In Defense of Nothing by Peter Gizzi

Author:Peter Gizzi
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wesleyan University Press
Published: 2014-12-26T16:00:00+00:00

AN ALLEGORY OF DOUBT

AFTER GIACOMO BALLA

Crossing a fiddle, a bow pulls,

and the antique century renews itself:

steamliner pushing off into the newsreel

when film was young

… these strings sound fog, then a tug,

then a single ray piercing dawn.

A crash of metal over sea, rocks, trees,

gardens and cut stone. C chord as ground.

The chipped patina told a story

of earth’s settlement. A Roman bell

… it’s getting late, the wind picks up;

in her dream she told of shattered windows,

prisms, a ribbon above the city, a deer

drinking from it with a chandelier for antlers

… she said my love is like modernity,

whirring, throwing switches, a discus,

a silent particle when the atomic night,

the parabolic night, cold, no longer water

over stone splashing through trees under stars

… the quartet is often a stand of pine,

a confetti streamer unraveling, tumbling

arabesques of glee, sometimes

a marionette, sometimes twine pulled

through a dixie cup. A waxy aria

… my dream is a picnic by a winter lake

she said. In full regalia she said—silk rugs,

carriages, hats and plates, a toe of gold

in a marble field, fox in the snow

… folks were dressed in colonial fashion,

then I knew it was colonial times.

There was going to be a marriage.

In her dream she was not looking for

a bridal dress, but working in words,

she said, she found her dress

… the circus is coming. The organ’s pipes

reach even here when we walk

our lute strings into town, simple words

in a bramble of words, let them build

to a commotion now we’ve learned

music is not for kings

… O let the sun pass over me. Overhead,

strike my wrists, knees. Here.

I will slake the baubles from my milky gown.

The willow spear is green, she said.

The stars abound.

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