David Meltzer - "The Art / The Veil" David Meltzer - The Art/The Veil1

THE ART / THE VEIL

by David Meltzer
so sheer between what's right
and will be wronged
let's say the Taiwanese couple
on stage tonight in their launderette
washing and drying clothing
watched by two teenagers
in a non-descript Duster
windows fogged over with
potsmoke, fear and talk
with one gun between them
and an idea to rob
not for money
but to knife that veil
between them
and the good life
[]
In the hole he counted heartbeats
but got scared they'd stop
listened to broken pipes
under the shit-hole in the floor
finally read the Bible they give you
but his religion wasn't in a book
unless it's the telephone book
so he stayed alive counting
letters, commas, periods
[]
The veil

existed before he was born
and between his arising
shadowed the world he moved through
reaching for dim forms he thought
brought light
[]
It was perfect
and we're all good at our jobs
but someone imperfect
bumped into the gun
looking somewhere else
and all hell broke loose
but it was only because
we're good at our jobs that
everyone got away clean
[]
The veil

between what's called heart
and the real evil

TV cameras and goons
monitor constant rebellion
whispers, life —
sustaining schemes

Everyone listens
for their turn
like Shaharazad
keep the axe away another day

Listening and telling
learning how
but never the same again
inside or outside
utterly clear
about the real evil
and what is called heart
[]
The scar

of that moment
without time
clocked rage
knife thrown at
Lilith
lands
half into my left
pinky
half
onto the table
time begins in sudden pain
wound's mouth pours
reassuring blood
onto wood
[]
The veil

the moment when nothing is left
no control
a blank
time gone
her kitchen knife
in your hand
in her heart
and a new life begins
in the old fear
running out the door
buried with blood
everything too clear
the lights
no where to go
[]
How cold

outside and inside this iron
I nightly write against
on paper she once wore as bride
down burning stairs
for my love
[]
The piercing

Sunday late noon
a needle through his thumb
straight through it
the thread almost laughing
moving in and around
what would no longer be
a fingerprint on file
sworls of skinweb pierced
torn open just a bit
and blood managed out like a sap
he sucked
knowing full well there was no snake
except in his head
asleep, mutating
[] [] []
Organizing these myths these trends these
traditions these rituals
this history this pattern
this secret this hope

Organizing these stars into one bright dot of hot
white light

As simple as that
[]
Once
each piece of paper
on the desk, on the dresser
even on the floor
could be accounted for
there for a reason
[]
Old Munakata
like the poet
looks up
sees his face in wood
and cuts it out
[]
Old Munakata
blind in one eye
the other wide behind
thick glass lens
Beethoven's 9th full-blast
carves a nude woman
into and out of a wood plank
as swift as a calligrapher
[]
Angel in eyelid moves like a corpse
floating in pink waters
molecule wings
outlined in gold flame

drifting back and forth across the lens
bombarded by star points
[]
It is easier to say nothing.
But recently I elaborated.
Yes, I told the reporter
My poems are often connected to one
theme or symbol, long, aspected.
Yesterday all I wrote were haiku,
short and final. No difference.

She took it all down
in shorthand.
[]
Awoke to see the Jew upon a ruin
Upon the brass bed my body fell to pieces on.
Perched like a parrot.
I'm free of you, he whines.
Free of your bones, your dark hot skin.
I'm the angel all your poems could never be.
Look into my eyes.
What do you see of yourself, your words?
Walls. Dense and doubled. No door.
Now go on with your life and let me to mine.
Sooner or later the visions open up again.
A familiar wound
Clanging.
[]
Cigarette smoke in my hair
This is the cafe.
I open my mouth
Smoke curls out.
Not a ghost.
A poet in the bottom
Looking up.

