2.01.2005

My one & only "language poem", of several yrs back:

For the Ones Who Dig


Mr. Tiscione's body was buried in Guatemala.
The Embassy's version of the circumstances of his
death was based on a report prepared by the Guatemalan
police, characterized by State Department officials as
"well-trained and professional."

– NY Times


He was carrying shards in his hands,
alluvial deposit, amygdaloidal,
and may have stumbled on fugitive
constituent, digging,
digging gala beds, chatter-
marks. August 22.
No passage home. Erratic block.
You must be brave.
He was
in the tub. Idiomorphic,
honeycomb weathered, blood
cleavage fan drawn
from host rock. Mandrakes
gather. Demonstration. Ghost
stratigraphy. Your
husband is already dead
.
No flagstone, hard evidence.
A machete?
Combination of antidepressants,
lithium, blue mud, gneiss. Logan
stone in the saddle.
There are
avocadoes
in Aguacatan
.
6 ft 2, thick glasses, hair
graying, foliated
limnic deposits,
quaquaversal. He was transporting
Mayan pots to museum
in Guatemala City.
Prominent families, clay
left in their care. Shrinking
earth, paraconformity,
ripple mark, recumbent
fold, raindrop impression,
reaction rim.
May have stumbled upon
worm's eye map, unconformity
window, wrench
fault till matrix marine
transgression.
These people
have really suffered. I'll
tell you more about it when I
get home
.
Suspected threat somehow
connected with work. Superimposed
drainage, swallow
pit, tectonic culmination,
terminal curvature.
Todstein.
She tried to reassure...called
at the appointed hour. So
sorry, your husband

gone to government office.
Requested two maps.
She didn't have
the four thousand dollars...
to bring him home.
Blank
embassy. Shark
teeth.
Sorry,
sorry
. Slaggy,
slickenside, soil
profile,
spillway, solution pipe,
sole-mark, shatter belt,
selvedge.
Hornblende.
Pitch.
Rose
diagrams show distribution
of flute cast directions.
Pebble.
Mantle. Natural arch.
Life assemblage.
Problematicum.
Posthumous pumice,
rock froth.
Paper-
shale, plutonic
plexus, outwash fan,
passage beds,
parallel roads,
river terrace, quarry
water.
Obsidian.
Oolith.
Ooze. Red
clay (on the seafloor).
Rottenstone (for polishing
metal).

Peter Tiscione. Bernice.
Amanda. Constellated. Pietra
serena. Pietra
dura.

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