Lerner - Angle of yaw

III

DIDACTIC ELEGY

III

Sense that sees itself is spirit

Novalis

IV

ANGLE OF YAW

IV

V

TWENTY-ONE GUN SALUTE FOR RONALD REAGAN

V

Demands indefinitely specified,

demands incompatible with collective living

beget stadia

with indefinite seating

delicately tiered.

Resembling its shape

and therefore suggesting its function:

a wave.

Or repeating its shape

and therefore undoing its function:

a wave,

which I will here attempt to situate

in the broader cognitive process

of turning the page.

Just because these tears were on your face

doesnt mean theyre yours.

The tree in your mind

is mine.

The redistribution of tears

reflects our collective commitment

to storm and stress,

to attitudes befitting participants in sports

and sports writing.

The conventions governing weeping in novels

do not apply to weeping done on-camera

or in teams.

Eldest sons dispossessed of ancestral tears

mock the tears of the nouveaux riches.

You call that weeping?

We call it sports entertainment

because the loser gets paid more,

because losing is hazardous,

because hazards are for losers

in the collective economy

of variable stars.

Rational actors wearing wrestling masks

would choose to lose collectively,

to collectivize losing

in the service industry.

I perform a valuable service

(I lose)

and I work from home.

Am I not then entitled to drink six beers

and watch some losing gracefully performed?

The sorcerers apprentice is an animated mouse

losing control over water-toting brooms.

Now, what does that say about cleaning?

Sorcery cuts grease and glass like lightning!

Now, who will clean up this water?

What will we use to remove this water

from our jerseys? I suggest sorcery.

My Little League team is made up of animated mice

losing control of their jerseys

and delaying the game with lightning

in the manner of Fabius and Disney.

General Disney gets clothes clean (with sorcery).

General Disneys Chicken (with sorcery sauce).

The novel hurled to the ground breaks into verse

and achieves a perfect synthesis

of Bible and phonebook,

a chance synthesis

recalling the work of X

in its use of cherry and adverb.

A branch of adverb negatively rendered

is characteristic of a period

in which phonebooks possess all the qualities of epics

plus or minus three.

X is of that generation that gloried in synthesis

privately performed,

in charity syntheses held for cherry trees.

I have chopped down the truth conditions for cherry trees

with a chance synthesis,

with a phonebook in one hand

and a Bible in the other

and the other.

Configured to return to the thrower when hurled

and configured to return the thrower to the herd,

intended backfires configure warmth

for the polis and polis fans.

Context attributed to the skin at birth

picks teams:

shirts and skins,

redshirts and redskins

and tomahawking redskin fans.

In 1825, the natives of Port Jackson hurled their halos and lay down.

Support your polis: chop the air.

The roof fell in

medias res.

We fled

into the trees.

But that part of

roof that was ceiling

that was glass,

we carry with us

here, he said,

touching his head

to his heart.

The roof fell in

in place and we

fled here

and here,

carrying our heads

in our hands,

holding our hands

to the light,

to that part of light

that was glass

and fell in

absentia.

THE PREDICTABILITY OF THESE ROOMS is, in a word, exquisite. These rooms in a word. The moon is predictably exquisite, as is the view of the moon through the word. Nevertheless, we were hoping for less. Less space, less light. We were hoping to pay more, to be made to pay in public. We desire a flat, affected tone. A beware of dog on keep off grass. The glass ceiling is exquisite. Is it made of glass? No, glass.