blog of poet, leah umansky

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

*

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?

*

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?

*

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

*

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

I’m brave enough to be stunned,

but, never stunted.

 Follow @lady_bronte

© Umansky 2010

Read Full Post »

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.

 Follow @lady_bronte         

© Umansky 2010

Read Full Post »

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.

Follow @lady_bronte         

© Umansky 2010

Read Full Post »

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

Read Full Post »

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

Read Full Post »

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

Read Full Post »

Second Set

The faux- everyday is beyond the bed.                                                                                                                                 

The moment’s memory is hidden in today.

The heart of intelligence lies in bed

With that of the mind; the stare and who can say.

Acknowledge history; acknowledge facts; even the president.

Trying something on could be like papering a town or heralding a republic.

Away with the comic possibilities; up and away.

The magic of something is everywhere is everything is never sick.

*

Aren’t we all just homonyms; substituting roles for others and everything?

Let’s give this a rolling quality; a tongue curl; say,

You want repetition; Say, you want this gift; this tinged moment; not good-bye.

You can’t do everything; the shortest story in the world still points to you, but take it away.

This could’ve been vulgar; we all strive for authority and we all know what we want.

What do I supply to others; what do I emit; what star?

*

I could step back from the history; but the worst has happened. The worst is out.

I want to understand the wrong and imitate it; revise it [Are

You listening?]  This could be a song of gratitude;   I am risking a callous. I do

Recognize the accused.  I did organize my language; I do

Understand this history; this medium; but there is so much I have been and want to be.

About blushing; It is not; I didn’t mean; I didn’t know;    (no – I knew everything).

It’s terrifically realistic, the way one understands, one appropriates. It’s me.

(c ) Umansky 2010

Read Full Post »

The Fibers

Rationally planning the pre-fabrication. Not heat-resistant but torched.  In the practical spaces, I included love and made haste.  No contradictory associations – I am the permanent condition. 

Nothing has changed.  You can vanquish drudgery; you can surpass the divine; but the cartography is still driven-in.                                    

                                     All maps point north. Living between the two must hurt.

                                    [does it?]

All I want is tenderness    …  and a literary bar to climb up and over.               

 Play me

a solo. A dance.                       Again, and again.

                                                     [I don’t miss the past, just its possibles.]

Hand me a solo.                                                                                                                           Make me forget

what you are losing. Make me forget you are losing the tendered.  You are losing the tenderness .You are losing the tenders     

                                                                        ::the fibers::                                        

                                                                                                               wait

okay,

now in cantos; in tangos; in crescendos.  That’s better.          Pitch it up and give me that mouth.

Wherever you end up                                                                                                                               say,

             you’ll remember this.

©Umansky   2011

Read Full Post »

a very small life

1/

keeping the just;          real.   

                         The ball courted:          all      by        myself

Put a cap on it.                                                 

sometimes you need to be the adult

            or act adult.

2/

I’m going to really piss you off, here.

Let the soap sog.

All these strands; these semi- follicles

 all seemed so Chekhovian; so

 futile; or more Tolstoyan:      common          and aged.

Turn this into something reusable:                 

No one saves the diminishing

[continued on next page]

the wood of dreams; the wood of solitude; the wood of any man’s

                                                             l o n g i n g     

[let it hang       there.]

3/

We are particularly good at making

(particularly good at taking, too.)

Ring in the changes;  the faux-pas

There are so many great words that come out of partners;

 So many words that come out of please;       

                        and patronize.

:: yes, patronize ::

Read Full Post »

The Australian Came Into My Life and He Would Not Kiss Me

I was in the know.  Chewing the pulp.   An excuse to imagine –  so, I imagined. Self-prescribed.  There was no alternate.  I felt sorry for the pursuit; but nailed it. There were two voices: one surreal; one steadfast.

[If not now; when?]

There’d be no pretending.  Nothing should be hard and fast.  He tidied it up. Made coffee; gazed; danced; touched.  It became creamy and whole; whole and creamy. Songs were sung. Bottoms were wagged.  Re-defined.

yes       ….       but                   yes       ….       but                   yes,

yes, we confirmed edges and crossed currents. What kind will this be? Be kind to me. Be kind to me, be kind to me. Hands climbing in hair; hands lost; hands lost;  hands don’t lie.

[do they?]  But, to be glib:  someone could die.                                   In the earliest evening,

the earliest morn; one understands the being

::let history in::

and, we did and we swam messily around the honking; around the light-spread; around the breath, around the humming, and lounged-in it; all to see the comfortable.

[do you really feel this?]

All to say: my sweet. It is sweet. It is sweetest; It is sweeter                                now, tasted.

© Umansky 2011

Read Full Post »