by
Larry Eigner
the disappearance of matter
where is the
end of the poem
tired eyes
the sun travels
and allows dream
orange cap
the hydrant
is silvered
single-purposed
it may never be used
but is flushed
alarms have passed
the availability of water
at some points, all
considered, so fine
doing
often the sky reflects
the trees as well vary
much color, and substance
more or less flame
comes and goes
birds fly
and raise shout
Huge hill, so much
to lie under
life burying you
or overlooks you
field
the view diminishes
you come down
a hole in the wall
brings quiet the
water flows
through pipes there as
the sun might burn leaves through
clouds slope
around the earth
monsters are quiet
the tree shapes
singed spots
black through the centuries
twisting towards the light
they grow familiar cross
each other
a skyway lanes
channel dug out
from a river of sap
or a log
never floated
what time
is day
and night changes
in the weather
the asphalt road
calcine a way off
moon
out by
afternoon
then spreading its light
in the wind the cold fountain
hang on the tree there's
the opening
however gone there's
blue
outward, around,
birds settle, think
they're always hungry, eyes
brood
or sleep is the dark sky , rain
sinks in
seaweed smells
in the breeze sewer-gas
blowed up the drugstore
injuring several that's what
the hospitals are for, with
quiet wards
50
unscathed
but shaken
to bear miracles
" the contents
first taken for blood
so horror, so easily
arrived
from the day
so here come random eyeteeth
crashing out through the window like
bony fish
(yet the glass hurt
a faustian
flame by the soda fountain
and above the arena
where the circus's
3 rings go in
still banked with its
accessory porous world
tiers checked to the nooks of its sky
over the railroad station
massing goods and swarming people
The apples we take in
and
a few leaves left
well, a tree
is obvious
thank god for it
they
continue
down
the road
what
leaves
Sun there
cloud stacked
make hay
a further place
is
colors
a ground of winter
in the head
gulls flying
close lately
shadows and other birds too
grow small cross the snow
soon you may think
in the windows
a wheel you get
continuities
My mind a cloud
a wet sponge
there are mountains nearby
construction men going to the job
in white helmets below
)or yellow like
their crane timber immobile swung
air
the heights distances
all in mind
direction
green cars pass
blue red white
nails build slow as the clock
now fog burns
the sun up
and down through
bird sounds
make the sunned room pass
the opened window
f o r t h e m e n in the y a r d
city some round thing, a clock
peace with all its parts
there is
none
the door close to the ground
a road he stepped out of
to talk
a tree is divided
food ten minutes
chain
but no exhaust visible
birds we imagine singing
or any tail-pipe
a truck comes that kind of a job
time of day its
lights off
white and red
it's blue, reflective
peace is clean
we think
bow
politely
or maybe it's nod
the wall has occasion
the far spread height
as you come closer
memory has made
The difference
of a small room
they've thought enough kinds of windows
and the paintings there made
to be close similar scenes
from the floor above
walking around down there
zigzag circles aimless
puzzles my head
or the odd moment, tired
in their wings
more or less
across the stone
drive
stuck to the paving
in gait
the pigeon might be anyone
while the machine, the way
equipment bears on the road
up-ended, some
stretches in hills
family cars
of workers
transparent
the wooden however torn down at
building one other time
like
more than two mirrors to
each room
you step to the path
a dividing line
the particular streets fade in my mind
steam heat birds
January damp
a huge gull visits here
trees still
sound of the clock looking
up to find white
move horizontals the air
then clouds pass level
snow fills the
neighborhood
the trees take
birds the
light air
shhh goes the lawnmower
should I stop
the razor
quiet
as a bird
the sky fades
the stars out
all this time
air through
the houses
a dog is barking
should there be memory
the moon wanes too
to some appearance
Ozone? peal the
day slide the
lectric car
Hurry the
Wind
picks up
busses
Drops em
They should make
wing if
the weather's mild
the sky become
endless
the clouds islands
at this level we
pass
then leaves spread
the hills' breasts
Small, flightless birds
the voice far tinkling bells
museum
of sorts, the rats destroyed
moving ashore, M i d w a y
slow is flat wall of the sea
the
poem and sky
each island
rose
farther than any whale
fins
breathing above the waves
the mirrors
heat
past sunshine
vibrations of air
spiders, then birds, settle
reflexive
man
menageries bringing what he can
from the bottom
interest
rock crumbles to earth
under rain in
the seas
the quickening run-though
clouds mulct the moon
flats one thing at a time
the whale is still hunted tides, a large motion
in certain parts
small waves give boats
prodigal
the deep light
the tree like a
monster
the green day time
the sun dies
blue
or stretches, eventually
out
a place come to moved
m y l o v e i s a l l
a s h u n g r y a s
t h e s e a
As much as you want
The little you can take
through the store window
glass splatters the
hole's empty
a fire braze open the roofs
quieter than planes
jammed shadows
you slow turning up high
out of the
comfortless air
the corpses drop you come
to some grave all
motion is the same
you've taken away
the time for ballistics
a man from the Pentagon
in your falling apart chair
bullets no
felt wings
the absence
they stop what
lightning replacements
the girls stabbing each other
your hat not
right on yo'r head
quiet lawns
nice air
smells voices
crowd on words you
think there's no crime
just because
the world is a cloud
men dim
shot cross
fire
capacities for excitement the
automatic
force acceleration
the heart beats
sounds a distant bird
gas
burns
F o r y o u r q u i e t l i m b s
Imogen, was he stupid ?
