the beauty of failing is the beauty of death

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Thumb jammed deep into her eye

Bedclothes stain with blindness

She’s over the pain with the snap of a finger

You open your eyes, you've inflicted love 

She shows a glimmer of affection

She is tired, you are tired

You’re permitted beside

In darkness the wound inflicts a wound

In your mind you are kind.




[original] [revision no. 1]

[notes for a longer work]

decay
dental caries
demineralization
enamel, dentin, cementum
production of acid by hydrolysis of food debris
Streptococcus mutans and Lactobacillus

Cariology is the study of dental caries.

the air cracks
like dry timber

It was there that, in 1939, his son Antonietto died as a result of a badly performed appendectomy.
The same year, he was made a Professor of Modern Literature at the University of Rome.

If left untreated, a severe tooth abscess may become large enough to perforate bone and extend into the soft tissue eventually becoming osteomyelitis and cellulitis respectively.

The rod of Asclepius, a snake-entwined staff, remains a symbol of medicine today

NEVER USE THE WORD CAVITY

He was the son of Apollo and Coronis. His mother was killed for being unfaithful to Apollo and was laid out on a funeral pyre to be consumed, but the unborn child was rescued from her womb. ... From this he received the name Asklepios "to cut open".

Openings in the tooth enamel allow bacteria to infect the center of the tooth (the pulp). Infection may spread out from the root of the tooth and to the bones supporting the tooth.

Apollo carried the baby to the centaur Chiron who raised Asclepius and instructed him in the art of medicine.

Infection results in a collection of pus (dead tissue, live and dead bacteria, white blood cells) and swelling of the tissues within the tooth. This causes a painful toothache. If the pulp of the tooth dies, the toothache may stop, unless an abscess develops.

Ophiuchus is located between Aquila, Serpens and Hercules, northwest of the center of the Milky Way. The southern part lies between Scorpius to the west and Sagittarius to the east. In the northern hemisphere, it is best visible in summer. It is located opposite Orion in the sky. Ophiuchus is depicted as a man grasping a serpent; the interposition of his body divides the snake constellation Serpens into two parts, Serpens Caput and Serpens Cauda, which are nonetheless counted as one constellation.

The main symptom is a severe toothache. The pain is continuous and may be described as gnawing, sharp, shooting, or throbbing.

Other symptoms may include:
Bitter taste in the mouth
Breath odor
General discomfort, uneasiness, or ill feeling
Fever
Pain when chewing
Sensitivity of the teeth to hot or cold
Swollen glands of the neck
Swollen area of the upper or lower jaw -- a very serious symptom


"""
L'IMPIETRITO E IL VELLUTO

Ho scoperto le barche che molleggiano
Sole, e le osservo non so dove, solo.

Non accadrà le accosti anima viva.

Impalpabile dito di macigno
Ne mostra di nascosto al sorteggiato
Gli scabri messi emersi dall'abisso
Che recano, dondolo nel vuoto,

Verso l'alambiccare
Del vecchissimo ossesso
La eco di strazio dello spento flutto
Durato appena un attimo
Sparito con le sue sinistre barche.

Mentre si avvicendavano
L'uno sull'altro addosso
I branchi annichiliti
Dei cavalloni del nitrire ignari,

Il velluto croato
Dello sguardo di Dunja,
Che sa come arretrarla di millenni,
Come assentarla, pietra
Dopo l'aggirarsi solito
Da uno smarrirsi all'altro,
Zingara in tenda di Asie,

Il velluto dello sguardo di Dunja
Fulmineo torna presente pietà.

Roma, notte del 31 dicembre 1969 - mattina del 1° gennaio 1970
"""

Other People's Poetry: Guiseppe Ungaretti's "End of Chronos" translated by Andrew Frisardi

End of Chronos (1915)
by Guiseppe Ungaretti 

The strange and frightened moment
Wanders in the lap
Of the firmament.

A lilac-tinted smudge
Crowns the mountains,

The last outcry to stray.

Countless Penelopes, stars

The Lord embraces you again!

(Ah, blindness!
Cave-in of nights . . . )

And offers back Olympus,
Eternal flower of sleep.


translated by Andrew Frisardi 
in Selected Poems: A Bilingual Edition

sketch: the drunkard writes!

at the end of each short line lies a grass button
beneath its roots the poet finds small protein deposits
crepuscular veins wring cracks and splinter every syllable

wriggling muscular worms, armored rolly polys
crumpled pages of the wasteland like garland strung
and every now and then a rock.

"We need to eat," the mirror answers back.
but we are tired of singing birds and skinny trees
these hallow bones and rows of teeth

we bow beneath the weight of discourse, present company excepted

"We need to eat," repeats the mirror wearily.
should the reader choose to push that button
a boiled ham will appear in the arms of
the cushion-plant: "Mount Herron is our home!"

mirrors fear vanity's drought
with a single soft finger
the poet buries a blade of grass
a short & modest line
a buttered nub of italian bread.

once touched

"having a harsh, disagreeably acrid taste, 

like that of aspirin, quinine, wormwood,
or aloes; hard to bear; grievous;
distressful; causing pain; piercing; stinging;
characterized by intense antagonism or hostility"

Millsis Adoma,

she said it to me in bed ""
but, it can't be lifted
you were a manacle, like speaking
in code: Adoma Millsis

one_

touched.

the memories you placed before me
laughed out onto the table, antiques
appraised, then returned to collection

in code, of course.

in code, you were strong: unfragile: harkness
hung from the stable. but now i am here, decoding.
legs beneath my writing desk: worrying: eroding.

in code: the stable.

you're both here, cutting, crashing, set upon the beach
for the first time: miraculously: miserably: confused
hand-in-hand, our mouth cast out over the pacific
i cut, you crash, we're all watching for this
purple sunset.

in code: misery stretched out over the ocean
like a tightrope: hung from the stable.

don't close you eyes: sleeplessness is a gift
accept your giftlessness, sleep: in code: she said it to me

here i am again, beside her
lifting the language, exposing
the bleak, black experience
of,

two_

we're here beside bibles
dread thesaurus, rhyming dispair
pitter plots of rotten condensation

like

dry sharp tip of a knife, blood
bitter bite of a page-thin blade
played to lip and jaw and

like

mentally there is no weight to curl, it's all power
perceived through a prism; when you move your hand slow
across the patients' covers it trembles, imperceptibility
a cheap parlor trick. like, the fear is in your know.

like

we're here among the bibles, our teachers' patient parlors
and we're like waiting, clock watching, tossing knives
into the softwhite up above.

three_

like speaking in code: i've stopped thinking about myself
just long enough to address you. once i'd known
apelike kings and a snakelike pig; we knew each other.

she said it to me in bed ""
but, it cannot be lifted
your manacle is speaking
in code: Adoma Millsis, once touched.

"Alan Magee: Paintings, Sculpture, Graphics." Forum Gallery, New York, 2004

"Art does not lie down on the bed that is made for it; it runs away as soon as one says its name; it loves to go incognito. Its best moments are when it forgets what it is called."

breath

chew some more
you prolong it

this is not the least important
focal point ink pink

Disaster. the high water
the unattended sink

rotten

chew some more
the taste forgotten

hips. lips. it can't last.
pink ink splashed crash

gnash cast iron sink

this not is what you think
distance dark distorts

focal point affords
pink sink puddles abort.

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Since last we peeled
The basement flooded

Twice in bed, and still
Tuesday's strips

Your fingers, rich
With garlic oil, so long since

I was not there to bail
Asleep beneath the birch.

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