drafts/worksheets of unfinished poem

*

That the acrobat would remain instead
In the burning hoop rather than complete
Their turn through it is a suspect thought.  Why

Halt there in that residual nought wrought,
Assault that seary vortex, flarehenge shroud, 

Round and red as Plath's ovenhead.  Ghastly

Silhouettes of gaslight pervade our past;

Kindling images. drenched in daguerre, ancient    

To the point of banishment when evenings

Vanish in a similar coup, v-neck-deep in

Loinclothed caverns it's best to hide.  Abide
May elapse and they, framed by flames, fall from

That looped height finale, that halo-hold

On all our eye normally denies.  Still,

The signal desire to stay locked in such

Arsonous arcs is one the circus rocks

Against each night in its maze of dreams,

Replaying the deaths that dared defy this ploy.

*

Is this highjinks all our mountebanks allow:

With thrall a ring of fire they marry the day

To their devious acts and thus are at last

Delivered, severed from its whole, that portrait

Momentarily clicked past every portal
Scorching their soles as they halt there bathed

In that eye whose lashes fry their hair and toes

Posing perhaps for the one photo its parade

Lines our streets with, vicious charade whose

Promised feats are purely made, not performed.

Gaudy, tawdry trick, a mock phrase the lecturer

Faces lions with, the tamed stadium stoned as

They lean over the podium to watch us wince

At each pick ax throe.  That cam contaminates

What it captures, bright cages bulge with fetish

Divulgences—it freezes trapezes, the bareback

Rider's nude knees.  They cannot move beyond

This figure, they must die there daily just for fun. 

*

Hash, this stasis verges on the absurd, its word

Unmute, neutered, crude, farce, though objections

To imperfection are part of the drama

Enacted by critics: A's illusive tiptoe

Teeter that flammable cameo concerns us;

How the spotlight is mottled in the star, blotched

By their performance marring each watched face.

The sight must perpetuate what it sought

Or go astray: but is this status, this

Jumpcaught bit what our linear needs

To finish its deliberate taut onslaught,

Swan somersault halted strid-air, though no

Continuation of the comedian

In that conflagration could be the true

Disruption, the correct avoidance of

Transcendence: it can't taunt that denouement

FX-splendiddy enough, unlike the way one's
Living beyond their years in splatter or

Pattern brings fit end to each leapt theft,

Though certainly one stalls its engulfment with

Curious realms of appalled affrights viz.

*

An astral body coined in light, the vaunt

Tumbler pauses there in their circ de solar

Auto da fe, feral fireball our drone

Missiles visit hourly to satisfy the spacious

Prey of the ticket window's demands:

Hurtle-wrapped envelope, primal trope which

Anne Sexton Hart Crane shrink through in their

rubber tube of zeroes, cashcall's hologram—

Why do I care if they char there in mid air

abandoned by the gruesome need to reach

the applause line, to round the stadium track

racing for the tape across their chests hurrah

the victor olympian marathonic greeds gild

post-event.  Better calamity for them, they

should perish publically in clusters of cloud

clash fare, the bomb heard posthumously by

the body it shatters.  They should explode there;

let their body droop like an upside down U from

the white hot hoop.  [When Hart Crane sailed through the goalposts

to win the game for Sodom High in their annual

grudgematch against Gomorroh Prep, he

shone for a moment as bright as this, the stadium

cheering his touchdown; ]

[Fireworks to our face must fly the phantom

bound pyreward wrenched

Pompous Pompeii 

*

You will have seen the sun as a figure standing
inside a similar wheel, etched enfold, Da
Vinci's Vitruvian Man.  Sustained by his

refusal pall to ever leave this modest pose,

that threshold of gold spits scarring us for

the sacrifice that surely the crowd expects. 

