“THE ICEBREAK/ how is meant the prevalent / icebreak.” A poem, with charts by Orra White Hitchcock.
“Like on the Subject of the Icebreak” was produced by Triple Canopy as part of its Immaterial Literature project area, supported in part by the Brown Foundation, Inc., of Houston, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the New York State Council on the Arts.
I mean light on the subject of the icebreak
please do not think this is bad wording
because of the incorrect word above me right now in
the title I have even closer to me now provided.
(Letter Machines—! oh forget it)
Here the talking. The sharp end of sentence.
It cuts a reasonable voice down
in spite of the unreasonable intersection.
Correct word: light/ which I underline and to the side
for you to see and it is a bonus I will underline
all the lights for you to see, for you see we must,
by what I’m trying to manage—
THE ICEBREAK/ how is meant the prevalent
icebreak which are a true and natural threat.
For there is danger in the ghoats mountains.
The ghoat mountain falling from the sky.
Now, BEHOLD A BEING BOUND TO MOUNTAIN, neither goat nor ghost.
Little Ms. Jones—a very pretty host.
Did she think this world of woe was a world of woe?
Actually no and that did not unbound her.
Where is she, exactly? In the ice
inside the Mountain, Silly.
A hospital bed, in this poem.
A very rudimentary hospital,
with a wire encircling her head
to zap the over-persuading lice.
Do you hear me, Ms. Jones?! I’m calling help—
Do not breathe the carbon monoxide, breathe only the mostly beige
oxygen mix. PLEASE! Do not worry about your contact lens
or any other meniscuses in your head.
I am gathering to save you!
do you think my friend
the example is a conjuring trick?
Do you think she is playing dead?
Well, yes, you are right she is and fine
too truly dead only apparently/ fine tuned dread indeed.
Mrs. Jones, her mother my dear friend,
you see and little Ms. Jones her scion.
So you get me. We had a thing—the mother and me
a magic act. I should have made it only a minute.
I should not have allowed
DO NOT SAW A WOMAN IN HALF WITHOUT THE BOX
no matter what the other one wants.
What I mean as you see—I am an experienced man
and I see that we are all mostly men
having left in mountains our girls. Here men
pump letters; hooking for approval or hair raising
What is the most in secret. What is the Most.
Let me see right down my own big open mouth
to the logical conclusion if this is no occlusion.
Stomach what do you say
that I can translate?
Maybe cell walls of the vegetable.
We need four walls for the stanza, three to be free.
Which cell am I breaking out of, you may wish to know?
which cell! As of off a tree? Exactly
very good. Is it stomate let us say?
My friend STOW MATE My friend
We briefly break out in three
that’s the spirit
broken through a wall!
Simultaneously you. I risk
obnoxiousness in saying instead of naming
you with the space in your name—you are
awakening, I notice. It burns by turns and shakes.
Your own Ms. Jones: Yourself in the small eye reflection.
Someone looks up to you, look under the lid.
Angry bears until I figure it out properly.
Angry homelessness for me, I fear.
You who may be just around the corner
you have just purchased a twelve pack
and are at once happy and too disturbed
at how fast you drank that last twelve pack.
You tell yourself you aren’t but you are and that is natural.
And with this twelve pack you will sit before
advertisation light that will simulate investment
in a fate of winning a game and you will
become excited later.
Very excited
because it means to you: recognition of excellence
invisible mountaineers would soon put straight
You, You, You! with the beer.
All 780,000 of you.
But I am only talking to you with the space!
Maybe you can hear me I am
high pitched calling to you initiate!
The secret Ms. Jones to break out
and your own cold people from the Invisible M-T-N?
Who indeed could hold a line so close
and carefully as to bring back to one’s own bosom
the frames and vocabularies of our ancestors
for the challenging now architecture!
Who? Me!
and You with the space.
And when the more Reals wake up to slap and paste and smooth
our holey brains we will say thank you with resentment, I fear.
They will have the advantage of handicraft which we will fear
but we will be careful not to show our fear.
To deal with their disdain we will make a holiday.
For 90 seconds we will fill the air
with our sulfurous gossip about these ancestors, the air will burn
like personnel firework. The clichéd independence day.
Had you been pale before this,
and you know you were Mrs. Jones,
you will finally be tan.
Your daughter piebald and loving it!
You—ocean of beer, seer!
you will have rhythms astounding.
And someone who is not you.
A lady or a tiger.
Old Children will run around in wheels
The ash from the sky will breed new plants.
The plants will want to strangle us at first
Light remember this was to crest
above a point; above time.
An adjustment. And comeback.
And now we know the snow has been falling.
We call what falls snow and it falls
on clichéd cemeteries and people on their birthdays.
There are others who are better at meeting the beings
the snow has not yet touched and touching them.
They are not so likely to get mixed up personally.
They were us once