I'm sure it's the city
I'm a plant not a factory.
Return me to green.
I'll be okay
Watching flowers grow.
Let it rain.
The sky reads me like a book.
[]
Light on ancient text.
Flicker of word
Moving into word.
They ask me what I do.
Enough.
[]
Abruptly Europe dies.
Bloody tallis I wave
To cars to eyes. Dies.
The silk blazing.
[]
Noisily yank a failed poem
out of the typewriter roller.
My hair falls into the keys.
Not grey but silver
whose light
reminds me of work
to be done.
[]
It isn't fame or failure
just so many books to read
so many words to write
and the backyard garden is
Paradise. I could spend
all day naming things and all night
breaking promises
[]
Dawn loon
silhouette
skims over the lagoon

its crazed song
unable to tame my rage into
a haiku.
[]
The deception of a new typewriter ribbon
gets him going another few years.
[]
The hunt

in the rain was a failure
her knees in the mud
his head hurt from last night
literature left their guns
easy to let go of
rain and more rain
and enough pain to keep them both
alive in themselves as cameos
invoking curses like bullets
like rain like words against nature
ruining their hunt
[]
There's a Europe he holds
inside imagination unfolds
a scrapbook he keeps looking for
his picture among all those beards
dark drowning eyes
keeps looking for a picture
of himself in the double's spark
or at least his name on a document
or even a tombstone
[]
Hero in parts

— for David W. Peoples

You learn how to wait
as a bird or cat and forget the watch
and its false future failure.
He waits for a man with a key to a vault
to a box with another key
which opens a drawer in an office
where a file brings down a clerk
in a wing on the 7th floor
of a building whose shadow
watch-dials Washington streets
lead out into perfect lawns
[]
wired for sound
Men who belong nowhere
seem to be everywhere
working for somebody else
and all bitter about one thing
or another which nobody ever learns
because nobody ever talks.
You learn to stalk as well as wait
and in between
a relief of paperback thrillers
read in jetplanes
scratching the sky with code
someone below deciphers
twenty different ways.
[]
All the light

He filled blank pages with black ink
repeating primary news
amniotically surrounding vision
before it broke apart
and a world of shadows
looms over the survivor
making noises with their mouths
[]
Some enter and never leave
others go crazy beyond paper
some know certainty in calligraphy
nobody can read
and those in between
scream as pressed flowers
[]
Safety valve

He drinks a glass of light
never turns off or on again
is merely present on the page
scanning
[]
End of alphabet
and it will never appear
in the right order again
left to be born
break through water's glass
strive for wobbly sphere
breaking eyes with light
[]
Double paper

One page to write on
above another page
cushioning metal letter impact

He swears that dented sheet
makes all ghost words unite
a Braille the sighted can not touch
an impulse the blind can not resolve
[]
Knots

like fat clouds in blood
between making or being led
by song

turn sure, struck from fire
beads to eat
glass spheres into a powder
his art would then reflect
[]
Break cellophane seal
of unthumbed cards
shine like tabletops.
Possibilities
similar to poetry.
[]
What's given up
given out into her
her page whose bones
fan apart.

Peck, carve
attack
bleached tree membrane.
[]
The edges

where he thought his life extended
withdraws like fire-shrinking paper
and all these years his love was paper
his body in a vision resembled a tree

where his life retreats
a lasso knot pulled into itself
and paper feels like flesh
his eyes become embarrassed
watching it withdraw from his touch
[]
I go through my body and out onto the paper
She wraps my head in white
My eyes burn to read
I can't forget anything
No word or face or silence
They go through my body
Into its streams released
From openings into air
Upon the page

How the world is gone
every moment we are awake in it.
[] [] []
AUTHOR'S NOTE:

These two works deal with the paradox of confinement, THE VEIL are poems which imprinted themselves (insisted themselves) during the time I taught writing at a state prison. Inmates used the words "outside" and "inside" in a sense that I realized, after much reflection, were interchangeable and no different than similar notions used by the poet to describe his own work and being. THE ART is about that work. How the inside works its way out and how the outside works its way in.






THE ART / THE VEIL was first published by       
Membrane Press, now Light and Dust Books. The book included drawings 
by the author, some of which are reproduced here.
     
Copyright  ©  1981 by David Meltzer.           


Light & Dust @ Grist Mobile Anthology of Poetry.






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