word for/word
issue 6: summer 2004
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//
Camille Martin

 

 

 

 

 

eyes round as ciphers. in the failing

 

ticktock can't remember
what bestowed its raggedy
boots on the boundary of a junkpile
just shadowy enough to be divided
by the hairline of a shore.

ticktock instead starts an expedition
juggling branded figments. at last
the proprietors of evidence become lost
in invested time. one recalls
one's watery sunbeam from a remote
but deliberate porch. so does

the tyranny of mayflies entice
eyes round as ciphers. in the failing
day, the crowd places great symbolic
importance on the wisp of air
playing around the second hand.

 

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perils. go, unloaded


half-blind, gropes
toward the tottering
sound of names. baubles.
commonly known as
fair fakery pro-
longed into future
perils. go, unloaded
illusions, with
melting fabric,
field sways of legends
chanting songs of half
dragon, half oak. at the end
of no explanation, drain
belated skies of
spells, tastes,
rungs.

 

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& your solid act in starveling mist


dear perpetrator, lucky you
& your solid act in starveling mist
all agape & harvesting
garlands for a raggedy rescue.

sound barriers strung together
& symbolically ushered in
around the imagining city, home
to a makeshift landing strip.

recombinatory animal thoughts
lacking a certain lack, their own reward
wholly engaged in mighty murk
& a river, crumpled up.

 

 

 

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Camille Martin is a poet and translator who lives in New Orleans. Her collections of poetry include sesame kiosk (Potes & Poets Press, 2002), rogue embryo (Lavender Ink, 1999), magnus loop (Chax Press, 1999), and Plastic Heaven (Fell Swoop, 1996). She recently completed a new collection, codes of public sleep. Her work is included in the anthology Another South: Experimental Writing in the South (University of Alabama Press, 2002). Martin founded and co-curates the Lit City Poetry Reading Series in New Orleans. She holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of New Orleans and recently completed a Ph.D. in English at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.

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