Death
Going to sleep, I cross my hands on my chest.
They will place my hands like this.
It will look as though I am flying into myself.
poem by Bill Knott
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Advice from the Experts
I lay down in the empty street and parked
My feet against the gutter's curb while from
The building above a bunch of gawkers perched
Along its ledges urged me don't, don't jump.
poem by Bill Knott
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Nuremberg, U.S.A.
In this time and place, where "Bread and Circuses" has
become "Bread and Atrocities," to say 'I love you' is
like saying the latest propaganda phrase...'defoliation'...
'low yield blast'.
If bombing children is preserving peace, then
my fucking you is a war-crime.
poem by Bill Knott
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Stress Therapy
Time, time, time, time, the clock
vaccinates us.
and then even that lacks
prophylaxis.
Ticktock-pockmarked, stricken
by such strokes, we
get sick of prescriptions
which work solely
on the body.
Systole diastole--
It is by its very
intermittency
that the heart knows
itself to be an I.
poem by Bill Knott
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The Enemy
Like everyone I demand to be
Defended unto the death of
All who defend me, all the
World's people I command to
Roundabout me shield me, to
Fight off the enemy. The
Theory is if they all stand
Banded together and wall me
Safe, there's no one left to
Be the enemy. Unless I of
Course start attack, snap-
Ping and shattering my hands
On your invincible backs.
poem by Bill Knott
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Flashbacks
All it takes is Laura Riding's riding-
crop across my butt, and I'm off:
Git-up horsie she cries astride me as
I crash sweetly onto the carpet.
Boredom what an esthetic,
cleansing the days-
I laud the vintage of my toothpick.
Small-husband to the floor,
my foot stoops in dance,
in courtship intervals.
Putting their clothes on afterwards
the lovers are surprised
at how empty
the buttonholes seem.
poem by Bill Knott
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Cemetery
Who whispers here is forgotten.
Saliva's emptiest fruit
adorns the stones,
words ripening your mouth
to a spoilation
of silence.
Who speaks here
reads a text that downloads
the screen of his fingernail,
through which nothing's visible
as glass is.
For the memorial
we must kneel
to pick each flower
from amongst its modifiers:
but to do that
one needs a hand bared
[...] Read more
poem by Bill Knott
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To Ripley (Alien 1-4)
Always your face like a space
(Destination: beautiful) ship
Empties its mote of closeup trace
Down screens that blink blank blip
Somewhere between countdown
And coma time is a line
Where waking centuries often
Drained against that measure we find
Our blood redshifts (direction: west)
Until film can clone one sun
With stars both whole and gone
Attending every sequel
We pray for an intent equal
To our interest
poem by Bill Knott
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Space
From the trees the leaves came down
until we joined hands with a wand
and that act enabled them
somehow then to reach the ground
where they scuttered round our feet
urging the latter to unite
with a baton as if that act
together with the hands can clasp
a dowsing-stick cut from the same
branch from which we launched
converging on gravity's purge-point
at which point we merged to remove
all consonants from our star-maps.
The infinite consists of vowels alone.
poem by Bill Knott
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Fragments from the Beach
(Nonasyllabics)
In retrospect the tragic nature
of sea is a taste wept too daily,
too depleted by freedom's rupture;
the eyes have other secrets to see
and deeper use for the detritus
within us: the bright effluvium
of ego dries up, mired as it is
in wealth, that remedial medium.
Blame it on fate, on beach memories--
pebble put in the pocket or shell
fragments; any memento carries
us as much as we it. Time capsule
contains every evening's interval.
The ocean observes its own puddle.
poem by Bill Knott
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