ditch,
the poetry that matters
Natalie Knight
Natalie Knight's poetry and criticism has appeared in Octopus, Jacket, H_NGM_N, moria, and Slightly West. She is the author of three chapbooks, prairies (e-chap, Scantily Clad Press), xenia (Furniture Press), and Archipelagos (Punch Press). Sections of a critical exchange with Rodrigo Toscano on performativity and poetics theater, "Conditions of Poetic Production and Reception," are forthcoming in Jacket Magazine and West Coast Line. Originally from Washington State, she teaches writing and studies poetry, poetics and literary theory in the PhD program at University at Albany, State University of New York, USA.
from Taxonomy Bent
Horizon, treed
“horizon this, before it's treed:
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
“
What is typology for locate
assignment—
wispy tracers and legitimate repercussions
bound
“I felt the moment receding” you recite
horizons are raccooned specimens—
our fallout
1. the primacy of the consecutive subject
haunted an epilogue that circulated
astrological projections of objects not even
bound up by exchange, they were our exchange.
2. Better yet, what flattened this hopeful
to querulous midnight junctures of flesh-meets-flesh
because the horizon spanned in its particular plane
spanning us flat approaches
3. We tried to circumvent. amusing.
4. then, switching gears, wrote about
temporary autonomous interventions
after membering a sound installation
and attending the worker's rights rally gathered
around the fountain.
The group speak
bothered me even though I wanted their
rights respected. The fountain poured down all
around us drowning out megaphones. The water
slipped untroubled neither this drop nor that
stream –
not your leg nor my dollar
not bothered by boundary speak or “right to
inhabit” or what member is dangling in
public, erect –
5. Then the excavation sites around our
verbiage exist to put astral-knowledge
in perpetual hibernation
member, member
we are our own interlude,
“split”
<<<<<<|>>>>>
—after a juncture makes you stand abrupt
alert having meddled in the general
“flow” —worth meddling—
sight becomes the way to bring
the moment into body—
sight gorges on roughage
“it’s so good to see you again”
seeing you: seeing the leftover filaments, fallout
Friendly or business-like endeavors
connect seven members and their
unforeseen eighth
by way of the unpublicized pleasuredome.
“poetry by way of coy by way of
half-profile in muted light and drafty windows
survives an explosion at least in flesh:
nice to meet you, again”
Morph your shattered and sticky
pieces back into character,
remember you’re a direct relative
of the hyperreal.
For what responsibility
exists when written out of it—
Broken social contracts at the fountain
reincite the affects as result of
boardroom meetings and after hours
on the trains, in exchange
I'm a direct relative of
those
scalper and hangman
Bent
Ah, alas, singular came back to us.
In the boardroom, all members at the table shook hands
dispelled water, ruffled tidal charts – split
the scene.
Singular, not effaced enough
to not go back for more, “at home:”
at courage-point, had identified her
taxonomy and articulated that intimately
which became the public interface, too.
After blowing up millions of living cells
how successful do they feel? It detonated
well. But it momentarily
relieved that amorphous beast of its drive,
only.
The players pick themselves up, reconstituted,
with slightly altered knowledges
to find a way to proceed. I scan myself
on the molecular level to locate where exactly
the detonation occurred and where
the shock wave spread. Molecule's little islands
in relief my thinking machine assured them
they will be reconstituted.
They retort,
In what ways are you not restricted?