Inca-high that knife gleams.  History buffs

confirm his death and worship none but him
perhaps.  Lingering, third-degree, ideal,

some hung circumference of furnace
festival.  Like celebrant Empedocles
we prefer an oval entry to eternity,

who saw how perfect circ his volcan rim
rose in its apotheosis of form, pure

aureate anti-goal, broken so un-coned

and conjured in its ofference of O.

Say it is this incompleteness restores/amends us.

If it were closed, if the acrobat aced

her symbiotic roundgame, if the goal

were reached as an endship, twinning its

beginning, would [DadaVinci] vinevangogh have cheated?

*

Shall we salute, requite, honor, any

height which resists summit, disdaining each

ultimate point that might map our madness,

spurning the pursuit of angels who seek
peaks only, dullards pining for the crest's
honed sharpness of spite, groundsake shed where

we doctrinaire humans find sync thread in 
some secular oriel.  Regardless of descent
an actor takes their bow from this window

lit by licking jets as if its footfire
spanned the entire stage, or, thinned to a line,
led tightrope misstep regrets.  Circling

whom is the audience, applauding for
coherence they gildgrid the enclosure
with incendiary candles whose torch would

barbecue them if they dared abandon
that pose their tragic-guarded aspirations
demand every artist must adopt: don't

bail and save yourself, Rimbaud, show-and-
flambeau, rainbow-scald us till we laugh. 
We love to see your turn-as-burnout blazed

across our bluetube skies, your moon
rockets die Titanic-wise.  Hush-lit
orchesta pits await but why would she 

not complete her set, traverse that fiery
core and land back safe in center ring;
when cymbals cling their triumph there, why

does artifact elect the Paphos illusion,
scales wept in random arbors, desiccate
flowers whose vase unearthed the breach

of our first kin.  Appalled sleep of the sentinal

culminating in twelve o'clock twelfth night

celebrations—fixated by laminations of

dexterity: to remain there in that Shadrach

shade, that Abednego abyss where tapering

grapes render the host bodied as mer mouth,

incomplete transubstantation to the ashes

promised by such.  No red in this wine (to

accent the mime's whiteness designates/underlines

their cry for blood [nonlineage]
/the liontamer opens their cage/ opening

[Hoping to channel the crossing over of

the dice, odds gods wrestle, the angel porthole

Jacob juggles with and must jettison the piracy

of, because the act must occur in the show:

the acrobat could stand there on her gymroom

treadmill encircled by flames in solitude, who'd

care?  Publication is such a scandal, to air

one's immolation privately is de rigeur—

thrown] wager/hazard entrance] The exegete
costumed in cameo, the circular locket

/solar island]  [static, marmoreal [situated
posited] motionless / visual , this principal[
this model of madness, suicidal fixation

[focus of interest [ poised inaction,
cessationpoint [ Lapidary leap ]  exposure
[a defiant disgrounding around which [

cancellation [incompatibility [
transcendent [ evanescent cat-sill [

foreign frontier [ erasures [ the farer flies—

*

In this caesura [ this suspension of
the poet's portrayal of silence, this
rude interruption of the spectacle by

a I would prefer not to, a Bartleby'd
ecstasy of decline, refusing to go through
the stoop of routine, elevating its spasm

[the tragic transport is empty (Holderlin)]
barren/contradictory [ purgatorial [

Ask her/him: is hovering in that hell
preferable to the headlong hurl
of time: does it protect the climax from

commencement's rash intent: from end

(and then the only end of end, has Larkin)
[ pause / unconnected /  discontiguous
[ coup [ bridge span [ bride's threshold

[ liminal / catachresis /  Who repudiates
/ in spite of himself / the gulf between
[winning with this loss of trajectory a space

wagered by weight, a grace of phases
while down at alley-end indistinguishably
dark the honorcade parade dumps its

clump of statuary, safely far enough away
to be borne now by the citizen brow, laurel
yearning from emerging light to observe

their whole deleted origin, or a version
displacing this usurpation of a course
reserved for lustral berth [Acro is a stand-in

really for the hearth whose gate waits to
comsume this fence-sitter unwilling [arbiter]
to choose which of their substituted

phoenix-eyeblinks can span this whirlicue
to escape the eternal bracing it takes
[fix cold within a corpus of coals her coat]

