Gale Nelson

ODES

1                for Robert Fossum and Robert Waggoner

Cede the action when the alphabet does not
implode. Go forward when the gull comes
to represent all nations. Pry these orchestrations,

wedge hacking sounds into the limpid ocean
and decrease the professonal status of cork-
bearing animals to that deceived in a gathering.

Ships in a row, boats known to captain; his architect
could not couple the passage with every bounding
brick. An apparatus known as breath shall

be considered when the lacquered shift pretends
comfort. Is she wearing slippers even now?
Might the interpreted glow be hotter than coals

sifting through ports? These are the bitten
grapes, the manifestation of quitting, forfeit
each layer and seem senseless the trip

to see me lying down. Leaking as the withered
neck cannot prop a head so fragrant that
the presence of dots cannot rekindle clay-topped

bread. The numerical charge, the factotum
dancing  on the edge of a set of carpeted
steps, keeping close to extended wetness

on the seeping corners of attic floors. Passing
back to the front the series of drawings,
the nodding heads all familiar, all hooting.

I link arms with no carriage, you shiver.
Survey another gripping fuse box, peel back
exposed paint weeks before the job shall

begin, so that we may live in costly tatters
for the present. But then, don’t use our
best glue, for we shall come back to life with

enough mechanical fingers goring us lightly.
So true, he glowers when the rest seem to
idle shamefully fast. A picture of bulbous

noses being shown off at a convention near
folding chairs. Are you hungry? Cede the
alphabet, then, and pant. Curled up in my

chair with a good book, meaning a blank one,
filled with the smells of various non-citric
juices. Have we another open mill, where

soap itself is processed, then let us look
more closely at the strip of lighted soil.
Show and tell and do not return your

messages so that I can feel like quitting.
Or pass by the political altogether,
leaving nothing to chance and gravy not

being the exact duplicate of sculpture’s
emblematic fit. Are you concentrating
on the sleep patterns or is the tenet to

spill red-jacketed nuts on the floor in
toothed spools? Either way, the direct
route is closed off for a century, so

why not load potatoes onto the other
retinue? Striping cannot be characters
and dripping heads emit no response

from office upon individual until you
come to me. And I offer so little that
it seems like a bargain-basement

outing come to a close with the smallest
parcel holding the biggest surprise. Pat
down that stump, force feed the elder

ribbing. This madness comes near a
doorway, then the maze gets thickened
with wreaths made of fog lights. Shore

me through the eyelets, clip around the
sorry edge known only as hesitation.
Break bread in nearly equal sections,

and lead them into water-logged cottages.
Precisely for that reason you must come
to pick deferential petals from last week’s

bouquet to the statue in the corner. Eat
here, you chastise, and the letters will
never deliver themselves. Then we both

tighten the cord around the toilet seat
and peer down into the crevice by the
town hall. What we see is nothing to

share with you, the activist in all these
plans, for we wish to excite your path
in a direction against which you’ll fume.

The factotum, where has the factotum
gone? All can be seen at the horizon’s
depth, whereby a roof covered with snow

seems a wall so thick that we come to
shiver in our cotton. Murmur to me with
clenched jaw, filter through the air the

jasmine-laced shoes which have almost
seen the last pavement. And tilt the head
of the lovely mannequin toward the point

where all tourists look, and wait for the
lowering gloom. Bend me back, swing a
bag so fast that the owl in your ligaments

comes to pat our casting. Perplexed by
none other than a student production, we
bound through the rôles given out to a

fixed number, three, for instance, of
left-handed herons. Hand, it seems, would
never be allowed here were this a scientific

journal, the reviewer would delight in
the ridicule. But where better to deliver
the heron with a left-handed aptitude

than to the world of anxiety, where blinds
are dwarfed by copious gloats, and the
frigid winds are leavened by bumpers

and softness within a line up. Were it so,
I would have you pleading the fifth, the
Fifth, you reply, and whatever the plea,

we pronounce the ‘t’ in cordon bleu. Even
the hole which I have not dug has more
conception of rust than a metallic taste

in the rumor’s ill. Normal, normal the
face remains when told of my plans, and
this disregard comes at a backing into

