MASK WORK
Š John Harkey 2013
LRL
little red leaves textile editions www.littleredleaves.com
W
Wask Work John Harkey
little red leaves textile series
A Collect On occasion, the meet-most chintz [“we lift up our hearts”] finds purchase a parsec afoul of wilting morale, lapsed cogency So our group fairweathers, admitting a welter of concessions & ennui What thistle-down DIY, what throws & pillows— [“we lift up our hearts”] such sovereignty, the crises practically penciled-in, comma comma
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Night Depository I. The reenactment showed the citizens were sitting ducks, done-in by the pyroclastic flows By cowering eye-glints, in the fallout of a drastic miscue, one of many ways to go
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II. Came lymphing down the home-stretch Troubleshot with dyspnea, waived & wavering in cold, starless blue curtains A ways to go [The quickening not yet arrived] “There are [still] many species of biting fl ies� & night hedges maybe after every seeming yes or no [3]
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Light Work [Exerting up to 20 pounds of force occasionally &/or up to 10 pounds of force frequently, &/or a negligible amount of force constantly to move objects. Even though weight lifted may be negligible, it may be rated light work if frequent walking &/or standing is required]
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Tiny Swaths / Signature Extras && [An italicized hyphen hissed, revolted, forsook its place & ligature duties— it lung’d out at us Now, we’ve a little glare lodged snugly against the underside of our upperleft cranial plate]
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&& We demur at ‘alarmist’— forlorn but fun-loving alertist, rather [Then snap, some guns’ reports spun loose from the shimmery backdrop]: “Anzio Annie & The Popcorn Man”
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&& That we revel in trappings of seeming constraint, ebb-drawn, wants hem-strung ordinance—expect oration minims & bit-tongue reserve— [brushes lightly against, wants hem heave hush]
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&& Wash those greens more vigorously, they can take it ... [You might go by new names or travel under them]
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Leisure Work [A vacation is a movement— fevered or forlorn strain—to do away with & evacuate the premises, that is, the clotted tiresome assumptions our days have come to consist of, not some place or other]
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Blank Staves Mark the fever’s behavior A laudanumstupendous balk Quaint trumpery, plainsung [If outgoes succeed reined-in storm-outs Snake-oil of Samothrace salve in bulk] … Our cloven epos— “having 4 melody strings & 17 sympathy strings”— face-plants
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Bird Law If the cardinal is bright red the ordinal is night-shade We’re afraid we had to tweak the epilogue, it was a bit off: Whippoorwill— [You shouldered thus wrongfooted the monostich] —i.e., that ash has limbs but they won’t hold
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Principles of Art Work [values, see tactile values. Van Gogh, V., 53n. verse, 296. Vico, Giambattista, 80, 138. violence, literature of, 87. violin, 143. ‘visual art,’ painting not a, 144. ‘vulgar, speaking with the,’ 131, 174.]
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Fraction Anthem I. There we were talking the talk Re-tooled effortlessnesses: the-who&-the-what tidings [“wound”]—Blown glass & iron ingots, traversing the brain-blood barrier, had marked the space
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II. Tagging the toxic plaques, we talk—So what If it all merely hangs together … [Memos, displaced but deputized ‘The Marked Space Blues’]
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Dear Fugitive Caesura Whereas the trail lenses out, you dishearten clauses or claw hot distance [We swiveled via secret bearings] Whereas you lobbed verbals—lobed, verboten— the trial lenses [We advanced without warning, we warned without advancing, we winced, at last, choosing not choosing]
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John Harkey lives in Atlanta, where he is a post-doc at Georgia Tech. He received his Ph.D in English from the CUNY Graduate Center (his dissertation, on “small poetry” in the 20th century, focused on Lorine Niedecker, George Oppen, and Susan Howe). More recently, he edited a facsimile version of Niedecker’s handwritten book Homemade Poems. He also founded and runs Creature Press, a vehicle for handmade chapbooks; and some of his poems can be found in Marsh Hawk Review, EOAGH, We Are So Happy to Know Something, and 2nd Ave Poetry.
This little red leaves textile series chapbook was designed and sewn by Dawn Pendergast in Houston, Texas.