[bracing his space in that cut-out coin[
[collage ] practicing whose personae—
Unanimously deformed, incessantly lazy,

[things seen clearly, veils cleaved, as when
your nape dawns for the headsman's axe and
he spits to make its split-edge shine sharper

for each arctic-pitted spectator—
[Investing the forsaken sat-sky with this
decisive dearth is not enough to placate

[alleviate our loneliness as probe-missiles
out-limbing him with love for his ice-cream

hat and hacked-off head, the holo-guillotine

honing itself against any lack of descent
from that arcade's space capsule [Rolypoly head
aureoled revolt upon a shocktuft tree [

*

That she, the acrobat, should fear that sphere
of fire would seem synonymous with our own
hesitance, but can that figure sustain its ground

up there in transient factuality[facticity], that

matchstick myth mourned by all, mute-phlegmed

to the core].  In Summer harvest the hung

fruits manifest spirit, flesh hangs from an ideal

wheel flung and clinging to air's a-leaf, womb

atmosphere toppling at hand.  How near

it roams its round of annihilated creation

emanating from the central cone of sun

[Can the burning child awaken the father

in time to be rescued or will he too grow old

against vigilance.  Someone must watch

over this oval cremation where the syncope withers

infancy's summation trending toward spurious

apparitions, godmaze stalled in 666, corrupt [. . . ]

confer U

S A on the lucky suckers who happen

to be born in those oilfields we need for

spectacles like this.  Netpix barnburners

buy this acrobat a beer if he survives

dropped slumped on

seedpod for maggots, dick's fuck's launchpad. 

flames render the host body in the mouth's

incomplete transubstantation (no blood in

this wine,  Rape-scene flames

where it finds

[     [ and
wreck-weeded as it is. 

/
gift-grind
/ slitted
[As Empedocles preferred
the oval O of Etna to any P for Peak
the sky might throw as fatal shadow
to thwart our ascent] [
hackjaw

*
carbon monoxide tints skin with in your

garage shrug-poet post-event life's vents as

///

draft/worksheet of unfinished poem

*

Since I caught the train at Le Depot de Big Bang

(wow, was that terminal crowded) how far have

I traveled is a question that occurs to most of us

on this journey, I think.  The other passengers

seem to agree though as always one can't speak

for all.  You can lean out the window and catch

Philip Larkin on his wedding Whitsun or similar

fictions in this ongoing card-spray of multiple

universes, each one splintering off if we sneeze

perhaps, heading out on its own branchline of

destiny.  The rails never end theoretically.  Each

nitwit aboard here can flick their wrist and start

a whole molecular new-load of shunt and offshoot,

a freight of filth and fulth.  No one seems to know

for sure.  Take me for example: Homeless mote,

at how many borderkneels, constant-contagious

as Chuck Berry's riffs have I stormed evenings 

gnawed with gauze on the Island of Palau (these

particulars are obscene, I realize: forgive me),

or worse, dawns of emaciated car-thief silences.

Was there nothing I looked against to fail?  While

every possible mixamanque of worlds and words

await the arrival of this choo-choo whose ETA

they say might be never.  Subatomic or subtle-

arced, Graham Greene Virginia Woolf bunkmates

on the Orient Express.  I wish.  All permutations

could exist as possibilities expressing our due

desires if desires can be due, if they have a time

schedule and destination to which they might

be late as one resort.  Vacations are a nightmare,

yes, but consider this: if we do arrive at that spa

where Szymborska and Chekov are soaking in

the restorative baths featured there, the water

so warm and mineral-new, so magma-medicinal,

poured out from the heart of the sun as it were,

could we really be happy in that serene shangri-la,

knowing it's just one of the endless encounters

and encoutrements available on this route, whose

contentment quotas lack specificity or spinach

(I like it, some don't) enough to satisfy each our

particular tastes.  In any case given my age they'll

soon take my seat and burn me for fuel back

in the corpse caboose, my flesh will inch this

dust even further in permutations and perverse

meanderings and yet, always, despite the threat

of climax I thought my concerns were shared

by all those sold the rare, the indiv'd miracle of

birth, origin tickling its boarding passes and ports,

old option of blood we wake badly toward.  No
wonder everyone likes to imagine they know
certain actors and actresses whereas in reality

