Charles Bernstein
The Klupsy Girl
The Klupsy Girl
Poetry is like a swoon, with this difference:
it brings you to your senses. Yet his
parables are not singular. The smoke from
the boat causes the men to joke. Not
gymnastic: pyrotechnic. The continuousness
of a smile—wry, perfume scented. No this
would go fruity with all these changes
around. Sense of variety: panic. Like
my eye takes over from the front
yard, three pace. Idle gaze—years
right down the window. Not clairvoyance,
predictions, deciphering—enacting. Analytically,
i.e., thoughtlessly. Begin to push and cue
together. Or I originate out of this
occurence, stoop down, bend on. The
Protest-ant’s voice within, calling for
this to be shepherded, for moment’s
expression’s enthroning. Able to be
alibied (contiguity of vacuity). Or
do you think you can communicate
telepathetically? Verena read the epistle
with much deliberateness. If we are
not to be phrasemongers, we must
sit down and take the steps that will
give these policies life. I fumbled clumsily
with the others—the evocations, explanations,
glossings of “reality” seemed like stretching
it to cover ground rather thank make
or name or push something through.
“But the most beautiful
of all doubts is when the downtrodden
and despairing raise their heads and
stop believing in the strength of their oppressors.”
To be slayed by such sighs: a noble figure
in a removed entranceway.
“This is just a little note
to say that it was nice working with
all of you. It has been a rewarding
experience in many ways. Although I
am looking forward to my new position with
great anticipation, I shall never forget
the days I spent here. It was like
a home-away-from-home, everyone was
just so warm and friendly. I shall ever
remember you in my prayers, and I
wish you the best for the future.” Preoccupations
immediately launch: to set straight, to glean
from her glance. Terrifically bored
on the bus. Any really you want
go to mixed on me. Sumptuous slump.
As it becomes apparent. Just that I thought.
Contraction that to you perhaps an
idealization. Have I kept. But that
point is—such repair as roads no
joint, what?, these few years must
admit to not expecting, as if the
silent rudeness might separate us out. &
maybe anger would be better than explaining.
When in tents in families in comparative.
Which sums digest. Disclaimer
alights what with begin. That’s
maybe the first pace, the particular. I mean
I feel I’ve got to and a few while
I can just look to see unrelenting
amount of canny criticism whatever
occasions overriding for comparison
spin for the sake of intrinsic in that
or that I’ve already made although
against reaction’s consequent proceeding.
But it’s to the point that you’ve
begun to broach like you could almost
fault me on as if you were going to
use could become primarily propulsion
to affinity have itself so. She
gets nutty. Oh she settles in, she
settles the curdles, unhooks the latches,
but I, preferring hatches ...
When batters, benumbs, the lights
in a basket, portable. Potted & make
believe—your rudeness amount to not
noticing, i.e., I’m on a different
scale of jags. To be in replacement
for a number of linings. Tubes of turmoil.
To stroll on the beach is to be in
the company of the wage-earner and
the unemployed on the public way, but
to command a view of it from a vantage
both recessed and elevated is to enter
the bourgeois space; here vantage and view
become consumable. I can’t describe
how insulted I felt, it’s a ruthlessness
not so much I didn’t know you possessed
as that I didn’t think you’d turn
on me. When you stop acting in good
faith any residue of the relationship
gets really unpleasant and the gratuitous
discounting severs what I can’t necessarily
define the circumferences of. “There are a
number of calls in the June bill
which I have been unable to document. We
believe these calls were made by S——
O—— who is no longer employed by
this project. We presume these calls
to be a program related although she
did not keep a log of long distance
calls as requested in the memo
circulated March 11,1980.” It has
more to me than please to note acquits
defiant spawn. But your letter does
not scan its view nor serve our
own resolve. Little noticing sectored
demonstration, or flail with inheld
throng. Content to meet or not to meet
what inlays subsequent flustered
adjustment. “The Good is
for the fact that I will it, and apart
from willing it, it has no existence.”
“There is no document of civilization
that is not at the same time a
document of barbarism.” Blue suede pestilence.
Binds bins. History and civilization
represented as aura—piles
of debris founded on a law and mythology
whose bases are in violence, the release
from which a Messianic moment
in which history itself is vanquished.
That’s why I’m perplexed
at your startlement, though obviously
it’s startling to see contexts changed on you
to have that done to you and
delivered unbeknownst. The Ideal
swoops, and reascends. “With real
struggle, genuine tax relief
can be won.” A manic
state of careless grace. Mylar juggernauts
zig-zag penuriously. Car smashed into;
camera stolen; hat lost; run out of
money, write for money, money doesn’t come.
Long interruption as I talk to woman
most of the way back—a runner,
very pleasant. Get off in Boston and everything
seems to go crazy.
All of gets where
Round dog-eared head
The clear to trying
Forgets issues of trembles
Address vestiges to remain
These years after all
Fog commends in discourse