Silence neither interrupts, nor discloses
Wearisome questions undermining
Tones and pitches, distractions from
Recalling what rhythms exactly?

The rough shudder of a heart, hidden,
But close, retraces, outside hearing,
Labyrinths un-negotiable through metaphor,
Except by a single charcoal thrush,

Firm in lament, addressing no
Human ear, unless keyed distinctly, both
To darkness and to branches. What sky
Strands you out against full darkness,

Un-pleated accordion that you shutter
As if to pawn a chorus on pillaged calls?

xx
xx

if i try to make something of my notes on
Sara Jane Stoner’s presentation what i
come up with is barely there, if that…
one of her prompts: “let your attention be
interrogated by this poem- what questions
does it raise?” just above that i have: “arts
poetica- the blue clerk… it is flooded with
the world… the great sound box… inter-
rogate… … …“attentuation”… …to cross
examination…community poetics…
violet…succession of a word …field…
never violet {feeling an edge corrected:
grains (as of lumber…woods/ words…)”

she becomes more pointed in her sug-
gestion…” how do you or does the writer
get from the first word to the next? how
arbitrary was the start from violet?” “that
pair made an association; what effect did
each pairing have on the trace of subsequent
pairings?” (writer or clerk?) (a lulling?) i too
consider and reconsider how to get from
one word to the next, or set in terms of the rest,
but I deal with it through obsessive revision-
trying to put the thing together; clerking?

she’s getting at an important difference;
she goes on: “What have the reader and
the writer in common after ‘covering’, that
is, reading and writing the pairs without
touching each other?” Not taking over…