b y

S T E P H E N    D I G N A Z I O













  
     not	  in		but		attended
     to		  life		emerges		walking
     again	  intractable	earth		notion
     of		  nothing	to		do
     with	  beauty	widespread	time
     lapse	  gestation	once		open
     pools	  of		snow		now
     continents	  of		ice		without
     extremes	  not		stopping	having
     to		  go		back
   


     []  equinox







     there's	that		fear		shit
     narrow	pale		yellow		smooth
     to		begin		each		maybe
     desire	to		be		penetrated
     stack 	at		hand		/your
     eyes	that		look		alone
     at		last		/color		here
     green	yellow		(again)		fall
     early	snow		with		white
     /both 	of		them		my
     mother	patient		my		father 
     (queasy)	feeling		what		willing
     blind	/close		up		of
     winter	road		with		salt 
     beautiful	stretch		of		beach
     aerial	view		of		highways 
     through	it 		genitive	landscape
     /old	cut		off		hillside
     stump	taking		flight		out
     unknown	simply		removed		March
     discovery	of		September's	death
     bird	remains		/another	view
     of		road		mentioned	/my
     desk	late		summer		it
     would	be		sepia		this
     is		like		history		in
     the	making		/summer		interior
     two	windows		two		chairs
     buddah	etc		trees		beyond
     exposed	against		glass		like
     ice	/1st		day		7th
     grade	my		love		my 
     love	/asleep		/mid-summer	garden
     tableau	naked		man		dead
     in		reflecting	pool		youth
     love	/and		another		garden
     Rocks	Hard		pressed		Earth
     bound	Love		of		core
     Friends	Pressed		hard		Bounded
     earth	Core		of		Love
     

   []  some photos				for Cathy Smith







     even	    flowers	  alter		and
     each	    paradise	  points	through
     its	    demarcation	  a		garden
     without	    we		  foreground	our
     links	    through	  the		silence
     we		    share	  sod		reveals
     increments	    of		  rise		in
     south	    facing	  crescents	small
     satisfactions  half-	  formed	wind-
     blown	    pine	  composed	on
     the	    air
     

     [] rosa mundi





     holding	     the	  letter	that
     read 	     am		  i		being
     held	     in		  the		right
     place	     I		  remember	Viet
     Nam	     birthday	  lottery	arguing
     paradoxically   we'd	  already	been
     born	     random	  crows		approximate
     apples
  
     [] personal history








     point	 sequence	consequence	that
     to		 make		one		out
     of		 it		his		life
     now	 erased		seemed		to
     shut	 up		to		have
     been	 a		makes		b
     a		 concept	b		makes
     a		 a		memory		reflected
     seas	 as		scene		revealed
     new	 angle		on		where
     we're	 from		minus		one
     doesn't	 wish		to		mislead
     and	 equally	lost		is
     its	 own		past		tense
     for	 one		left		behind
     

     [] type of poem for my father








   landscape is                                           quiet writ
         now disregard                             with over
                recounted in                 alphabetic space
                       it of           much so
                       equals the time telling
                       ox an           as dumb
                in a(n)                      hungry wave
         at dispersing                             it of
   the edges                                              as I
   it by						       it by



   first snow | walking by woods
   [read in bostrophedon order]





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Illustration at the beginning of this file by Marey, from a graph of a horse's walk based on an 1886 chronophotograph.

Copyright 1997 by Stephen Dignazio

from QUATRAIN,
published by Oasis Press

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