I should be writing a syllabus, or, 544
(un)sound syllables
- Michael Dickel (Israel)
i
This syllabus
does not yet have
enough labor in its
syllables.
To count bean sum
bill-ables, I must
always make know-pro
deuce-ables.
Produce sings ballads—
fresh, over-ripened,
jazzy-fig,
mint-leaf teases.
ii
Imagined nations’
fuses sing fusion
confusions
disharmony.
New Klee are
reaction. Nary a
warhead spins yarn.
Unraveling
fabricated
relaxed
narrative. Laxative.
Words in the flue.
iii
Woods of Weavers.
Syllable sylphs
reduce unsound selves
most resoundingly.
This Scilla bus,
one-way route to haiku.
Doves mourning coos
soon un-be.
[stanza break]
Leave-able fake-
books chord words
into cannon rounds—
bang, bang, shoot, chute:
disputable,
theoretical,
transmittable,
irreproducible.
iv
Hips hop hopes,
echoes of trans,
people crying them,
shelves on and off walls.
Between these sum
syllables, words split
in Finland tea
to finiteness.
Divide migrant
families into mere
lost and found
dis-pose-ables,
paper resources,
liar-bills, ITs,
and accounts
payable. Knots.
v
In this fog:
diffusion, infusion,
chemo. Thera,
there, uh… there a
pea under a mattress
imprints us on
ladders. Ancient
accents fail.
DNA inscribes
spiral stares.
Waste to heaven.
Hell waist deep in sea.
[stanza break]
On these Waters
of Opening,
dreams bisect
breath—CO2 escapes.
Our carbonaceous
O-lovers’ diff.
Fusing Theia:
Moon, son, daughter.
vi
Older bombastic
blast—a wimpier
squeak edits,
replaces O.
Mega-fats added
to your healthy
foods. Radiate
-ing 2 ER.
De-eating. Die it.
Ting. E-racing. Rayed-E.
O, head that
way, again.
Race, raising the ante.
O, O please, child
run. Hide away.
Hied a way.
Now you can not go
home. Home again.
Ring around that.
Ring around this.
vii
Lymphoma.
This one thing.
Lymphoma. Lymph,
Oma. Lymph, o my. O my.
Lions and tigers
and bears, O my.
O my. O. My lymphs.
Lymphoma
[stanza break]
poisoned out of
my bones. On this
computer keyboard,
the PET scan clean.
Cleared, I stroke
no dog, cat, fish.
I sit. Back. I breathe. Out.
Expiration.
viii
Shadows pass by here,
pale, ghostly fear. They
seem to come from
the future.
Hai, I sing. Coo.
Caught between
poems and doves,
future ghosts continue.
Jan Ken Pon, they cry,
fists behind backs.
Rock. Pay poor.
Sizzlers. Lizard moon.