Poetry — July 21, 2011 15:21 — 0 Comments

Symbolic Economy: Studying Qua Man As He Is – Francis Raven

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I’m saying it’s not a hard question
if you’re not asking the question.

 

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(meaning reasoning in accordance with logic), individual.

(note the adverbial usage).

(and again, much less reliably probabilities)

(and other reasoning schemas)

domain (or environment) specific.

 

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Hopelessly, in the morning of yesterday’s help.

 

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As if the writer behaves like the audience.

As serious as they might make decisions,
corrugated is better on the ass.

And is incidentally given back
simply because of the way fences work.

 

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Whistled its, only if marginally,
dialect in the dominant
input delta grew
impossibly
a victim of fraud;
first emissions, preparation.

 

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Precocious, but slow,
as for diversion:
a clarity under vocation
as cryptic from one version
to the next.

 

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When I say decline
I wish you wouldn’t cross your eyes
towards the symbol as in settled
idealized version of a convention.

 

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A likable voice,
this movie unkindly penetrates
bottle caps
twisted the wrong way.

 

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It’s all worn ironically.
There is simply no way to say
no, really, really,
I want to live authentically
.

 

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Unfilled
the trashbags openly revolt
crinkling wildly
in the icy commute.

 

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Everyone is in the name
as he puts them to work
building cathedrals
including an Arabic word
meaning secret meeting;
fatalistic in some of the mafia stuff
you can see around here.

 

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Sacrifice for limbs have sought:
beliefs as in rims.

 

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Ordered the bed
with cities waving;
these plants we planted
under the fence.
His stones turning
because of growth
under the fence.

 

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Helmet gone easily;
to clamor came easily.
(That included the plastic
to host.)

 

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Had always owned one as a child,
food and water forgetting, but had
somehow become desperately afraid,
hairs to itch, mining as a proverb.

 

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This is not the way you were supposed to answer.
No, I was hoping for something honest (i.e. keep it real).

 

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Ten stones down and nowhere to go:
these ripples get us there but mistake the shape of a bed.

 

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A carriage is a mirror that can’t comprehend an engine.

 

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To transpose history for intention:
if you give it what you might
you might throw that away.

 

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What changes is the attitude of limber adjectives.

 

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Tar’s hidden flow
partially under shadow
partially to save expense
this partial answer
partially implicates
every city official
but things are looking up
on my block.

 

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But it takes several gallons to dodge the bullet
water to weigh
a shoulder to braise
tenderly
the pain.

 

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Already 45 minutes in
and we don’t know he’s a double agent
much less a triple agent;
no hint except for the title.

 

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Willing to grip the feel
of tension confused.

 

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They told us not to blink
at what is under the sink:
decaying caresses.

 

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Weeks bent upon a single date
note the drycleaner’s necessity.

 

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As this flared bag
doubles its character’s worth.

 

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If those are really the type of bags you’re willing to buy…

 

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You haven’t even seen
what listlessly
calls itself
a fence
these days.

 

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…causing runaway trails of rancid soda
to rush through the jobs
of many tedious individuals.

 

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Spurning several jobs,
we cannot lay the bricks
for twisting in the wind
as in consequences
purchased
banally,
turned within the lip
of policy analysis
and burned for weeks
as doors
officially contemplated.

 

Bio:

Francis Raven’s books include Architectonic Conjectures (Silenced Press, 2010), Provisions (Interbirth, 2009), 5-Haifun: Of Being Divisible (Blue Lion Books, 2008), Shifting the Question More Complicated (Otoliths, 2007), Taste: Gastronomic Poems (Blazevox 2005) and the novel, Inverted Curvatures (Spuyten Duyvil, 2005). Francis lives in Washington DC. You can check out more of his work at his website: http://www.ravensaesthetica.com/.

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What am I?

Bioluminescent eye
That sees by the shine
Of its own light. Lies

Blind me. I am the seventh human sense
And my stepchild,
Consequence;

Scientists can't find me.

Januswise I make us men;
Glamour
Was my image then—

Remind me:

The awful fall up off all fours
From the forest
To the hours…

Tick, Tock: Divine me.

-- Richard Kenney