Gary Sullivan

THE ART OF POETRY

With humill hart and sobir teiris
Earth goes upon earth as gold upon gold
Your ugly token unitie thre knit ane perfyt

Till in one day the dream of Death appear—
Then metamorphosis. Delicate-filmed
Mother's mind thick as forest

No-man-fathomed. Mothy, neither flesh
Nor fell finyearis small, quhyt as quhailis
Bane. A condition of your being chosen

Brain become narrow
& ourtak the in trespas
To lie astonished in the oblivious pool

Thus destroy the condition of beauty
With gaistly sicht, behold oure heidis thre
As ye are now, into this warld we wir.
 
 

TERMINAL GENITAL SATISFACTION AVERSION SPHERE

No want with a woman who doesn't love
mindlessly fertile confirmed in the moment of
body rigor (law of shit) flinching be-
neath a mound of earth-like jaw jarring light

extruded throughout life. They figure you out
an idol to worship. Raw money drug death
confirmed by rigor & minutiae. Lanky breeze
look up and down the street but the happy

's gone. There'd been no wars, hated edges
or intensity, only air
torn from disregard into bleeding un-
wound. Topic sentence gazed down upon like

blow job. I opened my eyes into a burst
of hail. Sniveled. Frozen in some dated family
photograph. Deep colors seem totally black
thick (putting arm around). You get been too much.
 
 

LOVE'S OSCILLATING                for Marta

Fond of absolutes & swarming in
The musical parts unwind. Veering eye-
Level, hones no better pair of lips
Than these. Look at me, mon ele-
Phant & I will be your man. Men
Attend & men stagger off, desiring exe-
Mption, teeth, trembling hollow
To suggest. From the coff of eve
some bell whorling thru the leaves
Leaves in looser order to wash each
Wretched other out. We are complete,
Corrupt out of bed, abruptly home, ere-
Ct. Evening drivels distant waves on
Whom we lie, we love to know away.
 
 

PEOPLE IN THEIR ABSENCE

Starvation is a chemical. Poor men praise
whatever worse outweighs
hope's burn. They write in rags of light

over unevents. Each time a little colder
in the head, eating, like
say, some more words. & in my world

that's what people are supposed to do.
So, who are you to tell me
I'm entitled to my opinion? Such food

as outstretched hands an offering make
& make of itself a circle
w/out end. My favorite evenings are factory ones

but I could do the other.
 
 

THE CARD

Because the future is vague, even in a room
where behavior is a calendar, the soul
cut by a simple barber. Winter's corymb
two streetcars coupled together, sung
as any wire strung is never still

Because the air is spoken for. Fib: thieves'
slang for strike, another way of saying
this, or that clouds hold up the air. There,
where ideas are touted, or toted around in
the pipe-smoking casual behavior of the book.

In a noisy world the ear fills with sea foam
& love is not love, it is spring, when
like clothing on the floor beside her bed
it gnarls that climb. To fall, as a dead body falls
magnificent & sunburned, dirt encrusted fingers

Coughing light to read by. I feel this lump
like I'm explaining too much. Who wants heaven
or taking risks, until he is alone at sea
& able to see his antlers as rather superficial?
O little cloud, hover before the eyes & tell me.
 
 

    35 LINES FROM APOLLINAIRE'S ALCOOLS

    My boat leaves for America tomorrow
    I thrust my tongue out at the waves
    From lips stirring the silent water
    Of my mouth. Great ships drag love-
    Less shadows across the earthly tug

    Of you my love, my earth. I'm lost:
    My heart, mirror of earth, is brok-
    En. I no longer know anything, only
    Love; condemn me to die, for I love
    No one. This day the sun sprawls a-

    Cross the sky, & the streets are a-
    Wash with fresh rain. Slowly I make
    My way, brow clouded with fire, sad
    Since everything is ours loved mad-
    Ly away. & now, my boat floats pale

    In solid space. It passes you by as
    You pass by, displaying at once the
    Effort & effect. The drowned follow
    In my wake to their own pale lovers
    Crouched under waves of the burning

    Sun. Nothing's dead but what hasn't
    Yet existed. Bells and shrill music
    Will announce my arrival in America
    To know & at last be devoured there
    Where I'll live on beneath Hawthorn

    Flowers, lakes & light. Never shall
    I return, but in new clothes wander
    Hat in hand and striding right foot
    First in all directions drag myself
    Beneath the streets beneath earth I

    Once loved. My boat trembles on the
    Horizon, all black, & vanquished by
    The clatter of brick waves, blacker
    Than these hands folded together, O
    Our clustered senses woven in light
 

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