Islets/Irritations
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Charles Bernstein
CHARLES BERNSTEIN is author of Pitch of Poetry and All the Whiskey in Heaven: Selected Poems. He is the Donald T. Regan professor of english and comparative literature at the University of Pennsylvania.
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Islets/Irritations - Charles Bernstein
Islets / Irritations
ISLETS/IRRITATIONS
Charles Bernstein
Copyright © 1983 and 1992 by Charles Bernstein.
All rights reserved.
Grateful acknowledgement to Jordan Davies who originally published this book and whose design has been carried over into this new edition.
Cover by Deborah Thomas.
ISBN: 0-937804-47-9
Library of Congress Catalog Card No.: 92-80987
This book was made possible, in part, by a grant from the New York State Council on the Arts.
Roof Books
are published by
Segue Foundation
303 East 8th Street
New York, New York 10009
CONTENTS
Islets/Irritations
Cue
Sprocket Damage
Lift Plow Plates
Force of Habit
was, rain, dish
Staged Marches
Motion Sickness
Gradation
Contradiction Turns to Rivalry
Parameter
Neutral Density Filter
A Question
Asylum
Even So
The Klupzy Girl
Cedar
Cover
The Day Dark Is When You I Cannot See
Signs of the Particularities
Nine’s Redaction
Lapidary Entropy
Baggage
Sever
Looking About
Substance Abuse
The Measure
Celestial Mechanic
Lode (Mrs. Mao at Gulag)
Part Quake
ISLETS/IRRITATIONS
to proper to behindless weigh in a rotating,
rectilinear our plated, embosserie des petits cochons
pliant feint insensate, round bands of immense
release fell, a crudity form of the assignment—
increase by venture populace animated by appeal
to which ends, almonds, lacquered unguents embrasure
matter articulate as trails percolated, pertinent
graceless simulation beak in otherwise pleasant up
and may this, after appropriate as to kind of
scopes deadline & partly muttered motioned
reversal, assume who certain elsewhere pertain
calling the guarded eyelids lacrimonious discoloration
all the more polished predisposed making matters
blemish shops sitting out with brittle tooling
tonight, in the state of the long-lent, long-tokened
shrugment languishing piano advisory lodging,
larger plate glass divertimento mildly fretted
ocular disproof the bleak the black the all too scanned
propose, then purpose porpoise resilient inventory,
lackadaisical compliance pumped of substantiation
sense your—raise the exchange moonstruck destitution
the count, which is imposed or, anyway, of at
least briefly strikes in reply at least necessarily
here the infinitely complex in, the patience
short, that it, & then cushions of soda pop frizzing
out of all proportion grandied apples, candied glasses
insomniac trees quake and lips buttoned, voices
sealed topiary delights, topological regressions
current as of noisome targets toe tapping tabulation
exquisitely contoured schmuck mistrusts what alone
abjures indecent confidence flaunting their contusions
I describe a square, a parking lot, a battering ram—you
begin to coast archeologic tires rhythms, braces
awash to climate torque riding with botanic insufficiency
indentured savant flukes & floats for at least,
with no more urgency than took to, leading in absolution,
lost to nomenclature, hardly applicable incidental curtains
barometer rises, volition stutters the gleam, assigned
to the anterior triangle of the heart’s lost longing
infinite impression, unarguable casement ventriloquizes
human semblance the dust of the docks ardour, departing
window empathy that does not outlast car starts
vacant explosion the swoosh of the ill-conceived
major repairs, minor concessions suitably deplaned
outage upsurge out-of-line puckishness impeccable
redress, relished resentment who forever floats, bent
by the tide, recrystallized, plumb line by billow board,
marbleized, infraplanetary, belly bound, dioramas of memory’s
echo chamber, flatly mesmerizing the woof and warp of the
screened barnacled remonstrations, paralyzing half-wants
inconsequence beleaguered by surreptitious separations
estimating marsupial planarity graded remnant in hot
pursuit self-congratulating fluorescence arguably
inoperative—beats way down, sort of slingshot zoom, replicating
morons passionate precepts undermined by falling chairs
wafers on their way to class drains of the inaudible
assembly, jars of consent and stacks of by interest is
numbed, the bodiless stare of the oracular preference
slurping the sums "my mission was to, I no longer saw
the …" hypnonarcolepsy avuncular tenancy