It's a
foolish situation
all these houses around here are stages
launching
drama
you want that, don't you?
a mean garment
once
children's sizes are indeterminate
then there's those ones across the road
they live from a lawn split by a driveway
-- well, let's go in, the kitchen someplace in the middle
the tv in the corner down the aisle ,
the basement window shows the circled grass
the kids have a dog that's ownership
Where he keeps his hat, they sometimes put on
they push the sidewalk for four lots
and
take a diaper car for a milktruck
so a year is a long time
the snow more reflective than the glass
they see coming at moments in their minds
and far away, the trees stay bare
in the fall the cats will spawn, usually
and birds come out in the sky, the nests dry
like crusts, and plants in the earth, fires at the gutter
the hens smelling the chickencoop
or garages hot, ragged water and oils
they rake up the beds with their toys
n u m b e r 1 . k i l l e r . t h e h e a r t
he was shot 3 times
mouth, nose, and bladder
rushing blood to the scene
of the arrest of
a busy morning on the
side
cloth rest
and the coke in summer
down with the sea
death
shepherd
united nation beyond
the desert, against
a trial cost
of argument
row on row, and the shields
lattice
for the mind health
picture frame of the
tin cans
tomato
the river slugs
and the playground
saw
waves ride as the weather
ice cream
ultimate pasturing
gulls
and sparrows around in the sky
a very serious, threatening expression
Beethoven's fist
in the end at the thunder he imagined
a chord to go on something else
as may have been different
fell back words
silent no more remembered
in those walls
that succession a round
Frederick Douglass
took his chances like
when we fly?
I don't know the landing gear
far from my mind I
was trying to see
where there was anything but
a large ship only
that appeared small
Do you love Maryland that
state there how
would you like to go back
where you didn't come from Most
have something they can
take shame from withdraw it fish
life lurks in the sea
we eat it,what
is germane
the St. Louis slave mart
something to remember is
still there days
after the War -
of the Rugged Individual when
man was man the
head of the family and so on we
couldn't have gotten along
why risk your shirt no
hands to pick the cotton no
gin
in a man's thoughts
Faneuil
Hall after what happened
the slave likes
what's in the air
the free wonders
as well what
there might have been
don't often lose sight of the ground
a cruise is expensive
no tall dark face in the air
no porter what
have I to do with
what I don't see
at least the chair makes
some noise it's
mysterious
As soon as you lay down
to snatch up again
a crime not
history
the guns
silent mouth to the bays
slagged in the sky
no
stinking breach
there are improvisations when
government burns
the purposes
played out like a fiction
at night hanging around
silence the cannon for
slaves are free
and we have joined
to turn home
stars the candles
remembered echoes
bring quiet for
the whiffing against the cold
sawmills afloat
barns impregnable to
iron
the bricks windows anchor
wounded
rifles emptied air
improved aim
in place of propositions
drifted off
the swaying car
is swift
on the streets
picturesque also
the pines are
a straight
backing
mules wires
rakishly light
the stacks take off
it's we uns captured them
today
it aint fair to a mule
to begin learning im
polite
confusions
with army experience
The Confederacy, you have to
repeat,
was real
suddenly
to be denied
lines there down the map
if you recognize yourself
still
roads
colors of your state
to make a noise in
the sheer slavery
of abstruse thought
full of the sky rough river
dirt the captured ordnance
made game (to puff
in imagination (useless with the real
shot crater powder-kegs
strewing the ground
now then
behind grass the
slope of cloud house
bed and emptiness besides
returning the sun
shown everywhere
the full-decked
t h e c a t c h
the slogans
gone
smiling
below the quick rain
windshields
bound into the sun
again in descent
shines , cave back the cloud
people who
hump the boards
this moment, going
forth, a time
for birds, those
where the leaves themselves are
quieted, after the fall
dancing the table
the whole gutter
of the street
and listen more
again, the birds
ride
within leaves
the openings change
above crickets
come with the moon
a texture
of abutment
a man climbing
his steps while the clouds go
by he comes to the corner
apt. above
the store
what string
I hear the wind
banging, flights
13 up
next door
the bell not visible
either set
more cry of the air
a fitful thing outside
anywhere it seems
closer to the mart
where we get food
fish, say, blank
with indelible eyes
the still distance to
travel unconsumed
a plane increases
above the sea I depict
a curve nearly in sight
more solid
two in black down the arched hill
immediately the apartment
