods have an entrance. From where I watch I do not think I’ll see them
exit who went in, here at the start, the only start, we are filtering them out, are leaving them
in dark, in hiddenness, all excess, all sincerity. Don’t touch. In the
flamboyant interim, burn. Feel this outsideness here. Here on this page. Here in my head.
You. You in me in this final time. My shadow. Haunted. Organic. Temporary.
[after Edward Thomas]