04-26-2016
Jeffrey Pethybridge
The Book of Lamps, being a psalm-book
Drug-tired, at a loss, above the lucid waves. Palms rested on the railing, palms against
the last, the chronic drag of days--the waves--the last solid limit, then the light-
ness in letting go: four seconds, irrevocable, the unsparing waves, then the facts disclosed
by the Angel of the Police Report. Palms pressed against the wailing wall in your gut,
ulcerous pocked by guilt, shame¬, secret pains in being. Palms open and upturned--
good little supplicants, what is their (secret) prayer, what is open to praise? candor?--the pure
fact of the four irrevocable seconds?--the right note to elicit briny air, or the thick beach
chill along the skin at dusk--palms pressed against the limit--the nouns to summon it:
(1-8)
(the truth is I know the truth is made through work: lucid and unsparing). Fat palms
pressed into your eye sockets, that dark, that pressure, the gates of inwardness,
posture of exhaustion, posture of resignation, as your palms wash your cheeks, fingers to lips--breathing--eyes open to the clearing, the lucid waves, your unsparing inwardness,
irrevocable wilderness with no blaze marking the way back. Exhausted, at a loss
wandering the weird inwardness of chronic insomnia. O sad gargantuan, worn-out
from the unrelenting drag of days, encumbered by waves, a wailing wall, a wilderness--
all within--and hauled up to the gates: that dark, that pressure open them out--
(9-16)
Fat palms at your temples, holding your whole monstrous concentration, holding
the ulcerous exhaustion at bay, o sad gargantuan, out past the wilderness hangs
the clearing, out past the lucid and unsparing waves, out through the blank being
of chronic insomnia. Drug-tired, at a loss, and dragged under the pressure of blank days,
blanker nights and unsparing waves being inwardness, worn-out from the inertia
within depression. Palms pressed against the railing, pressed against the gate-work,
up against inwardness, up against the limit (its four seconds), it feels like that--monstrous, pocked, ulcerous, irrevocable, lucid, wailing, unrelenting, unsparing, at a loss, exhausted.
(17-24)
Even at bay the weight is plummeting (monstrous lightness)--fat palms stroke fat thighs
then back to the railing, inwardness being both the case and its chronic cause--days being waves, waves being being: chronic, dragged under inertia, dark with pressure, the case against inwardness--you breathe into the half-mask your hands make--no one can hear as you stand (your whole concentration) pressed between the blank day, the blanker night, like anyone looking out for the clearing of the Pacific sky. Looking out, dusk-encumbered, even your eyes exhausted, looking inward--for the clearing---through that dark, that pressure, through the gate-work, o sad gargantuan, can you psalm the limit-work against the lightness that bars the clearing?
(25-32)
Alighieri's God Is Not Great
To vindicate the desperate fury of rejection to
efface the double offence of one self to lay the ghost
of what was left of inevitable calamity
is not a crime the wounds inflicted by a suicide
upon himself a stake through the body to be void thus
invading the prerogative of the Almighty which
may justly be called political suicide and ought
to be governed by the common rules of murder against
the king of the lonely grave is guilty outcast of all
the world which is a species of murder declaring
the policy of one self to be void subjected to
the desperate fury of all the world buried enfouis
a Parisian call him Paul jumped in the Seine and vanished
November the suicide-season November orphaned
by the common rules of inevitable calamity
thus to die a slum-dwelling wild child November
affected with this form of melancholy left a note
to efface the wounds inflicted by the doctrine of self-
slaughter may justly be called a vital component of
the Almighty the chronicle adds if fate owns himself
unequal to the troubles of life governed by the ghost
of the desperate fury of rejection the volunteer
suicidologist you on the phone you the friend you
the mercy-fuck collaborated to repress efface
outcast this form of voluntary death of the lonely
days of illness days totally abandoned days given
to drink to enliven his narrative Dante pictures
him in a new cell Pietro Della Vigna jurist
and poet and minister to a prince of inevitable
fury and subjected to what was left of the desperate
theory of rejection of all the world dragging the said
