Material Space
Material Space 4
Material Space
/ porcelain
cleaning rag, the kitchen bathroom
with its sink of flowers,
flowering remains. Not asking have
the sunshine window framed by
yellow, pigments in the water’s
fragrance, staining the eye quick.
the house whole, rain window
sills white; air rubbed whole
in the cold. Our hands
chafing, rubbed with vaseline, a
glossy film on the water, smears,
adhering to the petals, porcelain.
wiping lint grease from the
floor , eroded tiles clean, a
shaven face, water evaporates leaving
the glass dry, the mirror
open, endless overcast infiltrates the
rooms, wiping our skin clean.
// ivory
happy smile plays flute.
trimmed, hearing ivory in
its edge, a trifle
touching.
vain in loving
virtuous, a virile trap.
we gave grateful, hungry,
sharing the other’s throat.
elliding the difference, swallow
fricative blurred liquids,
soft palette absorbing the queered
lemon tasting high sound.
/// amber
scotch bled—------a tooth
dull amber in its
ache, preserved in fluid
like old glass, remembers
apple, and creak of
ice water, the crushing
pressure of the bone.
so delicate the tongue
is loath to probe
along the gum, unhinge
and drink another tumbler.
IV narrowing
allowed to continue, a natural stop in the throat’s pitch, a corded ring, tightening, that whistles where the shape is thin. muscle spindles stretched, forced air irritates the throat with dust inhaled and coughing briefly, emphasis or indication of patience.
dry carries. Distinct. kept to a shape the hissing underneath wrung white. ground. The levelling continuous, whistling eats the silence.
an edge is noise, subsists between the interval, to calm. the air’s calm forced, each vocal wakening a need to speak, within coherence.
V shore
line breaking at the rippled edge, edge and strewn along the shell line’s questioning. written in sand-to-water flatness, collecting fragments. the brighter colours in commotion. turbulence sorts shells by weight and surface, lines as tide recedes, laid along the contours, then edges up the beach, gathering higher, the rim awareness sea will blur with sand.
VI boundary layer
Continuous movement ruptured by the friction of its surface tensions, the muscle rupture spasms as our skin adheres. water pearls on fat, films, the sheen evaporating. dries as boundary layers dissolve. dry heat and mucous flares. the viscous boundaries gel, irritant, exposed to air.
VII
plural a confusion
in one flock,
flight. Is abandoning
altitude, at rest
innumerable differences prevail.
startle & evade.
is to vanish
part of the
world, its seeming.
VIII stain
aluminium pit, aloe
a purgative, allow.
loess accumulating
fill for static.
dry river, mordant
holds the dye
fast, insoluble
ash as litter.
sputtering clean to
heat or current
passes cooling
resistance. forgiving forget.
burned for scent
slow oxidation whitening
the metal resists
refractory, absorbing airs
IX
exempt sustain, the
interval transparent
decays. Idle
gracing an attempt.
equal weighted, the
hum eating softness,
filtered soft and
porous, a ceramic’s
permittivity higher than
the air’s. Is
kept intact, a
static saturation.
X
stress creak fills with pitch,
muting the damage. at higher
elevations density absorbs the growth;
sound falls off into an
always immediate distance. lost hours
every day is full. edging
Into the dark. a year contained
by cold’s effort, trying to
speak. this futile attribution of
a sound is not silence.
XI
cold tightened growth
rings a higher
pitch, close grained,
eliminating moisture from
the wood, a vertical
imperative delayed.
capacitance enhanced by
shorter days, alignments
the frost ruptures,
repeated intervals ascending
a logarithmic scale.
an interval reduced.
the year closed.
frost hardened,
wood splits clean
XII
eliminate debris, the cost
escalates, indifferent to the
time allowed. to retract
an existence denied, is
claimed as part of
the common. externality.
put outside to waste.
a shared expense depleting
a need prevails.
XIII
mine an attempt, tunnelling,
the means exist until
exhausted, and the walls slip.
air yellowing, expelled from
lungs shrink, wrapped in
black belonging. the tailings
end useless in pools,
slowly burning the groundwater.
are possessed, owning the
substrate, responsible for
another use. concentration
degraded, eroding the slope.
XIV
a litmus burn the creek
random burrows in its slope.
valley deepening its sides slide
closer. more intimate in the
rain. different exposure obsess a
need for control. a delay
the rain makes immediate. filtered,
soil’s imprecise smooth space drawing
capillary flows. its surfaces a
volume take on weight, collapsing
fill, dimensions collapse into a
direction under. opening the slope
consumes itself, buries its potential.
XV
decay the condensation
quiet, a flaw
in air’s static
Growing crystal. each
imperfect repetition blank.
XVI
a perfect solvent’s infinite
dispersal shared, cannot
be known, eliminating doubt.
what is will not
complete, preference seeking
a lower potential rest.
XVII
Rust’s slow burn releasing currents the edge bleeds into a ground. Each shock tiny and abrupt. A precise freedom. A reduction in exchange. The metal’s electric softness blurs the film, absorbing the random flux, and stripped of free electrons is inert. Dry longing. Nothing given to air is kept. Or wants to be. The solution absolved is shred, our weakness vain.
XVIII The Large Glass
laundered air’s dust damp
chill in the glass
clings to the hum.
breeding infiltrates the cracks
the ion swarms uneasy
equilibrium, sensitive to touch.
a ground to drain
uncertainty, the line’s crazing
infinite confine.
XIX
gift wrapping the
fine dry powder’s
permission to ignite.
empty between points
the flash connects,
any present could
explode in the
past. a gift
of no particular
value, no determined
use. I choose
a plain paper.
XX
edge crumbling flame
around the circle
stifled. Breath consuming
what’s exhaled, aware
of smaller intervals,
goes out. absorbed
Into its own
refuse. Healing our
dependencies claim us.
infrathin
an empty glass of water
This is the centre of gravity for the book, where the key concerns are at play: material, words as material, how material and meaning (words) interact to create space.
The poem ends with an infrathin. An infrathin is Duchamp’s ‘infrathin” but also an infrafinite number.
Duchamp’s infrathins.
Physical Trace: “The warmth of a seat (which has just been left)”.
Time Lapse: “The separation between the detonation noise of a gun (very close) and the appearance of the bullet hole in the target”.
Repetition: The tiny differences between two objects created from the same mold.
Sensory: The sound of velvet trousers moving (the brushing of the two legs).
Subtle Blending: “When the tobacco smoke smells also of the mouth which exhales it, the 2 orders marry by infrathin”
An infrathin is the minute, almost imperceptible gap or difference between two things that are almost identical, or the ephemeral, momentary traces of existence.
The ephemeral, momentary trances are infrafinites.
One can add or subtract an infrafinte to a number without changing it. Just as one can add infinity to a transfinite number without changing it. The always fleeting present is an infrafinite. The eternal is transfinite. We live connecting the two.
First published as Material Space in The Art of Practice: 45 Contemporary Poets, edited by Dennis Barone and Peter Ganick, 1994.