view that a madhouse tarragon for a series
should not be left on the stove top after
the meal has been cooked! The disgrace

involved in placing a gold-rimmed plate
next to one from a series of scenes from
the amusement park, the embrace involved

in the long-awaited shopping trip. Could
you brief me gently before we take this
capsule of pills into the jungle? Would you

center the rock if it got spun about by a
glee-filled backyard? If not, when will
the child bake bread in an oven, where the

fountains do not run from afternoon to dusk?
Should I be left to these mustards, I would
use them all, but the goat has come to take

our heron to the zoo. And that cannot beset
the larger coil coming from the glad wringing
out of a shirt drenched in sorrel. No fantasy

could be worth what larks sing, or occult
partitions should be fortified in the near
corner of almond groves. Where has the sect

gone that could not speak aloud, could not
shout in the face of danger, and how can we
get them to surround the crow-faced pair

who have little to worship but glades? Are
you the lost one, or am I? Are we the last
course on someone’s plate, and if so, what

are we doing here in the wire bridge, putting
coasters below our spittle? A row of even-
numbered hands, all to be placed onto the

torso’s arm, giving the deception that no one
should go without. Are we really going to
sit down at the request of the speaker?
 
 

2                             for Patrick Comiskey

I.

In the interests of making corn, pry
the broken window open. In the passive
voice, we are eating our corn with both

hands, and shucking shrimp into
a net made strong by sleeves. Precede
the lurid with crumbs. Proceed to kick.
 
 

II.

Shelf paper gone to florals, storage
gone for lack of space. Even pieces
of transparencies fastened to my arm

seem less fantastic at this angle of
light. Surely, the translation work
was done with less sleep deprivation.
 
 

III.

Particulants blaze.
 
 

IV.

Sputter out the feelers being bent,
making leitmotifs shiver as they
melted on the front lawn chair.

The fire has not been rekindled
in the kitchen, the smoke detecting
dice may rest for the evening dew.
 
 

V.

Extended to what? Capitulate to
broken leg and boxed eras and
you shall lose all movements.

Here’s to the filefish, here’s to
the spiral, ever turning in on
itself, ever trailing behind.
 
 

VI.

We are not afraid of the elephant,
for its tusks have been sharpened
by none other than that modem

delivering instructions to pistils.
Is your crane-necked lamp going
into government service already?
 
 

VII.

Neither borrower nor lender be,
for the enemy has always been
deft enough at the window in front

of an envelope. Carry the shares
in a tummy sack, or a pelvis
chair, and smack your lips.
 
 

VIII.

Participate in government, be pushed
around by celebrity prose, and shake
hands with my mouse. Redress is

a term for the living, for the dead,
the drastic forms of seeds never left on
a trip home are from a sponge bath.
 
 

IX.

The little fish could not lick its lips.
 
 

X.

Paramount concern is sheathed in
between legs and machine. Parse
these computations so that corn can

grove as walnuts once dated. Are
oranges your sheets? Or yellows
and blues, pinks and pastels?
 
 

XI.

I have lost my seventeen lists to
comply with the edict, and now
must admit as much. My mouse is

in hiding, my cat by my side, the
shallowness of the pool leaves
my spine to its own devices.
 
 

XII.

Break off loveless dust.
 
 

XIII.

Your tour has been complexified
by my admission of gulf, and you
are shadowed by no less than a

palm tree with tusks. Tufts, you
say? Now, isn’t that just like you,
a literalist through and through.
 
 

XIV.

Bury me in a sea of jam, with de-
odorized fruits that may turn me
into a face filled with a staple

bent back, or some such grime,
as may only occupy my heaping
scone-filled mind’s image. So.
 
 

XV.

This being enough to cheat on,
he was hesitant to take on another
chore. We converged on him

just as the numbing took place,
and we could little well open our
mouths to shout agony, or revolt.
 
 

XVI.

True, these grimaces are not in the
dictionary of facial expressions, but
they have the effect desired. Raise

one eye’s brow, then lower it as the
other moves upward. Do this six
hours every night, with a mirror.
 
 

XVII.

