1.20.2004

. . . & then the somewhat airy-giddy febrile lightweight acrobatics of Grassblade Light lead into something both more rounded-out & also more strange/exploratory, in the fireworks-finale which is July. The difference between the 2 books is highlighted by the use of end-rhymes in Grassblade, as opposed to (informal, variable) reversed or inside-out rhymes in July. Here is a section of that:

         7


In the country of his father forgot and
manacled below decks to his own
sole greenish vomitory (so sea-gnostic)
Hamlet watched the orrery-gyro's daft


starboard tilt left, right a map
flattened over hiding places
green paps of a minatory landscape
a deep red coracle under palm


of his hand two red rivers (north,
south) as they meet in a 3-cornered
(7-cornered) coign of rusted ruth gone
copper-vernal a profile thrown


for a Q by finger of iron in pool
of dust invisible smile of Ms. X
whispered (doubleyoudoubleyou)
's barnacled forehead she loped


into view she balanced a cup of green
Tahitia-T upon speared iceberg head
and frolicked like Luba's almost-baf-
fled grave coronal freed from the grip


of his soiled life sentence the image
of his eye landed (orthogradus ad hoc)
upon ox-back to pivot there (a coda-
clef) and accompany his fewny gam


with fear and trembling beneath the frozen
birches and the bridge over the river there
in Minneapolis where the star unravels
in contrition once to forge amends in


stony Troezen slosh a cup of Lent-anointing
cold just once across your Jordan-brow
(JB) or take a snowy gondola (suburban dirge
or broken fork) into the dull canal at last


1.27.2000

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