no help for thatpoems by jackie clark

I'm moving.

2008-04-07T23:55:00.004-04:00

at least i am trying to.

am migrating to wordpress: http://nohelpforthat.wordpress.com

it's a bit more chipper looking than this blog...not sure how i feel about it yet.

FOU, for me and for you

2008-04-03T09:34:00.003-04:00

fou

a great new online journal.

my favorite line so far is from Bob Hicok's "Focal point of repeated ekphrastic stanza":

"He came down from the mountain to magnet a note to the fridge,
'I’m not coming down from the mountain.'"

Story

2008-03-22T11:06:00.002-04:00

The girl aligns all the objects in a room. She takes photos. Heralded in the corner, she pushes record and answers unheard questions into a pink and green box. The girl changes colors. She sleeps in bathing suits and thinks up instances where someone she does not know stops her. There is driving. There is no time to look at what’s leaving. There is no time to read about it in a book or underline its shapes. The pink trim speaks to the windows. It swallows up the corners but lets small buckets fill up below. She sleeps on damp blankets and doesn’t move. She dips her hand over the edge and reaches for familiar shapes, unsure if she is lying next to someone she knows. In the grey house there are two beds. One of them is close to the floor, where once she found four hands. In the house on the street with no name the bed folds open and withstands little pressure. Her body as light as it could. She has thinks about water and then packing and then about giving it all away.

Everything's hanging ever so gently

2008-03-22T11:05:00.000-04:00

Automobiles
& search lights

& intimacy sulk
down the Mississippi,

redeeming narrative
structure & direction.

If this is “I” here,
then this is not “I”

there and if we skim
along for long enough

we will outlast
what rivals our

warmly brushed faces.
Patterns menace liplessly

in the grown light,
in rolling side steps

& the indelible warmth
of all or nothing.

A lark, is a lark,
is a lark, lonely

on a empty top
& wants things

that are still
without names

on this flowing penitentiary,
wants to recollect

one isolated image:
a kitchen with high

chairs, a counter
that one can climb.

The Dream Counsel

2008-03-05T17:12:00.002-05:00

Folding chairs and folded paper

taciturn born anticipation

slinging thread crossed and knotted

covering no one, when no one is near

the open glade slides along a metallic edge

a man makes a lake to cool off the land

the ghost show stars 10 little fingers in a plastic case

pink and orange hollyhocks toned by geography in the back yard

the alignment of beetle shells on bark

toad-padded sidelines, their chins pulled tight

acquired by burnishing perimeters

red and swollen and careening

the roaring civilian incident

action waits to be retrieved from those who know better

The Smell Hound

2008-03-05T17:06:00.000-05:00

Chirping from behind the refrigerator

door, degrees varied in warm bodies

& pitching luck caught in garbage cans.

Concession made for larger skeleton hands.

There is either feeling good or feeling bad

or running with explosives duct taped

to your legs, circling around brick buildings

& glazed over by practicality.

Today

2008-02-25T23:29:00.002-05:00

The historicity of plastic molds,
dollar bills, their edges yellowed
to the wall. Festivities occur
regardless. The long flaying
peacock feather. Small paintings
like walls of crooked teeth, their eyes blinking.

Today

2008-02-25T23:28:00.003-05:00

Straight lines wrestle the crowd.
Hints of deterioration in grass work flumes
and the placement of boardwalks by salty air.
A project of unforeseen misfortunes
acquiescing in the bathtub.
We match outfits and stand close together,
our feet bunched up in tiny shoes. The superb
clank of lovers, their sugar moon in the sky all day.

Today

2008-02-25T23:28:00.002-05:00

Reduction of inking and emptying,
each day a different motion stretched.
Hands swings forward forming blush
on little cheeks and each day the glass
is cleaned and the log is lifted
a little higher than the knee, a thousand
buoyant mornings that ask the same thing.
Rendered cuff-links and paw tracks.
Altercations under building awnings
with gold poles, having finally arrived.
Careless meters, the diagram fraught
with conciliation, a constant who-done-it
brazenly rewound and rewound.
Exposition works better than remembered.
The syllable of each word, each naming.
Cherubic plastic scenes, the eyes suggesting peace.

Red Fortress

2008-02-19T23:36:00.002-05:00

Red fortress, I’ll expose to you
my undersides, my concentrating
mastery and derelict non-futures.
Carrying electrical direction as
a frame entering the ordained position
where we are caught. My legs
and the washing machine, a metal
coil and windows below as headlights
return. Barracks expanded slightly
with side streets but always nosed
in the same direction. Guiding ceiling
and descending steps, having touched
another and certain you would never be
able to pull out. Diction and sarcasm
are a constant predicament. I was certain
you only existed when I was there,
disbelief in your alacrity, your ability
to be seen by others. Fair tenderness
opposes inability. I have other ways
to conjure remarkable flooring and the idea
of hair and shaped chin. A weight
looking down upon the hollow,
feigning repose. My back wall against
introduction allies what is intentional
and what results from chance:
the whitening of extension. Serenity
articulated and refined through
fingers like industrial boxes in the distance,
releasing what they have successfully
altered. Journeys and shoulders
and nudge-nudging, a repetitive chorus,
an octave according to blue, according
to the box it emanates from. A constant
intake of ways to get out of here. Ownership
is achieved in bunches and bellows
from the height of a shelf, arms stretched
upward at nothing. Hands open wide again
and again in their well-exercised routine.

