COMES UP TO FACE THE SKIES
COMES UP TO FACE THE SKIES
Š Steve Gilmartin 2013 Cover designed by Dawn Pendergast & printed by spoonflower.com
LRL
little red leaves textile editions www.littleredleaves.com
Š Steve Gilmartin 2013 Cover designed by Dawn Pendergast & printed by spoonflower.com
LRL
little red leaves textile editions www.littleredleaves.com
Comes Up to Face the Skies STEVE GILMARTIN
little red leaves textile series
Comes Up to Face the Skies STEVE GILMARTIN
little red leaves textile series
FURTHER IN SUMMER THAN THE BIRDS A battery of Birdsong Bled between Grass and Moon Handed a Mess and a reclining Nation. Uneasy thick Security; The battle stops at one state of Spinning Litany, the last to say, I m done. The Fields, when August flies Flaming from its seat, lie bewitched by desire s trust, while bald men dig and sweat. Moments spit and Slide by Throwing off Bonds and Ends, banked interstellar formaldehyde from which none of Nature bends.
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FURTHER IN SUMMER THAN THE BIRDS A battery of Birdsong Bled between Grass and Moon Handed a Mess and a reclining Nation. Uneasy thick Security; The battle stops at one state of Spinning Litany, the last to say, I m done. The Fields, when August flies Flaming from its seat, lie bewitched by desire s trust, while bald men dig and sweat. Moments spit and Slide by Throwing off Bonds and Ends, banked interstellar formaldehyde from which none of Nature bends.
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FURTHER IN SUMMER THAN THE BIRDS Summer s spating under the Birds — Our gray defenses circle the Grass — Fired my set of rings into the People A one circus Mess. This Kindness is southern Ritual — So all my likes end Nodding Thieves sing of word-stoppers, elastics — Watch them zip you into their kit — She fills with language and rises — Above the sequestered heat of August Staked desire s soul is Bleeding So sorry for the zoo-like conditions — This one s jailed for Nodding — These for things placed on the Ground So doth one treaty Endorse The spatter of Nature s jets —
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FURTHER IN SUMMER THAN THE BIRDS Summer spattered everywhere — Over grieving democratic grasses — Fiery one-time People A gift, dislodged Bolus. Sugar Rituals you were saying — Such almanacs of Mercy Tied up the song to unstop words — Timed to smear Courtesy — The tongue fills her like Noon — When worship is still warm The Bloodied half deserts Its sorrowful commonwealth war. This doubting night gives Thanks — To urchins who serve as Fur The pagans have Association — While light jets through Nature.
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I DWELL IN POSSIBILITY I m at home in kite-flying altitudes — Not on the ground of Prose — A Fenced in kingdom and hell — Is Touring — one of those — Poorly dressed Architectures — Art, where ancestors shout Edged in Heaven s soft Pain This beating Mocked, this rout — Existence — of the arriving love — Social deformation — no Dice I spring this small Hand weight And dart into Paradise.
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I DWELL IN POSSIBILITY I own the best money lick House built in the age of Prose — Whiter than the empire of Windows — Above the Circling fur — the Cedar Archway — Unencumbered by the Age and one s animal self hung from the hook of heaven the Beseecher — the Darling — Turns Collared, House Detention Another s engine gleams And to Paradise you re summoned.
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I DWELL IN POSSIBILITY My House, it s made of Bauxite — darling, all Prose is — Window aluminum — Andre´ hats, too high to make the Rounds. Beauty becomes a duty which forces pain to count; That Dash, forever stopping, a sign that Heaven s Gambling. The beloved Gasps Overturning — must words arrange to marry? These and not those, bullcow, separate and tagged: The off-Hand way I wait for animals to bring Paradise.
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SAFE IN THEIR A LABASTER CHAMBERS Safe in their Alabaster room — Unburdened by Morning — And unburdened by Labeling Lie the Heralds of Hanging Offers — Sparring with Atlas — Dashed against Stone! Jars — on Hallway mounds — Enormous emptying — Worlds visible for an hour — And Firmaments — wandering — Crowns — fallen — DO¯gen — surrendering — Nymph exoskeletons on Snow.
