STEVE DALACHINSKY

as collage 6

i wasn’t sure what he was trying to do

    or what he was capable of doing

i don’t mean that he was trying stuff out

& i just didn’t get what he was trying

i mean i just didn’t get what he was trying to

                    ACCOMPLISH

a 350 degree climate change – blow wind southerly

            steven’s theory is based on

separating psychological cheapskates

         from material cheapskates

          impudent mother-fuckers

     from those daring darwin to win

               as collage 7

i stare into richard wilbur’s spine

admittedly never having read richard wilbur

nor hearing richard wilbur read

i try to imagine his voice     &

come up with something between husky dark

& rich then i add a thick brooklyn accent

oh that’s my voice i’m hearing

as collage 8 (for e.d.)

here is fascical knowledge

the pin plus pen

a fragment enveloped within shifting

influences (this segment of the poem is dedicated

to a woman who wrote along the edges

of envelopes)

the falling apart of structure

the shortage of elements

the how of war & its collapses

& how it collapses / eclipses our desires

fragments us like explosions

divides us into temporal new wholes

coughing horrors OF

changing sentinels that guard our words

as we guard our words

& are sentenced to hiding

we change our identities the way

we change our penmanship

the way unnamed manuscripts are lost

illegible or in eternal transition

internal rotation

a carnival of facsimiles

like history –

the falling apart from structure

gesture / inscription / legible to

illegible / landmarked temporality of

souls / dissected / hammered / nailed to the wall

is falling a part of structure?

(think of this portion as being in the shape of an envelope)