What numerical system could replace
ours? What abstraction could ill-fit
this discourse? Do not look at your

toes when you renege on your claim,
shout abuse at my forehead, and lift
your arms well above your chest.
 
 

XVIII.

The scars came from a singing.
 
 

XIX.

Listless lapidary, cat’s language
of love. Shortly before nutriment,
patter about transit cards. Vicinal

kettle, homespun note, seed the
entire valley prior to catching on
to a larger package of pith.
 
 

XX.

Extremis repellant marred in soluble
crates filled with lizard-shinned briefs.
Long live the locutory with red-paneled

walls, and grandfather clocks filled
with corn pone. Shackle my feet in
glazed arithmetic, then divide.
 
 

3                                                for David

I.

Numerical postulations heave the rocks.
Cart-filled drop passage came.
 

II.

The blessing is a pair of tied ribbons.
 

III.

Crepe. Land. Silent mailing machine.
Gone grey, a beard in magnitudes.
 

IV.

The leavening chartered, the potato half.
Restricted by after an hour,
drips aboard, gong in cells or arbor.
 

V.

Leap on crusts. Shade eyes in positive
anchor. Every time we. Every gem
into. Each song we.
 

VI.

                                     Give these
treasures to the sea—let them gain value
in their obscure collision with elemental
scarcity.
 

VII.

            The prints are not showing a
burden equivalent. The wavy lines
represent greater certainty.
 

VIII.

                                                The stagger
unloosed on a fig and a corpse.
 

IX.

Blend diaries into cubes as though
thematic fronds were ever more grim.
 

X.

A chastisement, a scribbling sound, a
flowering brush with back spasms.
 

XI.

Beat.
 

XII.

            Stanzaic homophones reserved
for after hours. A good solid set
of pipes.
 

XIII.

            Exactly one hour, thirty-
six minutes remaining. The perceptive
correlative shifting to judge moans.
 

XIV.

                                                                        In
aghast manner. We shift to. Whet these
calamities.
 

XV.

                        Never again seen, though
steps retrain the passageway. Once
suspected of trickery.
 

XVI.

                                    We eat at no
particular hour. Several indigestions
spent on sesame.
 

XVII.

                                    Lift up the front-
bottom fringe and turn to the two-
pictured crops. A paisley rendered.
 

XVIII.

We, photo, you, prong. The level-
headed border. A mounted guide,
removed.
 

XIX.

             Act out of turn, dance
shadowly. Shift once more. The bird
cannot return once having visited
the two-hilled country.
 

XX.

                                                Piling,
the rocks, up in restricted canvas. Who
is leaning out the window, a sentry
of what collected works?
 

XXI.

                                                The gash
cannot be tourniqueted properly.
 

XXII.

                                                            If
I seem unstable, please remind me
to overdraft my heart rate, so as to
pay adequately for the clock’s continuity.
 

XXIII.

The ribbon, stubbed. Who could show
me a greater resilience than the
unperturbed basket of skies?
 

XXIV.

                                                             Then be
on guard for the snapping strings,
the child plaster, the dog whimper,
the sleeping conditions, desecrated.
 

XXV.

                                                              Where
have we ever gotten to throw eggs at
statues for a ring golden in stares?
 

XXVI.

Who would we rate as
coincidental if jasmine ate through
the pauper’s skin?
 

XXVII.

                                    What tinge
the ocean’s edge—so what matter
the sun? Barely, this word for
shortened anxious glare, effective in
proper company.
 

XXVIII.

                                    Sassy, say the ads,
glorious, say the ad men, stupendous
say the cups and undarned stockings.
 

XXIX.

A passage. Return to compliant
visitations.
 

XXX.

                        Stem on the other edge
so the float is toward the right. So
the angel.
 

XXXI.

                        We forge. And if this the
purpose is, then disinter the local
portion of the elbow, and shine
loveliest of trees in a stack of
vellum for considered pleasure.
 

XXXII.

Please the ordained cowboys.
 

XXXIII.

Sidle up the atrophied limbs.
Fixate the miniscule system for the
hardening.
 

XXXIV.

                        And soften the elegant
grip. Who speaks for abandonment?
 

XXXV.