murderer through the streets of the Almighty invading
the middle of the night two women committed suicide
to avoid confiscation of their own manuscripts days
buried enfouis days of social demotion days subjected
to melancholy of the head the lonely grave of days
outcast and destitute days subjected to civil war
of the head dragging the guilty theory through the streets
affected with this form of Almighty void a man
drowned himself in the Severn a rite of double offence
governed by the policy of spiritual demotion
and the common rules of trouble and interred with a stake
declaring the ghost of one self void the chronicle adds
dragging the said political theory through the judges
his heirs pleaded his insanity to avoid the wounds
inflicted by the doctrine of confiscation orphaned
by the middle of the night orphaned of all the world
their bodies were buried without ceremony enfouis
after the vital component of the prevention course
after the concept in a new cell after the suicide
season April in temperate climes o resplendent spring
no interior weather can equal o revolution no
self can equal seriously comrades there was nothing
else I could do against the November inside April
against the prince of this desperate fury after dragging the said
self guilty of a double fate through streets of ought and if
under suicide watch Dante pictures him orphaned by
his narrative Dante pictures him to efface him
and civil justice collaborated entered into
a pact to repress him thus to die a slum-dwelling king
against the concept of voluntary death invading
the prerogative of the body you on the phone you
the fuck long since fallen you the friend you mercy dragging
the said king into a new cell is not a crime throwing
the judges out the window of ought without ceremony
may justly be called what was left of justice long since
unequal given to fury after rejecting desperate social
demotion a man drowned himself in the Seine his narrative
vanished Isiah McNeal aged 60 suicided
at Conygham on Wednesday destitute the chronicle
adds after the lonely and outcast and suicide woman
her narrative vanished when Romain a slave being sent
South cut his throat in a Philadelphia street what was
left of justice suicided the chronicle vanished
after the concept of narrative vanished widowed what
was left of the self the new cell of inevitable
demotion and confiscation under Almighty watch
the king of the lonely grave outcast of all the world
unequal to the fury inflicted by days of illness
dragging the letter which would exculpate him through the night
dragging the letter that would efface him against the guilty
judges upon himself dragging calamity upon himself
dragging rejection through all that was left upon against
himself thus to suicide
Dante pictures him in hell
Arming-Theme
In bocca al lupo--
and laid out on the table: a laptop;
a fountain pen; the shirt of beautiful
noise; three small stones colored like bird
eggs (one robin, one quail-mottled, one sharp-
shinned hawk) that orbit the head. The robin
stone emits the song a child in the dark
gripped with fear sings to himself
for comfort, for order. The child can
walk to this song; he can skip; lost, he can
shelter in it. The song is the rough-sketch
of a calming; it jumps from chaos to
the beginnings of order in chaos,
and is in danger of breaking apart
at any moment. The others permit
congress with the dead and the self's
own schismatic congregation,
respectively. A tin of instant
espresso; always the notebook; a disc
to leave behind; a two-Euro coin
with Dante's head on it. I recognize the nose
from the mirror: crepi il lupo.
-from Striven, The Bright Treatise
BIO: Jeffrey Pethybridge is the author of Striven, The Bright Treatise (Noemi Press 2013). His work appears widely in journals such as Chicago Review, Volt, Poor Claudia, The Iowa Review, LIT, New American Writing and others. He teaches in the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University where he is the Managing Director of the Summer Writing Program. He is also the North American Editor for Likestarlings, a web-archive of collaborative poetry and poetics.
He lives in Denver with the poet Carolina Ebeid and their son Patrick; together they curate and host the Lord Weary’s Reading Series, and edit Visible Binary. He's currently at work on a documentary project centered on the recently released torture memos entitled "Force Drift, an Essay in the Epic." He grew up in Virginia.