Erín Moure / On George Bowering’s “Irritable Reaching”

“Irritable Reaching” from Delayed Mercy 1986.

ERÍN MOURE / NINE TERCETS BY DANTE USING FIRST LINES OF BOWERING’S IRRITABLE REACHING (1986) READ BACKWARD AND MAINTAINING THE ONE TYPO (THE TERCET BEING THREE-LEGGED LIKE A MILKSTOOL IT IS A STABLE FORM AND ALLOWS US TO REGARD MEANING’S EMERGENCE OUT OF LANGUAGE AND THE CIRCUITS OF THE BRAIN) AS PERFORMED BY ELISA SAMPEDRÍN

 

1
Zeal in the defence against liberty
Dancing bones on reason’s day,
He said face that problem

2
Pastoral music seems like home now,
Just as we lose at last
The eye in hiding lies

3
Monsieur has made a country our of femmes
Just five old men are shaping all our graces
Ground and sky, water and leaf

4
Press it perfect
Bones along her body show
Tearing off the shrouds of night,

5
Cool streets sound like home now, insects
Relief shows above the surface,
Detachment from self is authentic love

6
Ready to snap, he focuses
Grace requires age in this diffident land —
Taking ink from his heart,

7
Phones ring out in open air
Just as we lose the last of innocence
Brain that vanishes among its traces,

8
Man or beast is not
Falling thru a medium that holds
Valour calls a man to place

9
Cool streets sound like home now, insects
Mirrors show up empty, window turn black,
( )
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