smells empty like
some cellar
in the rain
a warmth again
the weather
we have
a leaf floats still
in the gutter no
particular speed
vague in time you've
heard the sea
the twilight
of rain
felt
the window
vibrates
candle
flames
no more light
a passing
truck
dark
fallen
peacefully
keeps on
over
the center
smoke extent of chimney
getting less visible as
we drive by
horizontal from London
burning exhaust
a road in mis-
sissipp i through
trees the
number to the
eye
around the world
the time is the same
where he walked and
he walked how
could you do much
in the century a
line orbit
some place 75 pieces of
shot
Carriers In winter the dogs "chase"
car fumes, the treads
bang out Summertime
in great bodies, come
to supper, come
the spreader road bed
shortly following birds
trying the thick
pepper
only in ignorance of sand
that's all
it is the druggist
pestle on wheels shaking come
sweeping the sea
paper
rugs
even today
"news" the ads
present confiding tomorrow
and the wind blazes
the soggy edge-on past downtown
to be
rung up
the sea splashes
the window
what milkman
through what crossings
what bus
will you take next
what flashed sunlight is still
what day-long grass is healthy
deeper, deeper history in
what might have
Colonus
the future in him out of
voice ground
and there's your registered dog
tramping the cemetery
you wouldn't take the occasion
of eating
one thing
Waterloo was
one of the men
bladder trouble
smoothness infinite portion
sleep was in his mouth he woke the
birds called a strain of words swung falling
as the apple tree
back on itself
the slow life
is fast
waters or wings growth
a solemn pole some gate
grass, not very high
to bare patches
any of the trucks
bread a half dozen chairs
movies
by the window the lost
man years
in mind he
knew the way
how he story came out
the bower
he left the arrowhead
beads
later the cellar
flowers looking in
under the moon the
chairs tilted back a view above the screen
flies were in the way
the trunks bark hollow
now the black man brings the
clean pants and he has to pay
S e n e g a l
The dead walk
noon
there are such
trees
women loaded
hair
the road-side
keep
after a film on
Leopold Senghor, the tall
country the
life onward smilling
or bring a seat
for a man waiting
don't go
see
it backwards
time or space
the crickets match
the morning
silence
birds dreamed there
hungry
the trees in wait
for food
stars shone
on deadly fish
happiness from the year
(1820 or so)
end of life what
would you like to know
the nature
of wants
a cloud
all one over
a few big trees
the whole sky
whatever put
time in your mind
water or light
at various temperatures it
rained down
a substance or
gradations
your body stretched
now there's a long tail
balanced along the wire
you take a dinosaur
pink thing
ants
spread all over the lot
extensive number
for the first time in my life
i see a bird
sit on a phonpole nail
trees weed clouds
their due
light walls the
shape of a window
or more blurred
the street
outdoors
grazed a long
hot cold with
smoke in mouth
ice
where the sun shines
varies
heavier air
or light
minute song
may imply leaves
a few clouds
milling this day
houses
are more shadow
the cut blaze
turn back such heat
darkness to ripple
the line of spring
immediate
the sea's dance
I in the foreground
mirror of time huge as
I may be small
face puffed short
music comes
we have a forest
trees the leaves mass
summer autumn too
wind, sun and
stars move
it's the air here
periods separate
the day the held light
how it gets through we've
a puzzle box
of wood house
hard glass doors
there street signs opened
rain streaks
cloud
distance the birds
still
HAIKU
motor around
the sky and
caterpilar
bumps of (f the road
the woman a tree
standing
leaves of
a basket
dying or green
he clips backwards
with
electricity
enough so you're confident
to be aware
packed like the gutters
splice pilings level through the air
the great
world at the window
stirs with the breeze
smell onwards seasons
to the old storms
baffering air
tides of spring
the flowers
and stars
have opposite names
Come out of your eyes the
soul is a corner
universe
back two steps
now you-re shadowing walls
broken into houses
carry the ground
eternal spaces
weeds
the sun turns west
you are what I am the empty flat
has clean sills still
been taken
that dog
is younger than you
memory is less, not so crowded
as the trees are
slightly, the earth is changing
as much
you remember the papers
the dim place
the branch held by the attic
it's a lengthy view
night coming
tomorrow
the sun to divide
and suppose the thin
shadow going down
in one window and
out of another
Copyright © 1968 by Larry Eigner.
Copyright © 1997 by Ricard Eigner, Conservator.
Originally published by Black Sparrow Press.
Long out of print, the text is presented here complete.
The original edition contained a suite of drawings by Bobbie Creeley.
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