Category: Robert Fernandez

by Robert Fernandez

 

if trying too hard is to be

unfeeling and thankless

if it is hard where then

 

do you hide your kernels

where then devil do you

release your sheets

 

where then ornament,

where can I trust my eyes

 

where then lying

are you light, are you down,

are you dolmen, liquid

crown

 

where then

your power to charm

me your power to see me

 

I awake in affair I again

in a day I remote and de-

mote I flurry and fathom

 

I gust up in fathoms

as in a net

I bring you fathoms

from Pink ReefFind more by Robert Fernandez at the library

Copyright © 2013 Robert Fernandez
Used with the permission of Canarium Books.

by Robert Fernandez

 

why do I

choose to turn away

 

why do I refuse

why am I refusing

 

we want to steal me away

we want to surgery me

 

why don’t they

steal me away

 

red refrigerator-blood

fills me

from Pink ReefFind more by Robert Fernandez at the library

Copyright © 2013 Robert Fernandez
Used with the permission of Canarium Books.

by Robert Fernandez

 

I get on, nothing to contribute,

and stay happy according to the fire,

nothing to contribute, maze

of loose brick—in inclines

degenerate—bound (higher)—

raking the form from those leaves,

unbuttoning the shirt for those leaves . . .

For the wall, the monument,

Bolivar shattered into rags

& sunlight; unity, “it is our

distinct pleasure . . .”

As the hands topple—affection—

I was, I became, I preferred the sweep

of the water to that fall, I preferred

the jets of pale marble—& the women

they’ve said to me, & the men

they’ve said to me, between

the sun’s wavering, the water, they say

and remain faceless and beyond my reach.

from We Are PharaohFind more by Robert Fernandez at the library

Copyright © 2011 Robert Fernandez
Used with the permission of Canarium Books.

by Robert Fernandez

 

Sets the folds in alignment;

this a shallow, a constitution of drops

that moves to displace itself

and unconsciously reverts

to image.

 

In such a state,

the wave has become a setting—

a table across which cups

with propositions rolled inside them

are passed.

 

The passage of cups does not limit

the range of potential outcomes,

and yet at no point does the wave

dissolve into abstraction.

 

The shades

are drawn and we are

overwhelmed by flags

crossing the black divan.

 

An axis of rotation,

gliding a fraction of an inch

and yet unveiling its total mass.

 

Advancing, the disc of its body

shimmers. Alighting on the sand,

it reveals itself in a cluster of pulses.

 

Dilated, it lifts from the sea floor:

fine spokes radiating on a wheel.

It passes between bands of bright

water, a kiss or a plow.

from We Are PharaohFind more by Robert Fernandez at the library

Copyright © 2011 Robert Fernandez
Used with the permission of Canarium Books.

by Robert Fernandez

 

For the landscape Light and the Viciousness It Absorbs, certain constellation values: Castor (Surge), Pollux (Mandate), Gemini (Wreathes of Manila Flowers). The speaker has curled into a ball, shielding himself from malignant vibrations in the light. It is a work polished with olive oil. Like a fountain, it uses stone (striation) to cut the value of horizon (soul) in half. It places its caches at successively abridged distances. The sun, wet—weatherless in midday—above locust trees.The billboards, a repetition of the sun’s blistering. Once the work has turned against itself, it exhibits newly formed desires. Beneath an armature of stars, it seeks out deltas, anti-luminosities, rings.

from We Are PharaohFind more by Robert Fernandez at the library

Copyright © 2011 Robert Fernandez
Used with the permission of Canarium Books.

by Robert Fernandez

 

trading disaster for the hope

of panicked black silk fleeing down the mountain

 

I can muster my kind of silk (lavenders

no longer smell as sweet)

 

I can get the veins to work (pumping

purple silver smells as sweetly)

 

I can organize the purple Versailles of my

disaster (purple halls of mirrors

 

might smell as sweet)

from Pink ReefFind more by Robert Fernandez at the library

Copyright © 2013 Robert Fernandez
Used with the permission of Canarium Books.

by Robert Fernandez

 

Then violence and practice and make it happen. On the map with the delicatessen that falls through your mind, that shudders in its hide of brick and awning.This is not how we would have wanted it. Village and music box with a little pentacle on its back, and not what we would have wanted for anyone involved. I escape arrhythmias into the heart’s normal operation. The valves run smoothly. The hide’s parched and pleated but runs smoothly: a bucket of ice and a rhinoceros, a Syrian flag and a recliner. Falling through the rug in the grip of a stomach that sees, we slip past the odds; we feel fortunate. From the bedroom, from closed booths, we plot our victuals. What illuminates the morning better than the souls of the dead?

from We Are PharaohFind more by Robert Fernandez at the library

Copyright © 2011 Robert Fernandez
Used with the permission of Canarium Books.

by Robert Fernandez

 

Becomes a decisive body.

Acts on its ends,

 

which is to say

hands, like cloves,

 

budding flat.

Cuts a water-wheel

 

from its body,

a jenny wheel,

 

Catherine wheels.

It is coastline and,

 

as such, sheet lightning

issuing in fragile exodus

 

and armada. Question

what seems less devolved:

 

flowers wed to hands,

etymologies, stony acts

 

of will or fate.The center

unravels no more easily

 

than a stone:

it spreads in leaves,

 

it erases itself in

strands of brilliance,

 

it unlocks in florets

through the reflective blackness.

from We Are PharaohFind more by Robert Fernandez at the library

Copyright © 2011 Robert Fernandez
Used with the permission of Canarium Books.

by Robert Fernandez

 

I chose

pink reef surging toward

the name of the dog

 

pink reef shedding under the tree,

snapping at masks

 

. . .

 

I wanted to understand

this ethos of cameras

strung through juniper leaves,

 

juniper lenses seeing

at the tops of the trees:

 

a bread

of violets

baked in

 

a bread

of mussels

glutting the

 

a cache of

roe in the

stomach

from Pink ReefFind more by Robert Fernandez at the library

Copyright © 2013 Robert Fernandez
Used with the permission of Canarium Books.

by Robert Fernandez

 

I will reform,

re-encounter love’s law

I will follow

after the bright

seeds of marrow are

shaken from the thigh

& the thigh placed

on a stick in

the faceless gallery

I will devote,

for thou hue

thou gravel

thou hearse—

the blood oranges

so bright

because they are

against a white

background

the blood oranges

so bright

because they are

against a white

background

the blood oranges

so bright

because they are

against a white

background

the blood

oranges

cold and light

cold and light

cold and light

from Pink ReefFind more by Robert Fernandez at the library

Copyright © 2013 Robert Fernandez
Used with the permission of Canarium Books.