Apartment Poetry Quarterly

11A              11B              11C              11D              11E              11F

 

10E Nathaniel Rosenthalis

 

A FOLD

Laughter latticed light
a line that is white and softens
into a flourish of lace

then muted switches to a ringing

in the ears then muted

A light that makes us doubt even the music that we hear

The one that is playing now

“Sublime” passes through your lips

Laughter shatters texture shatters laughter

Dear Jean, this is set in a dream full of talkative people and textile

Its edges are linen and doubt

A party that takes place
at a blast furnace photographed
by Hilla and Bernd Becher

where the dreamlight
of heavy industry
reacquaints us to a face








EXCURSUS TO UTOPIA

The science has touched upon what we jettisoned
away. A metal needle to steer the ship. Soft
calamity. Problems of association.
Into commerce against my will. The constant nothing
meeting danger. Its will announcing the weather.
Stringed nullities, future’s echoes, bees attracted to work.

Then met in human terms, a chemical model
of reason, measured harm, accumulation of
tone. Motes suspended in a beam of the fiscal
spirit. Which nature mirrors. Point in pivot. Mise
en abyme. Pivot in point. In chemical terms,
this human model. The clocks expected. Spirit to work.

And perennially we. Like music overcome.
By a memory of numbers. An interval
minimum. Harmonized rest. Then the hymn is sung.
Then the rest harmonized -- acoustical fieldwork.
Architecture rapt in the growing of flowers.
Sunrise held. In every phalanstery. From work to work.

Then the traces read questions concerning habits
of mind. Our post-industrial charm. The uses
of prophecy, any number of enticements.
If the operations of if interiorized
opera. The operative world distracted.
Its widened scope. A swallow flits by. On the way to work.

And the reveries compiled. The management of
forests. By means of sound. A god or matter writ
till rote. Appeared anonymously in Lyon.
The passional events ending when. Whence, when sung.
Given consequence. A pure sentiment forms.
When gathered together. As if by chance. Meaning to work.