Big Bridge #10

An Open Letter to America

 

Ron Silliman

 

from Zyxt

Fra il dire et fare
che il mezzo delle Mare
— Mario Savio

For Lyn & Leslie


                        At the end of the day, we’ll benefit as much from our 360 reviews as from our PBCs (personal business commitments)
                        The first copy of The New Sentence I see is in a bookstore into which I’ve ducked to escape the hot sun of a street festival
                        In the pocket of the seatback in front of me, I find a series of photos left there quite obviously by accident
                        Lit up at night, a baseball field is identifiable from 30,000 feet



                        Remember phone numbers as series of three- and four-step spatial patterns on a key pad




                        What is sadder than the small book of well-wrought poems, none spilling over to the next page even, each pretending to its own completeness
                        His knowledge of the Bronx restricted to the elevated view from the freeway, the monster highrise housing clustered to the east of I95, always curiously silent even to the muted colors whenever he drove past
                        Pain’s lane is only vaguely against the grain – theory of cuffs – dance facing the mirror
                        Why bald men still shampoo
                        As we rise above them into the sunlight, the clouds beneath appear soiled, sooty



                        Putting the finger to the side of one’s nose to plug a sneeze




                        Riven, intone the Talking Heads, is a place where nothing ever happens
                        Intellectual critique as fantasy life
                        Design of that sweater fuzzes with age
                        Plan’s flan is grandly in the van
                        Logism