landscaped
moving,
oppressive fantasies
at play
driven by scratch
and caress
stab, hammer
small motors control
mechanisms
spoons, shoes, suitcases
mercury coal around
and round: the handicraft world
smiles its own cage;
as a vertebrate’s poise before collapse.
a shimmering wake
(entrapment, escape.)
boundaries in the plastic mind
are fetters
to open thinking–
mark bed sheets with
cello strains
suspended
another blue portal
chalked in. floating
a pond onto the wall.
spatial imagination
dimensions variable
only to achieve their result.
thoughts upon the style of architecture
sullen system of indifference
convulsed
irresistible security
connecting
the building in question
to all proportion.
the loss we have
sustained, destruction
by fire, the field
that calamity has opened
improved taste.
perplexing.
clothed in the times,
a language so powerless
shall fail.
outside elements
I fear rust.
a sordid disguise for the emptied self that
condoned faceless gangs trumpeting the tragic.
a collision.
a sudden collective shroud,
collusion
resins of polyester,
glass fiber, foam core
structure of the natural world.
allow for retrieval of
speckled repose,
the numinous
unmechanical
shallow space.
an assertive field
reconciled indulgence with mutation.
the elements flattening, flattering each other
concentric.
polished brass lapses
into welded steel
subjugated to personal ends.
lends form to
unhewn marble. sniffs at
the snuff bottles,
educated doubt.
housework is a pleasant game
the ideal home:
- stability and shelter from constant flux
- a busy yet leisured life
- a nation of gardeners and housewives
- long walks in the country
- the reading of the newspaper and baking of the bread
many women have no homes
- home as site of citizenship
- conservative and respectable ordinariness
- uninspiring chairs and monotonous tables
holograms
a fantastic seizing of reality–
taking the real by surprise,
translucid.
a field is vanishing
in reversed depth into
materialized transparency.
circling around oneself,
there is no equivalent in the mirror
no luminous clone, dead twin.
the never born watches over
as concentrated light
and abstract scalpel–
all the force of evidence
is true, is truly
Betsy Fagin's work appears in a variety of journals including Fence,
How2, the tiny, Van Gogh’s Ear, Women’s Studies Quarterly and Word
For/Word. She is the author of For Every Solution There is a Problem
(Open 24 Hours, 2003) and Rosemary Stretch (dusi/e-chap, 2006) as well
as a number of self-published chapbooks.