2 poems || Raymond Farr

Making the Figures Transparent

Fig. 1:

collapsed within bounds

of its own derivation

  

  

of its own extinction

mass movement

each riddle gets

its own outcome—

the tripping up

rhyme

spills onto itself

the sameness

of brothers  

the poem hasn’t

a name yet—

I want

Nothing

but control

Fig. 2:

approaching

without awareness

the awareness of

twelve other persons—

a dozen’s eyes

a poem’s eyes

touch of the blind

that feel

playing on

the surfaces of things—

         

a card board cut out

but a card board cut out

alone

& a dove

a river of

brkn

-ness

page after page

but never

asylum

Fig. 3:

a poem

is a poem

is looking

at apples—

red

that is fire 

a lit fire

cracker

eaten

when the womb

is bloody

with 9 months’

ravages

when the brain’s

sputtering gravitas

is like

purest phosphor

climaxing

violently—

the shuttling of

between

& between

the same

hour

smiled at

from behind

the nomadic

dream-like

garden wall—

on this island

poems are hours

measured in

near-death

EMOTICONS

 
To Whom [_____] afright w/

To Whom [______] apprehends “turned yellow”

wants terribly the lurid extinguished

To Whom [“investigates”] has hunches

could be ashamed of To Whom [“under logo”]

To Whom [_____] inquires: Dost thou ramp?

Dost thou clatter evening while Goethe?

 *

Therein Thelonious

Therein Jelly Roll

Therein To Whom [______] off key yet multiple

& thus a zoo’d To Whom [______]

allotted by flocks

& To Whom [______] under tarmac

a sunbeam flashing in summer

beyond Time

beyond substance

& paled by the To Whom [“of books”]

humming & blinking at hold the dustpan safely, stranger

*

& To Whom [“abstractly”] abandons its ego

To which exposed yonder rattled To Whom [______] replies:

not ever toward frolic

not ever toward redolent

but out onto cheese

out onto acknowledged

& darker than To Whom [“intuiting throngs”]

through stone

through paths

along rock and creature witnessing

*

 a space is lit / illumined To Whom [ ____ ]

& To Whom [ _____ ] a kludge is a coffin 

Utters faithfully [“for whom the bell tolls”]

ports riddled with axis/Total access To Whom [_____]

like never mind, mother, I’ll do it

*

By now its functions To Whom [_____]

indexing books

a volume or disc

a language shrieking in deluge To Whom [ _____ ]

& three last flights out of Tangiers

before To Whom [“deadens”] by moonlight

*

I’d rather illegibly a sky To Whom [ ____ ]                                      

than nothing of consequence burning in azure

*

& “I” keeps saying “I”

like it was equal to some point To Whom [ ______ ]

made on schedule

posed as factual

& “I” a keeper of “I”

& To Whom [“a keeper of To Whom”]

*

& ardently a lawn

before walking the walk To Whom [_____]

word-loomed

& singing

as To Whom [______] pans slowly over

bends it right away

to get illusions out in vain

but yonder is orb

& Infinite To Whom [______] anvils motifs disguised as

To Whom [“realms go”]

*

Welcome strident!

Welcome fled!

Welcome opiate To Whom [“stars toward camera”] yet visible

Is telling To Whom [“imagined a poem”]?

To Whom [“an instance”] a bulb

To Whom [_____]

goes dark

& what could’ve been vast To Whom [_____]

is never complete