Farnoosh Fathi

Tennessee: We are here, between trees, with the tempo of a rosary being strung in a queue of escalating beads— Carolina: It’s not quite the count in the countinghouse of my chest but the heart does make an awful attempt t: and a circle wherever it may be there was music coming on c: which though machinery-like moves not in cogs, and never springs, but waves through t: like wired applause for antic backstage buds on the pre-comeuppance buzz; but it fades c: but only after the chorus has pulsed t: it drops off with sudden decision, like fountain water gone dross c: or it reaches the furthest point the branch turns from us, and is for some arc fully quiet... t: until the roulette snaps its jaw and the choir’s circuit opens to one c: like a pigeon unhinged, its wings in sudden white-rumped ascent t: unopposed by iridescence c: unopposed by iridescence

BEEF: We are here between trees, with the tempo of a rosary being strung in a queue of escalating beads— BEEF: It's not quite the count in the countinghouse of my chest but the heart does make an awful attempt BEEF: a tee and a circle wherever it may be there was music coming on BEEF: which though machinery-like moves not in cogs, and never springs, but waves through BEEF: like wired applause for antic backstage buds on the pre-comeuppance buzz; but it fades BEEF: but only after the chorus has pulsed BEEF: it drops off with sudden decision, like fountain water gone dross BEEF: or it reaches the furthest point the branch turns from us, and is for some arc fully quiet... BEEF: until the roulette snaps its jaw and the choir's circuit opens to one BEEF: like a pigeon unhinged, its wings in sudden white-rumped ascent BEEF: unopposed by iridescence BEEF: unopposed by iridescence

Whose table is that, left on three legs? If there’s been a mistake, it may be in assuming less vulnerability as one fills the vase— whose buoyant comfort exaggerates at the sight of his own proffered, sympathetic hand, striking him so clean in comparison gloved white, magician—for a sec he even sees the calla lily’s furl in the gesture of voilà!

This was more like the atmosphere had been pinched, whose chirp was an unexpected gust in a harmonium enough to break all that high horse talk that curdles the atmosphere. While centaurs ate grass and hurdled epitaphs, that chirp in the midst did change one of us. 'Twas clawed out in a feeling’s flock 'Twas 'couraged by the tall grass

Over the night a bull Whispers into a coal :Unmeant in the stall to sit and plate, But sixth, with all the senses, To consume— Incorporate— those signal Impressions which are (we know) its fate: In explosions, in hard strides, His coattails fly; to bits, to friends Craven and brave. Sadness undulates at their back. His lilt's a cotillion of flies. But how he charges, he commits! Each to the next. It seems unfair, a target lies Between its shoulder blades.

A snail sank — grand in puss and rime, on three coils (equals one tea-wheel) white. The wheel brings the bill, the bill — bald. Everyone goes in for the table, the tablecloth is of water. One says huh — one morning high on a grape I dropped off — a dunce — and exacted my height, and rightly so: it is a height I won’t have made alone. It is a height erring on all sides. The bride slip’n slides on her back to us — then on her head (a ball-point pen), quicksand in her hair. A man beside her, his mouth is like a dark arch for her. My mouth is death to you! In this new rhythm how can I say, how can I thank you, for I feel a blessing running through my tale now, it shines — intestines — that I will can.

Left a hole on fire agony or was it the sun on the banks and near duets? Eagles with the white wine of the sun clink and spill, tall grass over head and heels . . . Space of hell: shy, inscribed already but alone— I think I can be that again, a new hole in the ongoing flute. In a leap, the country glows— to hone the fate that wonder exacts, to go netted through that much, so heavy as paperweights angels land square on chaparral nerves. And since names must give in spades, out of sorts like these, your reactions may swell great fountain lips— a promise that a wish will purge or pennies caravan the safe return hearts cross.

for John Ashbery “Good Barber of the Pea!” I exhumed, high into the vag where the barber keeps his pea— “Good Sprout!” His mouth, his gray and hunted tongue always in the distance— "No use denying we master the particular service we deny ourselves. In the shade of this pea (the sum of his shade and the gavel flexing above his head) I will become a milliner to cover what work I’ve done. Or else, I’ll begin anew at the infant chin, where nothing grows but chins! Outside, snails, vines, surpass me and must—gaining pews upon pews. But don’t think for a sec I don’t know the way out of here, that release is one hair—spiral stair—top of which cleavage evaporates”

For John Ashbery “Good Barber of the Pea!” I exhumed, high into the vag where the barber keeps his pea — “Good Sprout!” His mouth, his gray, hunted tongue, always in the distance — “No use denying we master the particular service we deny ourselves. In the shade of this pea (the sum of his shade and the gavel flexing above his head) I will become a milliner to cover what work I’ve done. Or else, I’ll begin anew at the infant chin, where nothing grows but chins! Outside, snails, vines, surpass me and must — gaining pews upon pews. But don’t think for a sec I don’t know the way out of here, that release is one hair — spiral stair — top of which cleavage evaporates”