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SAFE IN THEIR A LABASTER CHAMBERS Safe in their Slots of Alabaster flattened stores of Morning, of Midday, freed Guild of Suspended Offers Holes for the saved and the Inlaid. This scenery House was great for Years, worlds Weaving past End of show, Crowns cascade off a Family system Frozen in the Snow.
1 Slots of Alabaster Alabaster Champagne Alabaster Jars
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SAFE IN THEIR A LABASTER CHAMBERS Secured in the Carbonate of time — It s a laugh how reading is like mourning — Or seeing your Own finger Mind Forever mad and Friendly — A spare Atlas — a Dash of Stone. Worlds Arch into the star Lake. Listen, there s motoring melody. This White height s a hireling. Drop the Crown Victorias, the Dodge. Each generation s a slow-motion sneeze, punctuationless.
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SANG FROM THE HEART, SIRE Sang from the Heart, Sire, My nose brought me here, Hard for the Wise to unveil The stitch that holds the Palace Decomposed Fabric — Designs of insect interiors — Today swung from the sky Its S-shaped armaments. Dulled then it all sounds — Held fast — stockinged — Sight bounces off Satin — Everyone blind to fur — We died in Liturgy s Stalls — Chorale settings bright — Souls all Undocumented In the saltwater of Naming —
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SANG FROM THE HEART, SIRE Sang from the Heart, Sir, Tied by smoke from behind, That Ton, you said, turned on its toe Tuned animal decay. Garden of bright-haired memory Skills aged in Cinnamon — This Regime is ending With arms and Birds. Dulled by Ballads — Linked — out of stock — Then the Fade to I know — Naught but animal hair — Stand in Liturgy s puddle — Numbers swollen with Blood — Peace is a hole too wide to deny Inhaling Names —
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SANG FROM THE HEART, SIRE Blood of the People, Sir, Touting all the picked pockets, When the Weight of your trapped One Bursts through the soil Truth remembers Scarlet — How Outrage turned to Tin — Today is an Empire Where weapons have Voices. The Song dances Bluntly — Nearly near — supplies end — Rights of the Dot to Fade — Knowing I can t suit you — Stop the flow of Service — War s music in their Blood — I m weary of waterhole food Of praising Names —
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THE SOUL SELECTS HER OWN SOCIETY The Soul digs through her mirrored collection, wears but a sliver of what s seen; the godly Earn habitation lastly learn proper mien! Glass faults the scene, when a Carriage stops, for my Torso and waist, for my Standing; when a Ruler drops, these ruts are erased. I see: since they emerge as Fiery protectors, what wardens before Stone and cast iron call Shelter.
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THE SOUL SELECTS HER OWN SOCIETY The Spirit waltzes with its Upper half — Whose least dip causes Detour — Your anger s a godlike Box — Warring with nothing more — Unknown — a treasure Wagon — halts to drag her to the Tower — Unknown — till pain lets a Leader Find favor for an hour — I dress for the uncounted — each Waltzed before me alone — Deceived — pushed by Wax and Breath Through Stone.
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THE SOUL SELECTS HER OWN SOCIETY The Soul, interactive, joins then closes up the Divine Court — Says let s be unspeakable! Indifferent when a car stops to pick it up, When an Emperor stoops to suck it does not stir. I saw her peering out from a train — Top-notch vigilance looking for quarry.
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Steve Gilmartin s fiction and poetry have appeared in a number of print and online publications, including CafĂŠ Irreal, eratio, Otoliths, Mad Hatters' Review, Eleven Eleven, Able Muse and BlazeVOX. In 2012 he participated in an artist-writer collaborative project, Broadside Attractions / Vanquished Terrains (www.broadsideattractions.com), that exhibited at Intersection for the Arts in San Francisco. Recent projects include reworkings of a group of Northern Californian Wintu tales and a mistranslation of Cesar Vallejo s Trilce.
This little red leaves textile edition was lovingly sewn by Dawn Pendergast in Houston, TX.
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