such legendary tidbits function chiefly to delay

our sense of arrival, stalled always by the urge

to record each mile traveled, the captain's log

kept so merchant-mundane its rigged citations,

though history probably shuffles the deck daily
to see who's here and who's not: enemies all.

///

more of the same

"[T]he New York School poets [included] 

such second-generation obscurities as

 Bill Knott, Tom Veitch, and future uber-agent 

Andrew Wylie."


—Robert Christgau,

 http://bnreview.barnesandnoble.com/ 

March 12, 2013


/

He got the "obscurity" part right, but New York

School?  really?  I dislike so much of their poetry

(Koch, Berrigan, Schuyler etc) and I know they

dislike mine in return.


///

thanks

grateful to this site for reprinting 3 of my poems:


http://www.berfrois.com/2014/01/three-poems-by-bill-knott/

—I'm grateful when any online outlet reprints my work.  

///

draft/worksheet [unfinished

*

What buoyed my steps in wine that evening

With curtains raining across the eyes

Their salmon insistence pallored all my closeups

Straightjacketed hallways backing out of the lens

What held me aloft and shining

Quivering like globs of earlobe jelly

Alarms for the lamps I was extinguishing

In a painful domestication of the dark

With the ink they made from Proust's urine

Which deigned to shed share with me though I shunned

That natural yoke till my fat shoulders broke

And my divingbell bedeviled by muses

That evening and every other whose-so-evening

What was it led me beyond those binoculars

Fathom heart in the smoke canals though nowhere

Nowhere do I get the planet bigbang as it were

///

drafts and roughs, worksheets [all unfinished

*

A thing-minted day

Fresh as it lay full leafed on the flesh

Threads of spittle drying on the deadbolt

Where is the confidant harlot enough to hear me

Whipsaw savored preserved

Barns full of sabbath

Straddlefuck swizzlefuck

Fishnet dalliances may at last pass repose but

Mermaids lowered down chimneys

Coughing

Morphcam transfer monoprint cluster

Are you assisting at

The postponement of my poem

Where I came to samesex myself

To cohabit with death

[
/

SON OF UNCLE SAM

From the trestle overpass I tossed

one of the chopped-off arms onto

a train heading for Miami and then

another limb upon a Chicago-bound

freight and so on until eventually all

of the sad parts were disposed of

in this manner, saving the head for last—

it went to L.A., they need heads

there, perhaps.  Dispersed around

the country each piece of the corpse

could never be accounted, my crime

would go unsung until such time as the U

S of A reunites to solve me, save me,

resurrect this never perfect body.

///

*
now where's the oar to steer
my window away from night
stonethrows patrol the site
its targets narrate what's near

which of us can pleasure spite
unique enough to seem regular
or angle all to get it right
airing each gasp on a coathanger

skilled anchor-priests will tow
ulterior rain in their uterine wall
but you-and-I's prodigies know
our genitals are relatively oral

cue-quiz the vatican's factwhore
scrape that mock off your back
phantom-orbed for destiny's cloak
someday you may haunt me more

/

/

THE NOTH

like a moth but not 
the noth flies
south to its ways
gift-wearing loneliness
moulting purities

handmedown my hand 
outerbound grown
from high yonderbye
noth wings are nothing
and nothing's why

each noth-nest is full 
of hungry cries
they speak for their beaks
and as they fly
they wave to their why

nights the noth migrates 
but days it returns
is it an insect or a bird
real or absurd
wish it was that straight

sometimes it swoops 
around my head
off-course who knows
where earthen it's been
so barren its share is

so child its sheer is 
here to ground
and air to polar
then back up to fare
a sortes of series