Who cleaves the stack, cleaves without
carpeting. And thus goes the final agent.
 
 

4                                       for Michael & Peter

I.

These akimbo bowed plucks, reeking sourly
edges sharpened by a call to an ornamental
shade. Gun-spin alls-well. A wheeze in

sleep. The function retabled as a wholly
fabricated glow. Does hut redeem the
spattering, and a hard held beneath the

angled levee. Close eyes and hold neck
for a penetrative voice, and stumble through
a shaken string suddenly lifted. I fear.
 

II.

Best tray of almonds resides more in heat than
light. A capsule decoded fatherly. Symptoms
of blue light cannot flare in sandalwood.
 

III.

Reduction of rattle. A foot-worked plaiting as
an honor conferred through third-party
prodding. The annoyance involved in forgetful

restitution. I deliver a sample in that I know
my trappings are a hoax to the lavender.
A machine I cannot touch for trepidation surrounds

it as much as a complaisance. I am again the ordinary
dwarf among a hall of daguerrotypes and historical
reference betrays the dragging participle. Heaven

itself has delivered the morning, with its
cloud clover. And I crate the loitering amphibian
in the staccato dinghy. Heavy is the

unmedicated breath, and loud is the muscle
loosening in the heart’s cavity. Weighting the
instrument, I linger for the attitude that

contraindicates. Notch. Pickled. Edged in
platinum. You’ve done the nobler reduction.
What merriment this photo negates, for I see.
 

IV.

That the laces are disturbed—where
example formless recompenses the leg as
it were, and review refracts tradition. Gold.
 

V.

The arson we still infer is nobled. And so
the exactitude of delivery. Serious. And pages
are the face in question, so very soft. So

very temporal. And now the plasticity rejoins
me. What action might I misplace? What
skin have I enountered? How many samples

shall we gather in sum, discontinue. Avenue, this
thought, a dead end. Sole in garlic, rendered.
A molluscan den. Partake in continuity research to

create goodly sanitary devices in ascertaining
stem. Shake. Shove the ash to the latterly-dropped
harbor, whose wheat has been known to flourish.
 

VI.

A hanging. These many characters, heretofore
known fully through the artful descriptions,
dialogue and action, recast in the opposite sex.
 

VII.

We look at them with less wonder and awe. We
change our own temperament to fit the new context.
We are not in the mountainous region, where the

wildflowers multiply with each rain-filled night.
We have not hiked through a valley that has
beholden a rock-breaking shift in the river.
 

VIII.

We are, instead, alone in the face of the failing
eye, and launder our great shore of fantasy
in a larger tub that leavens. The rod is

shared by three lads this day. Extract not a
line, pull the catch with a hand, and
close the capture with nets so intimate that

we feel a proximity to the mountainous regions
you alone have encountered. Did the instructive
bounce generate new springs? Are you still with me,

even though I cannot see the visions you’ve attested?
Do you retreat as a sign that death of imaginative
spirit is culpable? Am I the layer below the

epidermal shiver? Where do you conclude my
systemic beat? Can we eat the lunch packed in
foil? Reconsider my plea. Not a tree, in bloom,

not an early passion, nor a belch. All these are
the negated compilation of a chase diverted by the
cunning hands and feet. Your bread, in liquefied

honor. Sumptuous, this portion. Passive, this chiming.
And the ropes are lowered. Spurt. All this is a
capitulation. Who can leave me in this set of clothing?
 

IX.

And with this desired frame, please deliver this news
to a conference setting more consummate for
evasion than triggering blood-shot stares. I fealty

join the band of detecting shores, and speculate on
driving a nail into this suture. A charge
delivered by the coaxing distant and sublime,

a memory left blank by admission. Who is
not going to fall from cliffs when given the
attraction, who is layering sound in a paradox

distention? I hear the boards and dodge the
hint of steam. Three years since the dust
settled, and hear the insect model its

attack so softly. Here is the course I’ll
not admit. And this is the forthing I have
not said. So believe the change that undertaken

leaves one sheened, and smile often the species
of distilled. Go forward the grace, go settle the
fatigued warden. And buy ordinary dust, first.
 

<^>