FROM THE METHOD
BEATING OUT OF ITS SOMEWHERE PRINCELY BODY
the Method switches clothes with scarecrows.
Overlooking a broad, broad county fair in mid-Missouri,
muttering the words for wonder:
Miracula Mirus Miror
Mysterious loadstone
Glowing carbuncle
Petrifying springs
A tin man, escaped from Kansas,
wishes he had a heart.
Our mechanical friend buys two tickets for the merry-go-round.
Tin man, riding behind, rips this ticker from its horse,
title, deed, tombstone, coin, picture, etc.
PARCHMENT, PLEASE
Near the year
1000
we find
Maximos Planudes
nude
writing to a friend
in Asia Minor
asking for parchment
because the right quality
is not for sale
in his own neighborhood,
presumably Constantinople.
In the end,
all he receives
are some asses’ skins,
which do not please
him in the least,
and a note:
Dear Max,
No parchment
till the summer,
months after the population
begins to eat meat.
Low yield
should come as no surprise,
our medieval animals
being much smaller
than their modern
counterparts.
Love,
A. Minor
THE METHOD SOMEHOW SURVIVES THE
FOURTH CRUSADE
If there were wire-pullers at work,
the great artery of the city, Triumphal Way,
resembled a constellation:
rank and road mud oversea
oversee
1800 ships
crossbowmen broadbeamed merchant men
ballistas
spear-hurling catapults
designed by a method-maker
“a party of drunken Franks set the mosque on fire”
bahariz (folk from the sea) ate all eels in the river
leaving
a grappled prow an iron beak
casks sunken in water
& crimson devices he had “taken the cross”
banners fathom only after
“provisions for the host” amass
mast
the method
crouching in
his corner
hides,
rearranging his
organs, “heart
stay here,” he
says, “but keep
ticking
but softly,”
he says.
I take courage and flee,
carry it carefully
in my pants
& under my hat
spotted pards
sing a song
& its like looking
at a noise
faraway, closer
THE METHOD MEETS YOUNG LOVE AMONG
THE ROFES
“dear is my little native vale”
“dear is my two on the banks”
“dear is my tank in a field”
“dear is my friendly dog, O”
“dear is my eel in a bowl”
“dear is my stew in the pot”
“dear is my god on a cloud”
“dear is my tree by the road”
“dear is my ghost in a bed”
“dear is my bird in the bush”
“dear is my hand on a rod”
“dear is my love
among the rofes.”
THE METHOD INTERVIEWS A MONK
Was Christianity given to man by God from the beginning?
No, God acts like a schoolmaster.
How could you prove the origin of Christianity is divine?
A tree is known by its fruits.
Does God provide for the world He created?
If a hut is left neglected for a little while, it becomes a ruin.
How does the conscience work?
When we are going to perform any act, the conscience, if our act agrees with the will of God, persistently and imperatively orders us to proceed to the act.
Describe a Church to me.
A church is always a large and imposing building proclaiming the piety of the congregation, and so built that those who pray in it shall look Eastward; for the natural sun was always considered as an emblem of “the Father of lights.”
What tools are used for the Liturgy of the Catechumens?
The asterisk and the disc, the spoon, the spear, the oblation.
IN PALESTINE
Its hard to hate a people,
Method chants,
Saba, Savva,
old man,
fiih,
when you’ve read
their poetry.
Sasha Steensen is the author of A Magic Book (Fence Books) and
correspondence (with Gordon Hadfield, Handwritten Press). Her new
manuscript, The Method, is forthcoming from Fence Books in late 2008.
A chapbook entitled The Future of an Illusion will be out with Dos
Press in May, 2008. Recent work has appeared in Aufgabe, Denver
Quarterly, Shiny, Goodfoot, and Shearsman. She is one of the poetry
editors of Colorado Review and she co-edits Bonfire Press. She
teaches Creative Writing at Colorado State University.