Free Under the Sign by Ann Lauterbach Page A

be her portrait
    or to be someone else
    not like the mother or the sister
    not like the man in the hotel room in his bathrobe
    with his whore and his
    unspeakable
    so that the only thing to be said
    is you cannot do that with me in the room
    the walls of the room and the long view across the river
    where there are others in their rooms
    and the house from the other side of the river
    looks immense
    as the life within is immense.

LANDSCAPE WITHOUT VIEW
    These intensities   their wake   the jar
    fret the word
    snow on dry leaves   fret fret
    the jar dark inside within   in the dark
    body o body not that anyone is here
    the thick stiff night’s
    curled domain
    as of now   how it is spoken
    the slide between
    the mere passage
    Â                      fret
    and surely the blind spot
    the occasion
    emphatic     these intensities
    not sheltered not yet drawn
    by the most implicated
    what it looks like
    to halt           crassly halt
    and the new digital figure
    axiomatic grace
    semblance ushered from sequence
    avenue or image
    sucking at the animate
    these contagious exceptions
    fugitive incursions
    even so the turbines hum
    licking at stone
    the contagion of stone
    peevish annunciation
    melded onto a screen
    as if intimate
    invisible constraint
    as if tempered
    as if conditions prevailed.

NIGHT NEWS WITH FAKE ZEBRA
    Let us move more quickly, night,
now night, star-encrusted, opulent.
    The indictment of thought
is an opal’s smooth version.
    Guard our sensations, be copious
or at least perform adequate
    vistas. I saw a pair of eagles
from the train. The train trains on.
    They, their sitting.
Night: longer than their perch.
    We: gathered and copious.
The eagles: a pair.
    I warrant the arrest of the boy
who shot another boy in this sad.
    In this sad, would you have said no?
Bickering, passing the gun, a game
    of pass the gun.
There are gangs.
    This is not a lesson.
A transformation of the subject
    into another subject. Not to insist.
Velvet Revolution, Velvet Underground.
    Lou, hello Lou? Can you hear?
I am here in the dark church
    imagining an improvised history
as if channeling the news.
    The eagles sit at the edge of the river.
The camera is out of earshot. Jack
    Spicer is about to speak
into the nearest phenomenon
    while the deer
while the dear
    spelled d/e/a/r
halts naturalism
    and a new equation
only you in the pews can solve.
    Are we lost among our subjects?
The lone bobcat
    Andrew and I saw
traverses
    an ancient and incendiary
commotion. Hunting season
    under the big tent.
And then there was a magician
    strolling along in broad daylight
with something up his sleeve.
    There is a silver zebra
on a silver tray in a gallery in New York.
    to Michael Joo

AFTER NEWTOWN
    Maybe there’s a top at the end of
the world made by someone else.
    Maybe it spins and becomes a blur
of river and sounds
    windy. And the girl
who arrives and who gets to hold
    the top at the end of the world
and to pull and push
    so that it spins into blue rivers
seems never to die.
    A train passes on the ridge.
The hemlock branches wave.

UGLY SONNET
    Shame vanquishes the old school.
Truck stop rape. A or the women
    falls or fall under the wheels
of chatter around truck stop rape.
    Besieged by glare; the untidy
aperture of historical accounting for
    truck stop rape. Flare of paper in wind.
Some sirens, some typing on small
    handheld instruments. Minimal
delay but very little inclusion beyond
    truck stop rape. Everywhere she saw
eyes looking back into the harbor
    where there had been an accident and
no chance to escape the truck. Stop rape.

WORLD CUP
    The world allows   stop me at any point
    I am so sorry   idea symbol procedure
    allows for   tennis   Roger Federer
    try not to consume the view   I am really sorry
    after the fact       after     more than a few
    flying in the face of necessity     allows
    for error   invariably corrected   the