Manifest

So you´re one too. Quantify effect. The kingfisher´s blue foregrounds againstthe yellow-brown of winter forest. The train does not hesitate to penetrate a grassfire, air full of cinders.

Junkies in the snow in Madison Square Park. gSo it wasn´t his kidneys goingoff.h Songs of a roomful of antique clocks. The first crocus, purple by the fountain.

White cat wends its way between the legs of the chair. Rain centers the body.

Festival of Unfinished Projects. Hybrid as elegant as the First Lady herself.I´m in line for the bathtub next.

One page resume, mid-day nap. Flicker of a big truck behind the pine trees´branches.

Gauze curtains, room full of shadows, mildew in the doilies. She bounds up thestairs, three steps at a time. The elevator settles before it halts.

These leafless trees, brooms stuck in the earth. Rain-soaked clothespins, dampon a line. Sentence is the instant at which integration halts. Spoon scrapes a bowl.

Regressive parallelism intimates mock narrative. Submarine´s deck is made ofteak.

Cabbie snaps the meter on. Seven is dark orange. In the basement, thewashingmachine agitates the dark. A finch is at the feeder.

Natural light of afternoon on the stairwell. Chain from the mailbox to thebrick of the porch. Glove´s fingers stick from jacket´s pocket on the rack.

Just so many leaves desert the tree. Number joins these statements, kneelingon the rug to discuss needlepoint.

Life here on the axis of combination ceases to have been a projection. Hercollection of seashells sits upon the keyboard. Coalcars shake thru the forest atsunset.

Post-nasal. Dried leaves of the avocado plant´s neglect.

Pre-prerevolutionary. Lexus is our program, calling for the abolition ofparalegals.

Abolishment I heard. Attach a rider. Set aperture. Mark.

Any conjunction denotes a caesura. Gulls dip mid-flight into the valley. Bigsun sizzles & spits.

My voice appears as an average, new leaves circling the plum tree´s branch.

More about this later. Empty suitcases await their return to the cellar. Thechalk inscriptions on the blackboard from the previous class are left there tohaunt you. My cat comprehends recrimination.

Overt hinging. Bug on the paper with no respect for these lines. Hose nozzlethat shoots like a pistol .

Whose intestines reject process. Connect.

Down the street elliptical window locates stairway in the interior of thathouse. Fragments of Spanish through an open door. Subdivision skylightsreflect the sun.

(Ron Silliman. Manifest. La Laguna: Zasterle, 1990. 7-11.)