kari edwards
two poems
**
there are those with power and those in power
dependent on title deniability
dependent on what system secures what system
whose metaphysics speaks at lunch for what interested parties
dependent on who snaps whose gendered fingers
screams the loudest
incorporates what international code with internationally recognized trademark,
shifts history to application
plays father knows best without genetic connective tissue
employs universals without ownership
deploys fill-in-the-blank dream definition for patriotic employment
for something that works well for the us of us, defined by us
defined by fill in the blank static metaphor that shuts down the
power of irony, knows a secret, dies and gets a thing renamed a thing
with a name.
**
faintest groan labors out
or are we melting like sculpted lard, the crisp and steady worn down
for centuries, with a promise of nothing, dwindled to mere sexless
properties, incinerate in vain attempts at escape.
I can say truthfully with blank plague and unwritten volumes, say
nothing more than an imprisoned cocoon of too many answers and too
many temples. say nothing more of the paint in the box spectrum,
where light becomes one, where there is no color, every effort bound
to failure, bound to the living, bound to numb abandon.
and then it happens, almost human contact in the production unit, in
the psych ward, in the shooting gallery, on the begging block, a
wasting vow for life.
I take thee, o corporate justification for my nonprofit child, stale
from the public play ground, laundered from face to image. I take thee
bound by something, free of base meaning breathing bound to happen,
looking uncommonly like a portrait, a study of a personal past
substitution bound by hands in a war devoid of faces.
**
return to sawbuck 1.1
**
kari edwards won one of Small Press Traffic’s books of the year awards (2004), New Langton Art’s Bay Area Award in literature (2002); and is author of obedience, (Factory School 2005); iduna, (O Books 2003), a day in the life of p. , (subpress collective 2002), a diary of lies - Belladonna #27, (Belladonna Books 2002), and post/(pink) (Scarlet Press 2000). edwards’ work can also be found in Scribner’s The Best American Poetry (2004), Bay Poetics, (Faux Press 2006), Civil Disobediences: Poetics and Politics in Action, (Coffee House Press 2004), Biting the Error: writers explore narrative (Coach House, Toronto, 2004), and Bisexuality and Transgenderism: InterSEXions of the Others, (Hawoth Press, Inc. 2004). She passed away in December, 2006.
**
there are those with power and those in power
dependent on title deniability
dependent on what system secures what system
whose metaphysics speaks at lunch for what interested parties
dependent on who snaps whose gendered fingers
screams the loudest
incorporates what international code with internationally recognized trademark,
shifts history to application
plays father knows best without genetic connective tissue
employs universals without ownership
deploys fill-in-the-blank dream definition for patriotic employment
for something that works well for the us of us, defined by us
defined by fill in the blank static metaphor that shuts down the
power of irony, knows a secret, dies and gets a thing renamed a thing
with a name.
**
faintest groan labors out
or are we melting like sculpted lard, the crisp and steady worn down
for centuries, with a promise of nothing, dwindled to mere sexless
properties, incinerate in vain attempts at escape.
I can say truthfully with blank plague and unwritten volumes, say
nothing more than an imprisoned cocoon of too many answers and too
many temples. say nothing more of the paint in the box spectrum,
where light becomes one, where there is no color, every effort bound
to failure, bound to the living, bound to numb abandon.
and then it happens, almost human contact in the production unit, in
the psych ward, in the shooting gallery, on the begging block, a
wasting vow for life.
I take thee, o corporate justification for my nonprofit child, stale
from the public play ground, laundered from face to image. I take thee
bound by something, free of base meaning breathing bound to happen,
looking uncommonly like a portrait, a study of a personal past
substitution bound by hands in a war devoid of faces.
**
return to sawbuck 1.1
**
kari edwards won one of Small Press Traffic’s books of the year awards (2004), New Langton Art’s Bay Area Award in literature (2002); and is author of obedience, (Factory School 2005); iduna, (O Books 2003), a day in the life of p. , (subpress collective 2002), a diary of lies - Belladonna #27, (Belladonna Books 2002), and post/(pink) (Scarlet Press 2000). edwards’ work can also be found in Scribner’s The Best American Poetry (2004), Bay Poetics, (Faux Press 2006), Civil Disobediences: Poetics and Politics in Action, (Coffee House Press 2004), Biting the Error: writers explore narrative (Coach House, Toronto, 2004), and Bisexuality and Transgenderism: InterSEXions of the Others, (Hawoth Press, Inc. 2004). She passed away in December, 2006.