I wait for more 
expecting neglect
has found this foul
day to fall baffle
nightmare for soar

noth flight is right 
route or wrong
shot to the ground
unstrung by a song
it must shrug to sing

//

POEM

a necktie
negates me

and of course
the shirt's worse

the pants
I can't I just can't

why do my clothes
oppose me

every costume
is contumely

hats hate me
and socks mock

indubitably my shoes
abuse

each coat
has got me by the throat

belt belts me about
pockets lock me out

shorts or briefs
both thwarts and griefs

the buttons too they
unite in mutiny

it's Kill Bill 3
daily they attack me

my gloves shove me
my sweater swears vendetta

every thread
wants me dead

my slacks exact revenge
whenever I change

into them each item
claims me its victim

just getting dressed
is dangerous

must I go nude afraid
of couturicide

what roused my attire
to this ire

what made this rent
between me and raiment

what caused this split
with each outfit

this breach
with the britches and such

why does my ensemble
want to bomb me

the closet's declared war
on me the defector

where's our armistice
pale in its healing surplice

the tender toga
that would tug us together

cause once I used to care
donning debonair

the latest fashion
in a flash I'd lash on

my ass in an ascot

my heart in a headshot

undoubtedly some labor
went into nabbing my clobber

acquiring my sport-dress
was not effortless

it took a lot of brute
pursuit to root out the right suit

for an occasion where
duds were de rigueur

the cost was not
inconspicuous oh what

caused this rift
with my shift

what made our aim
less uniform

was I ever arm in arm bent
with any garment

was I ever in synch-op
with my tanktop 

complain complain nag nag
least you got a rag

on your back my skeleton
pipes up lookame none

he's right what right

have I got to feel spite but

I never meant no
harm to them why

have they gone so

Tarantino 

on me 
when it could be

otherwise we could be lovers
but no all my clothing

is filled with loathing
for what it covers

/

/when we could be

so good together

/

POEM

The pianist’s wrists

are encircled by flames;

she forgot to take off

these blazing bracelets

before playing or was

her handvalet detained

by the concert crowds

who here push forward

in their ripest seats to see

this arsonist jewelry;

upon each virtuoso paw

a flakwork gold watch

shows the time is now,

the music's burning.

/// 

one up

one of the things about the sonnet that has interested me over the years I've been writing is that

it allows a kind of freedom which other forms perhaps don't—

in writing the octave, one is in a position of the normal poet writing the normative poem, i.e. a kneeling obsequious beggar, pleading with the reader, trying to please the reader, groveling our hearts out to smooth ease their way into and through the first eight lines—

but then with the sestet, the poet can abandon that humble act, and can in effect say to the reader, fuck you, did you think that I was going to cater to you all the way through, to kowtow to you for the entire 14 lines?  Ha!—here in the sestet I can do as I will, and you're powerless to prevent me—

I know you mopes won't stop reading no matter what outrage I play here in MY six lines—

Whereas the non-sonneteer writing the average poem must try to please the reader for its entire length, especially with verses longer than 20 lines or so, fearful that s/he the reader can stop reading at any point especially if they glance ahead and see that your piece is going to go on for another page or two—

But with the sonnet, really, I think, most readers who make it through the octave will at least start on the sestet and once moiled in its sticky six-essence will probably say to themselves well what the hell it's only 3 or 4 more lines I might as well finish the fucking thing—

they'll read your bloody sonnet all the way through in spite of,  despite whatever tricks and joicks in haps of tic-wreck shroudburst you've thrown in to satisfy your own arbitrary selfish whims,

the sestet crowns you Coriolanus Caligua again.

There is where you get to twist the nose of that snotty sonnet-reader.

///