Today

2008-02-13T14:38:00.004-05:00

Lightly, without a bottom:
a present, a particle, a plastic bag.
My important impression, intently columned.
Post forward in hope of response.
Vestured space immune to nothing,
approached by nothing.
No colors, no collective baggage.
Nothing to pass down to smaller hands if smaller hands are created.
Reoccurring travels passed the same street signs
because this is the only way home and all you do is return there.
Concrete carousel, a battle of tires versus will.
Instruction has moved the body and the seasons
and the way we cloak ourselves at the table.
Vantage rings over an impersonal place and everyone answers,
everyone says hello and wonders what will follow
as efficiency is brushed over our backs, the fabrication of know-how
needing to be trimmed and postured.
Inarticulateness has resulted in many losses,
many residual handshakes and partings.

Today

2008-02-12T17:10:00.003-05:00

Argyle and wool and other warm things,
moving forward through walls,
through sounds, through what does not belong
to me. Transposing filtered grips,
ceramic guards, manes smooth and unremarkable.
A substance collector on some other moon,
the specifics are cold and invisible.
A walking rubber band returning and returning.
Streets, a fist, square shoulders, only able
to imagine the place that came before.
Auditioning with levers and supplies
you have looked upon over and over
in your nighttime room and compared
against lists you’ve been keeping,
lists that you’ve carried in back pockets,
in folded squares close to your chest.
Instructional biologies, a web characterized by collars
and trains that run from the center to a different
theory, expectation not withstanding.

Secondary Phenomenon

2008-02-10T23:35:00.001-05:00

& twilight skies stuffed with blue, punctured
regionally & lower in your direction. Bells
impressing a heavy construction, a recognition
of what was previous or what clacking it accompanied.
Elemental measurements & potential equations,
adding machines repetitively pressed as items
are swept from shelf to basket. I am creating
an accurate representation of myself, allied
by little plastic bottles with little tiny text
& a group of other conditionals. The camera
is responsible for capturing not for what gets repeated.
A rolling tangent, the street outside my office
is happy in its leisure. It doesn’t sigh or lure
it just sits like a mailbox empty of mail.
Not a posture of context but pressed instinct.

Today

2008-02-10T23:34:00.002-05:00

The lights controlled by some outside place,
sitting in unchosen darkness.
Saying the same thing, strained eyes and readjusting,
this routine weekly bartering.
We choose stories to tell, ones with arcs that reach the ceiling.
We put them in envelopes and write names on them.
Sensitive eardrums trailing through the pipes,
which deposit what they carry elsewhere.
There just isn’t as much to imagine anymore.
One red string.
Blurry and captured particles displayed in rows,
the origins of each described by flicking switches,
opening and closing the light,
revealing a passive mantle full of dusty jars
filled with pennies, their copper faces kissing in darkness.
There are not many little feelings,
but one large one with many sides,
like rolling quartz between ones fingers
or down the ravine, a product of a gap that has closed,
until all sides are smooth and indistinguishable.
The damn a final resting place for what cannot by nature adapt any more.
Instructions only so flexible, like when there is a glare and we squint.
Rotating vocabulary and present tense.
Metal guides its own way through the snow and we watch.

Sol System

2008-02-05T14:59:00.001-05:00

Eloquent fastenings unspun, fired off onto the flatness
of the landscape. The fond herding gathered strong,

evened-off in inquiry. Piveting bridges constructed long
after there is anywhere to follow. The great curve flecked

with instinct and safeways. I am no longer interested
in any of this, joining eventual semblance with clavicles

prominent only in forlorn stretch. It is warm
inside, blinking and gazing amongst what clams

around our bodies. Of places unseen I imagine
nothing or instead an echoing caveat and then

one chair, empty of body. The rough terra
regional to our destinations marred by fingertips.

From the Person Lodged Within

2008-01-27T23:52:00.001-05:00

Dear Foundational Viaducts,

What do you look like in small pieces
and how close can I get before I taste
your chalky soot on my breath? Disbelief
manages to settle here though nothing
is mandated. I have mastered this hierarchy,
this large white space that greets each
evening and looks down upon me, despite
inward insecurities. I long to practice
granulated motions, powdered arches
brushed softly together, gathered
with certain tenderness and engineered
by the presence of my fist and the way
it meets the ground. You provide
too many routes, unmarked and only known
by those whose feet shuffle one after
the other. I have lain in your framework
and made guesses at what lies beyond,
determined to understand what accounts
for the quiet way you allow me to remain.

