Part 2 of the poem "Exile" written by Andrew Singer.
Sometimes, night gets muddled — verse and exile tussle
for just desserts between the abstract and real,
between the local and the universal
(as another exile to this island's haunts observed) --
But doesn't every block in Manhattan's mosaic
encode a culture in distant exile?
Small tawny heads, bowed over menu hymnals,
murmur the liturgy of calamari,
oyster, squid, under red paper lanterns
commemorating some ancient, sacred,
secret debauchment, one night quite like this,
a tremor in deep memory's olive register –
it's tapered in those green bottles, cool and erect,
from another continent, a dusty age's
echo of hips, swaying, lagoon-like,
in a basil- and tarragon-soaked dusk
much like this, as signs slip to studied languor,
discretion loosens its formal absolutes,
and the dinner's deferent politeness
dissolves into one long, magnetic yearning --
lingering is the singular autumnal.
Yet, across the street, shy melons of Pairisi
arch away from Rameau's shoulder-blades,
as love's parallel narrative unfolds.
Lorimer retreats in the spreading twilight,
large, gesticulating hands recount
a tale of deception the breeze-borne leaves
carry down the cantilevered avenue,
brushing skyscrapers' front lines, hunched streetwards now
on quivering legs. . . . . civilization's
fantastic musculature of skyline
buckling under Autumn's first bruising chill,
staining the fiberoptic leaf veins brown.
Move here slowly, Renata of the bleeding dusk,
with your own blissful mountain's inclination of sod
informed by the same shared Faith of God.
Hunker down, awaiting the immaculate dawn,
treading shadows who must then part to allow
your specific bulk and mass, your needs.
It is not all the same how you settle here,
smoothly among remnants, displacing just enough
to take your place without dispersing these,
nor angering the sediment of pained creatures,
gripping, grizzled, partway chiseled in its depths.
Repel their challenges – swiftly, firmly –
then wait for the pond to register this fact
and welcome another wide-jowled blub of exile,
new celebrant in the local lagoon,
who nearly cornucopped the threshold entire
with sheer bulk and awkward enthusiasm --
then found a place in the weary, sated night --
settling, like a shimmering chiffon gown.
for just desserts between the abstract and real,
between the local and the universal
(as another exile to this island's haunts observed) --
But doesn't every block in Manhattan's mosaic
encode a culture in distant exile?
Small tawny heads, bowed over menu hymnals,
murmur the liturgy of calamari,
oyster, squid, under red paper lanterns
commemorating some ancient, sacred,
secret debauchment, one night quite like this,
a tremor in deep memory's olive register –
it's tapered in those green bottles, cool and erect,
from another continent, a dusty age's
echo of hips, swaying, lagoon-like,
in a basil- and tarragon-soaked dusk
much like this, as signs slip to studied languor,
discretion loosens its formal absolutes,
and the dinner's deferent politeness
dissolves into one long, magnetic yearning --
lingering is the singular autumnal.
Yet, across the street, shy melons of Pairisi
arch away from Rameau's shoulder-blades,
as love's parallel narrative unfolds.
Lorimer retreats in the spreading twilight,
large, gesticulating hands recount
a tale of deception the breeze-borne leaves
carry down the cantilevered avenue,
brushing skyscrapers' front lines, hunched streetwards now
on quivering legs. . . . . civilization's
fantastic musculature of skyline
buckling under Autumn's first bruising chill,
staining the fiberoptic leaf veins brown.
Move here slowly, Renata of the bleeding dusk,
with your own blissful mountain's inclination of sod
informed by the same shared Faith of God.
Hunker down, awaiting the immaculate dawn,
treading shadows who must then part to allow
your specific bulk and mass, your needs.
It is not all the same how you settle here,
smoothly among remnants, displacing just enough
to take your place without dispersing these,
nor angering the sediment of pained creatures,
gripping, grizzled, partway chiseled in its depths.
Repel their challenges – swiftly, firmly –
then wait for the pond to register this fact
and welcome another wide-jowled blub of exile,
new celebrant in the local lagoon,
who nearly cornucopped the threshold entire
with sheer bulk and awkward enthusiasm --
then found a place in the weary, sated night --
settling, like a shimmering chiffon gown.