{"id":4829,"date":"2014-06-08T02:25:34","date_gmt":"2014-06-08T02:25:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sporkpress.com\/?p=4829"},"modified":"2014-06-08T02:25:34","modified_gmt":"2014-06-08T02:25:34","slug":"gunshots-in-another-language-stuart-greenhouse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/2014\/06\/08\/gunshots-in-another-language-stuart-greenhouse\/","title":{"rendered":"Gunshots in Another Language || Stuart Greenhouse"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gunshots in Another Language<\/strong><\/p>\n

(cf. Tarkovsky\u2019s Stalker<\/em>)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Richly decaying walls,<\/p>\n

rich textured light through decaying still-thick muslin,<\/p>\n

walls thick as a keep\u2019s, thicker<\/p>\n

than a man by three, their interiors entirely cratered<\/p>\n

with expansive sepia blisters<\/p>\n

as if celluloid had filmed everything, then burnt<\/p>\n

away, clinging; even the river-ice-<\/p>\n

thin door, its wood grain light under<\/p>\n

the mottled crazing, looks over-recorded, a breathing derived<\/p>\n

of something which itself was never alive.<\/p>\n

Everywhere, even where no shadow settles, is shadow.<\/p>\n

Three of us lonely, silence<\/p>\n

and one backpack. Have to go.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It has been intimate, this abandon<\/p>\n

to flight, this getting-to-know-you<\/p>\n

zone around the zone<\/p>\n

we\u2019ve circled so quietly.<\/p>\n

What waits there, past<\/p>\n

the imbricate fence<\/p>\n

the guards\u2019 guns<\/p>\n

duck and rise before as they stare<\/p>\n

out the back of their barrack-trucks<\/p>\n

at the evacuated buildings, one<\/p>\n

of which we are crouching through, crepuscular<\/p>\n

corpuscles of a breathless machine<\/p>\n

dreaming sunlight? A gap<\/p>\n

when they whisper, our opening.<\/p>\n

Have to go.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Through walls diffuse and far lights<\/p>\n

near-black our footsteps\u2019 strokes strike<\/p>\n

trees, puddles, fallen windows, boxes, cannot return<\/p>\n

to tell us where the traps are, blank killing<\/p>\n

spaces of crushing inward pressures.<\/p>\n

What tools can do, they will do<\/p>\n

to get us past: the rest is<\/p>\n

How easy<\/p>\n

words come here, where no words<\/p>\n

have before, have no names<\/p>\n

which know them yet. Only growth<\/p>\n

remains: factories flooded<\/p>\n

of meaning, railcars inert of it, trees burst<\/p>\n

through roofs. What could we<\/p>\n

have come for? What intent<\/p>\n

to retrieve<\/p>\n

when we can carry so little?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A kind of home at last, let us make picnic<\/p>\n

of this house\u2019s field, its anosmiac<\/p>\n

flowers. The brown river flouts past<\/p>\n

paths it won\u2019t take, under a curtain of mist.<\/p>\n

No sound escapes its periphery,<\/p>\n

no names walk its edges, they\u2019ve collapsed<\/p>\n

to the bellies of bugs and a milkweed field<\/p>\n

resolving out of the fog or the fog<\/p>\n

out of it and the sun not yet<\/p>\n

arriving is a shooting star retelling itself<\/p>\n

burning itself away.<\/p>\n

Nothing knows itself where its names<\/p>\n

can do it for them. Let that can go, petrol<\/p>\n

is useless here.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Look, the car, the overgrown<\/p>\n

weeds and timothy\u2014no, not through it:<\/p>\n

weapons in the shapes of fingers<\/p>\n

held to the light and<\/p>\n

their men decaying<\/p>\n

into birds\u2019 nests, who<\/p>\n

belonged to them? Over-machined<\/p>\n

nuts tied to freshly-torn cloud-pale muslin<\/p>\n

strips which flow like the wind they contour<\/p>\n

when thrown will test for normal,<\/p>\n

resistant ground. That\u2019s where we can<\/p>\n

walk, that\u2019s where the crush inward<\/p>\n

we can\u2019t move through can\u2019t hide. Past this sharp ridge<\/p>\n

is where the camera never moves, and<\/p>\n

neither does the muslin. Quick,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Just as it\u2019s supposed to be<\/p>\n

between us, around this puddle<\/p>\n

central to this final room, this perimeter<\/p>\n

the alien gravity nestles to, does not threaten.<\/p>\n

Unbarred by light or wall, impenetrable to keeping,<\/p>\n

the water drips, envelops each intrusion.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s always a new confusion<\/p>\n

to be avoided, always the muddle<\/p>\n

these ripplings make of our faces; always our waking<\/p>\n

tomorrow to the same walls<\/p>\n

everywhere and our lonely walk together<\/p>\n

outside of them, along the exhausted river<\/p>\n

still mysterious as the words it once was were,<\/p>\n

behind the apartments, down by the ancient factories.<\/p>\n

___________________<\/p>\n

<\/param><\/param><\/param><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

___________________<\/p>\n

Stuart Greenhouse<\/strong> is the author of the chapbook “What Remains” (Poetry Society of America), and the recipient of a 2014 New Jersey State Council of the Arts grant. New poems are recently out in\u00a0Denver Quarterly<\/em>\u00a0and Diagram<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gunshots in Another Language (cf. Tarkovsky\u2019s Stalker)     Richly decaying walls, rich textured light through decaying still-thick muslin, walls thick as a keep\u2019s, thicker than a man by three, their interiors entirely cratered with expansive sepia blisters as if celluloid had filmed everything, then burnt away, clinging; even the river-ice- thin door, its wood […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,2],"tags":[108],"class_list":["post-4829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-things","tag-stuart-greenhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4829\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}