After George Oppen: an exercise in "culling" during class listening to his reading (off the Pennsound site) of Of Being Numerous, from his Collected Poems.
We belonged
to life and its death
speaking obscured
by a parthenon: glassed city
we encountered
populus' fluid ages
dwelling
stooped and gated
in a paroxysm bewildered
growing older people infinitely unaging
against the singlular bonds of this one earthly form
failing
to shuffle, crowd, speak
wave to myself
among those small doors, people
spotted by a curb crossing
a green slab between blocked apartments
fixture of a world
constructed--the rain falls, and the walls remain
things change and are unchanged
my own face over and over generations
fortunate to find
everything, the dead end
losing its solidity when we apply it to ourselves
it is distant--
.................distance of blasted roads,
carved out concave construction
bowl of the bored-into city
in which I, androgynous, seek
to exist on a Saturday afternoon
during a pre-holiday shopping spree
what brand glows bright
can I distinguish?
my own madness of living
in the many, hoped,
...........................hoping is estranged
as the self from the roped self
strung up the verge of
the executioner's block he is
me the axe in hand a second
living past the other
me on the block ended
we do not go on
the seasons seeded influx I exhale
toward this and this one me is only
.
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