blog of poet, leah umansky

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It is all just a function of time; of heart-light.            Here, this is what melds things; what glues and sticks.  Look past the steel still frame. Past the beamed-heart.  Past what is passed.

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© Umansky 2011

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It Started Like a Red Herring or a Poisson Rouge

Much like a grand dragoon took me; it was a curious sentence: a place; a heart-thump; a gasp. A kind of heroism; a game of sorts; the way glares are thrown; feet, tippy-toed; ears perched open. There were no mechanics; no informatives; reformatives;                                 (even superlatives)                         but there was this on the surface.                                          The surface of things. It contained what we cannot say. A matter-of-factness; an isness.      How is this happening? If you want to be technical, then yes, it was with words and music.                                                     The body has music; and the voice:

I love your voice.

[too early to say love?]

It does something. Not sentimentally; not emotionally, but logistically. I don’t want analogies for this – goodbye connectors – just face the lyricism. We were moving together only knowing names, transactions, but then the lights went off:

drifting in       …          and out,            of acoustics;

clefs and trembles; trembles and clefs, and then I was my own creature.       I carved something there on Bleecker; then Macdougal. We left a spark burning on the backbeat, and I felt the reverb; felt the hum all with a lifting of hoods in the cold winter air; then came that heat on the corner                                 and when I say it felt good;                                                                      it felt good.

© Umansky 2011

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A good conjunction is “but;”

However, “can’t” could work, but then we’re knee-deep in contractions

which interests me in terms of the way you contracted                     this

cutting off words like a fireback

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The not-debate is really romanticism versus realism

If this were

If this were

If this were

a game                                                                    (which it’s not)

then, we’d have to choose sides and pieces.

And what about these woulds?

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It’s not as easy for us.                                      I pronounce words.

(maybe, it’s not as easy for you) .                                           In the imperfect world; this worked for you.

To really do it again; to come back to this (though why would I want to)  – would require a “re.”

As in revenir; or retourner, but there will be no reconnaissance,

What about these woulds?

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No matter how you permutate it

would is still an “if”

a rounded trunk; thick with history and age; full of sap; ragged and wind-torn and ravished; bitten-at.

would is still felled –

Sorta closed

Sorta gnarled

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Can’t you see?                                                                                  I’m a careful manager.

I’m brave enough to be stunned,

but, never stunted.

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© Umansky 2010

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I.             AND THEN IT CAME UPON HIM THAT HE WOULD MARRY HER AND SHE WOULD BE HIS LIFE.

The woman occupies the supreme position: a songstress; a slave; a harbinger.  

It always comes upon him. A slight wonder coming. A coming.  A wondrous a-coming:  that he would marry her.  Her.

“Marry” is so close to maritime; so close to maroon; so close to martyr.

  (the implications delicious)

This was drowned. No  flotsam or jetsam.                                                           

It was meant to be murdered; marooned; dinghy-ed along.  The larger vessel was love.  The larger vessel was love. No wonder if carried or towed; towed or carried – I was the supreme one.

I was the larger vessel.

I controlled the wondering.

II.           THE DOORWAY WAS NO DOORWAY.

The doorway was the night falling. A slit or stirring.

Would you still have wondered all those abouts?

maybe a-slightened wonder;

a glorification;

a plagiarizing.

Remember:                                                               

I was the transfiguration.

III.         THE MEN WILL DO NO MORE. THEY HAVE LOST THE CAPACITY FOR DOING.

I am still a romantic. I am still a romantic. What is not-done or not-doing is undone. What is not romantic is just wrong. What is not- wondered is past.

The left past. The  left stampede.                                                             

…yes…

You were rabbeted. Burrowed. You do with the hind-legs something post-humanistic. You gnaw and gnaw and gnaw but lose your sense.  There is no nomenclature for what is left, but the left-husband. The one who wants to do.  Who wants to do. Who wants.

He was her ________________.

He was her ________________.

He was.

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© Umansky 2010

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Anatomy of

If this had a mouth; it would seal itself; steal itself, meal itself into tomorrow. If this had a foot; it would ground, round or pound its way into tomorrow. If this had an ear it would pitch itself lowly, bellow beholdingly into something piqued and spotted.

Don’t say we fought, because we didn’t, my mother says in discussing my long lost wedding.

If this had a hand it would suggest love, tenacity, passion, but inside its palm would be a reddened sore, permeable; permutable; a plumped perm.

I will admit the role I played.

If this had a backside, it would be stopped-up; dumb and pained. I did not want to let this go.

If this had a hipbone, It would swerve and slither and beat itself up into your palm; beating and beating and beating then meeting, fleeting, retreating into  that hollow that would be this’s heart.

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© Umansky 2010

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A Deep Fantasy

Learn not to notice this. As soon as you becomes  we – there is the “run around.”  The wish remains less romantic then, or more so. The fantasy; the relish[ing]

 – I am not into condiments–

the slavish nature of the thrill.  I could just plunge into it: 

                                                                               STAB STAB STAB,                   

I reach for the mental; I capitulate; I fully dress and:

                                                           Voila!

You are served.          

                                                            Never, entirely useless.

[Never, fully-supported, either.] Just saddle-bagged and saddled.   

                         I might find a way;     find myself away                                             find my

self.

A one-on-one kind of thing.                            Engaged; monopolized; patched and stitched. I can figure it out. Sound it out.

So when he’s like  _____________________!;                                           

  I’ll rise up singing.

::watch::

© 2011

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What I’ve Learned About Modern Life and the Deep Past

So many possible ideas;  the mined; the drives.  So tragic and timeless; even washes get diluted. You dishonored the honorable: cheap coffee and companionship. Wanting the overarching; wanting what we need to know about sociology.   There is no sheet to study; nothing conventional.  My argument still resides in Love.  The drives; the desires; the drives.  If for nothing else; then for a voyager’s return.    We are always voyaging. This cliff; this crest;                            this hilltop;                                    this green;           

                                    the cellophane kiss of a café window.

On the edge of a snowbank,Central Park is a movie. We have a bench; we have desire; we drift;                      

                                              [a moving target?]                                  but our hands stay traditionally still-locked.   We are piqued within this hotbed. What do we need to know about?           All are ideas not theories. What proof is needed when something comes from                                    nothing.                                                                       We could be on the edge

of something.                                                                                             Now… 

                                                                        Look.

© Umansky 2011

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Reconsidering the Experiment

I am taking a lucky break from the tenants; the builders; the chutes and ladders of it all. I’m in the penultimate hour; it is unusually slow. I will spare the feet; I might mis-translate a word or two,          but no verse is truly protected                                                                    [is it?] 

                                                let someone else do that for you…    

No more.        

 Lay it all                     here: _____________

This is how we learn things – through absence; through reconnaissance; through piecing the parts into a:            whole.

                                                [you remember fractions, right?]

The time is:  never.                             The place:  never.                                             ::never::

Your readability is:      off.   Reductive; representative; I am being deliberate. I like to gaze.  I am doing the doing and you are     unbothered.                I don’t mean to intoxicate.   

                                    Here’s a little honesty: I know how lucky I am.

                                    Here’s more:  I like this soldiering.   

There needn’t be categories; dismiss these compliments. Scour the wound at the             center.

© Umansky 2011

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