Family System

Jack Christian

• Verlag: Center for Literary Publishing
• Jahr: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781885635280
• Thema: Littérature
• Thema: Poésie

Winner of the 2012 Colorado Prize for Poetry, selected by Elizabeth Willis" Family System is one of the most specific and clarifying books of poetry I've ever read. It is filled with choices—made, to be made, not made—handled with a poetic understanding that what seems arbitrary will be inevitable when said with the right words while singing the right songs. This is a stand-out first book, introducing a first-rate original talent, doing powerful work, making quintessentially lyrical choices. Don't miss this book."
—Dara Wier"It seems that Jack Christian's brain is able to produce tiny lucid creatures, have them run and sprinkle over a map of an unknown world with joy, speed and delight. Even stranger, he's somehow the spiritual offspring of very different ancestors: Pascal's Esprit de Geometrie and Scandinavian mythology. 'I was eulogizing a squirrel in a shoebox.' Brilliant."
—TomažŠalamun

ONE

FAMILY SYSTEM

We’re in a giant mom and dad linked by a heart.
We’re going round in circles in the figure eight
made by their bodies and cinched by their heart.
Where their lips touch is another kind of heart.
Where their stomachs meet, a third type of heart.
They sort of know this, but they’re too busy convulsing.
They think they’re a constellation fastening in space.
And we’re going with them on a vague run
for groceries. It’s a long ride in a station wagon.
It’s the screwy roads of an upper-class subdivision.
You think they resemble a galaxy spinning,
but to them you think it’s like being inside two plants
joined at the stalk. Which might be right—
I’ve also been guessing. And wanting to twist
like they do, wanting to try some weird positions
and see what happens. I saw a model of it once:
A smaller arch passed under a bigger one
around what looked like a tomato slice stuck on a flywheel.
That’s not how I’d describe it to them.

NEW REVISED STANDARD

A prayer is an edge with a bump in it.
String articulates a face; that’s prayer.
Each prayer contains an I who traces a line
then stands on every point of it at once.
The Good is my sidewalk. When I’m tired
I link myself to a larger town
unsettled as of yet. My agitated arms grow knotted.
The term to describe this is inextricable.
It’s paint mixed in water.
Its words often animals discussed across a grass.

A CIRCUMFERENCE

I want to walk the entire shore, around the continent.
When I reach a river
I’ll have to decide whether to turn inland or go across.
If it’s the Magdalena River
then questions and more questions.
If the river is yellow, then what is not so troubling in nature.
Where there’s a hoop and hadn’t been
and steam where I needn’t any.
And where the world is bigger and my vision, too.
And in my travels a house droops to the bay
and a grove already into the bay.
A crank is spitting golden bits
and there are many geese. There are many kinds of birds:
ducks, large ducks, royal ducks,
ibises, egrets, herons, quail. I’ve seen falcons,
marsh hawks, sparrow hawks, goshawks and many other birds.

A TREE

What I was doing in the thunderstorm:
I was shaking my fist at the God of trash-talk.
I was stomping the footpath to the fencepost.
I parked—a star shot—I couldn’t take it as coincidence.
I said a prayer to the God of sleeping outside
who’s the same as the God of conniving.
I said a prayer for anyone who never came back.
I said a prayer to the God who answers back.
I said one for you if you chased your Gods away.
And one to the God of table manners
and to the God of horseshoes. And I said God
if you’re God you’re God of my lamplight
and of my undershirt. You’re God of my feelings
which are mostly. But also of the trail I walk
but also toward a taller you.
Hey God, I finished the rock dam. I went in the field
and said one of patterned animal tracks and one to you
of cattle birth. I said one to the farmer Judy
who’s always talking to herself
and one to the snapshot of the thing that’s always happening.
I said God if there’s the choice you’re a God then
if everything’s a choice.
This was in half-light in timber it was often.

MARIE

Karin’s parents sent a couple nice wishes
and off they went around the bend on a Jonathan,
where the road can’t Siobhan. Don was from Homer, Alaska—
Tuesday born, fathered by nonesuch, raised by Julia.
Graham did everything for a reason, was math proficient.
Nick did it for Eleanor. Aunt Jay did it with J.P.,
thereby upsetting many people. This made the newsletter.
Did you catch it? The guy we call “Japes.” They printed it
“John Patrick.” Marybeth conferenced with Lawson;
Angela copied Creech and cleared the changes through Jana.
Michelle told the boys to hit the presses. John threw his clothing.
Ryan flew to pasture. This meant Par 3 with Sterling,
executive ombuds. Andrew was impossible to locate.
Terence, like the dog will do. With Ray, there were goals,
which Ruth interpreted biblically. If she bore a child
she would name it Ruth. If it was a boy she would name its basket,
but still feel reprehensible. This was Saturday, Year of Manuals.
Jamie was to wed Alan then at the site decided by Mary Lyons,
who planned for violet; expected Meredith.
God Love Stonewall Jackson and Men of Vacation.
Tabitha reneged on account of charm school. Clay, gone to Maui.
Junior Chism, somewhat racist, still invited.
Cal was what Meg was bringing to the picnic. Sadie preferred “B-B-Q.”
Garvey was modulat...