Today

2008-01-12T12:28:00.000-05:00

Opposed to the middle, land humming
like hamlets, deplorable vacancies and pastures
Settling words, often enticing,
every line eventually leads straight.
Inspiration located outside in unreachable realms,
the insipid caw of something much older
Making sense of impenetrable episodes that are shortened and condensed:
My movie for you where I wave from a distance but keep moving ahead.
No one really sees attrition, plant-life, passing paddocks
and the morning hand which turns rectangular dimensions;
the way we greet what only passes.
The black length I sit behind,
equipped songbirds on the ledge,
nothing is bigger than this moment
in its fatigue like crescent moons, allowing shadows
as its dragged across the nylon, the fists
of endtime and narrow sounds. I am always listening.

Today

2008-01-12T12:27:00.000-05:00

Reason intervenes and betrays no one
as its impetus goes unquestioned,
collecting things that get carried
and make us full of wrath,
like tangible windows, windexed and pondered.
Outside there are voices that do not come from within
Manners approach lithely,
wrestling the plaster that falls from above,
what is obscured in habit:
a large padded body that harms in turn

Today

2008-01-12T12:26:00.000-05:00

The prospect having arrived at the place,
having been asked to be here.
What great play do we submit?
A rummage, ceaseless hand wringing.

Today

2008-01-12T12:25:00.000-05:00

Crest-ridden or disembodied,
nuanced figments belabor the hard surface.
Disbelief, instance, then predicament,
the railroad and you fixing the point
until we are certain there is nothing left that waits.
We ask questions, uncertain how to keep our eyes open.
Our engaged retinas pass forward in repetitive language.
Remember how this story repeats
and stands awaiting reflection.

Today

2007-12-13T00:35:00.001-05:00

And then there is always this.
How desperate it is to return,
holding so much in the times between.
Excuses like cold, like fables for the moral.
Where else is there water that drips,
a rhythmic knot that thumps close by.
Unwelcome drafts prone to backing away,
why one hand experiences it more than another.
Entire cycles crammed into months, crammed into years.
Falling tendrils like parted hands,
guided by what happens to follow.
I am only here because there is nothing else.
Is it worth knowing the product of others’ invention
and the way they drag the net through what they’ve contained?
How long is the lowering
and what resists against shortened light?
I can hear the words that people speak
and sit in restored rooms,
nodding and sighing
and applauding when my brain catches the signals.
I can walk and stop and pass.
There is no other record,
insular and packaged,
tallied for outside reasons.
Nothing has been kept.
A circle burns in unison
and I go looking for a way to put out half,
a certain threat of instability
and other generalized likes:
to forget this cold that pushes passed the window
and the weakness of prepositions.
Without removing one space,
one inexplicably large waterway and what moves through it.
In the middle where the helm is met.

Today

2007-12-13T00:29:00.000-05:00

No outside glance.
Footfalls in competition with duration.
Our green cherries hang generously from above.
The individual speaks of further roads,
unconcerned with one description or another.
My hands heavy and uneventful,
either cupped or isolated,
weighted with impression or uninterest.
These things take time to figure out.
For instance, the way the shingles overlap,
the way they sit across what under it protects.
Sensibility has everything to do with it,
driving through beach front towns made of stone.
The brown pebbles of nature reserves and insects,
houses left to stand alone.

Today

2007-12-04T16:27:00.000-05:00

A series of catching up
and people who make
something small feel big.
Unsmooth stones create the floor,
enclosed by picture books
and other stories told with sight.
Unbearing anticipation slows
passing over steps,
placement oblong and specified.
Waist lines in foreign tongues
tucked under, then displayed.
We are working on a story much bigger
involving double doors and old consistencies
We are enlightened by the passing storm
and car rides across the state,
repeating as a manner of keeping

Today

2007-11-18T22:30:00.000-05:00

People walk with umbrellas
and slow their pace when storefronts blink.
Lines of plastic adapters,
silver welds of rings or chains.
Unexpected rebuttals, instant heartbreak.
The crackle of your mouth against the speaker
Indulging supplication,
a dark season, fed little pills.
Less automation in barren anomalies.
Etiquette goes quick.
There are times when other people want more.
Real estate arranged in hollow bones
Each cage equipped with small passages,
malleable frames
Engines steered safely under ledges,
a false start pushed out in secrecy
Who knows from where you are being watched,
what cache yields what result.

Today

2007-11-18T22:28:00.000-05:00

Drawing closed, drawers
and other things with latches.
Hands as pleasure, nodes of the quarry.
Radio frequencies positioned in lulls,
in the red room where you sleep.
At night I know you are one room over,
my bed positioned by the door.
The stable pride of things called home:
despondent handiwork and paper craft,
a sudden drawing to musty smells.