Eric Larsen's "Ursa Minor"

Ursa Minor, location of the north star, locator star, dependable guide, a title for a book of poems by Eric Larsen that continually pinpoints the reader and at the same time disperses their sense of foundational stability. This is the tension at the heart of the book – the tension of an explosion that is not a singular moment but a perpetual expansion. This is a book written in the middle of such an explosion, knowing that we are all exploding, that every observation is moving at incredible speeds away from every other observation. And yet they talk.

These poems are not mystical hymns to the supernatural. They do not look back hopefully to some shamanistic vision luxuriating in the warmth of a balanced universe that understands needs and pets fur. These are calculations made during a forest fire. There is hope here but it is hope that has shattered, is shattering, and that will be shattered.

“Orange safety cones conceal shells. Some / tipped in blow-back, brushed by wheels. / Each positioned for a shell game / or a chinois for molten lug nuts; / changing a tire in a sink.”

There are explosions of time. A disaster has happened, is happening and will happen.
The series of poems titled “Metro anaerobe” repeats the refrain “one hundred million years” – a number combining a human/nonhuman scale of time repeated in household products and fossils of various kinds: “unpredicted civilizations will unearth the fossilized remains / of Andromeda Sasquatch / with no dopamine traces.”

There are explosions of space. HO scale trains suddenly “life-size now, listing and bloating –.” The inside and outside, the there and here. The tension between the expanding catastrophe and the continuity of imagery is a brave construction of the human and nonhuman: “And over a telephone, the humans on Claret Beach / break even under a moon. / Their comprehensive selves remain stones when the sea recedes / and their internal worlds are carried away.”

Images here are both epic and intricate. There is a grandiosity coupled with intimate detail. Manipulations of scale. The poem as a “pocket universe.” That is, the poem as both refuge from and product of an infinitely expanding catastrophe. And the poem as a tiny universe. The micro and meta universe in conjunction and argument.

The overall structure expresses a state of continual parataxis. Images speak to each other over pages. Themes build and tear each other down. “The two concepts were never meant to touch; / in decay it becomes less defined.” This book is an aporetic hymn. Continually caught between center and edge – the fluctuating punctuating light.
To get “Ursa Minor,” go here.

IV. Linguistic Value
You applaud a swarm. You clap at language, its worship of hurt. You name the steer “manners.” Language calls separation “temporary escape.” Language mimics the dividend of alignment and its dictatorship. To reaffirm you with fireworks, language begins with examples: sweat – the cohesion of sweat. Your fantasy: language, clothed in camouflage, stares at you through a scope and pulls a bowstring. Once again, you and language refuse to celebrate your anniversary. Language seems incapable of cleaning the tub drain. Your language will not obey. Argue the argument. Does your emergent behavior avoid or seek language? Language dares you to comprehend its movement: a scale-free correlation waving above the interstate.

II. The Concrete Entities of Language
Language does not watch you through a camera Hidden in the couch cushions. Those kites flying over your backyard … when they suddenly strike you, that is language. The terror the news tells, the terror of seeing yourself in a corset, the terror of the street, the terror of torn-up headlines, the terror of unending terror from every trunk and closet, the Terror of Wednesday, the terror of aspic, the terror of an aged age, the terror of an augury, the theater of sublime surveillance … can we trace you according to your birthmark? Can Language hold your byzantine history? A modicum of your breath? The authority of your whisper? Despite us, Language will not follow you. The declarations of your hunger — too loud. Too inappropriate. The rocks, too narrow.

II. Immutability and Mutability of the Sign
Injecting itself with our obscure obscenities, language falls back in reverie. Language swells with the sweat of our investors. Unable to pronounce “menagerie,” language mumbles “trash.” Language diagrams the historical significance of our hairstyles without using adverbs. Our belief in language keeps it from dying. As a bitter young man, language lived in poverty and isolation among the crowds of a large city. Language has, as its principle means of travel, the secrecy of a worm. We approach language with monstrous pictures in our hands.

III. Static and Evolutionary Linguistics
Language drops a storm of leaflets on our subdivision from a helicopter. Language guides us through sewers. Language blooms under the touch of our Reiki masters. We are assistants. Language sneaks up and slaps each one of us on the left ass cheek. Everyday, language consumes its weight in ground pork. We hear language hiding in the tunneled soil under Town Street. Empty of will, language sleeps on the path of our intentions. Crouching in our cousin’s basement, language clutches a dye-stained bank bag.

VI. Graphic Representation of Language
Language wakes up sticky behind Target. Language’s left foot gets caught in a crowd, its right in crabgrass. Language constructs a convincing argument for canned meat, for a succulent lunch of paranoia. Language succumbs to the tyranny of gratitude, the future as beast. Before language left, it favored its right leg, after its return, the left. Language doesn’t know where the environment starts. Language is a pack of children gathering spark plugs and magazines in the street. Language is somebody’s cousin, some unteachable moment, some noisy clone, some dictator who tries to steal a credit card number over the phone. Language forms an emergency portrait of fruit leather. Language initiates harassment by a vapor of signals.

VII. Phonology
1. Definition
Whoever consciously deprives the penitent of their institutional path runs the risk of mouthing shapeless and unmanageable commands. Taking away the germ of doom is like depriving a president of his nuclear arsenal.
To substitute immediately what is failed for what is healed would be charitable; but this is impossible without infectious handcuffs; apart from their property value, consumers are only vague notions, and the manipulation provided by market research, though stuck in their throats, is still the voice of law.

***
The first six sections of this are revisions of pieces I wrote for a collaborative project that was never finished. The title and section headings are taken from “Course in General Linguistics” by Ferdinand de Saussure.

IV. Linguistics of Language and Linguistics of Speaking
Language looks around and says, “Oh, my leg is broken.” Language smoked all the bananadine. Arriving home, it still has to come up with dinner. Language is an imperial power. Language is an emperor. Language is the emperor’s suit, animate on the balcony. Language wrote a book called “Moralia” that scandalized the neighbors. Language is a neighbor a Hennessey-infused whipped cream a will to endure less. Language omits its complex network of investment concerns. Language learns to follow the revival. When there is no room language walks into the center of the room.

***
The first six sections of this are revisions of pieces I wrote for a collaborative project that was never finished. The title and section headings are taken from “Course in General Linguistics” by Ferdinand de Saussure.

I. A Glance at the History of Linguistics
Language belongs to castaways and cult leaders. Students of language wrinkle their foreheads and sweat when they chew. Language builds demand for the continued commercialization of language. The house of language fills with monologues and self-portraits. Language: a tongue slipping deliriously toward simplification by age and dollar. Language enters a gated community pretending to be silence. Language is the black-haired fly confidently touching a face. Language is younger than a pebble in a driveway, younger than the cliff from which the despondent jump. When the door to language opens, a light turns on. As the door closes, the light pauses then goes dark.

II. Subject Matter and Scope of Linguistics
Language spreads through contact with doorknobs and toilet seats. Language bridges the gulf between machine and oyster. Language possesses a half-life of two weeks. Safe handling of language involves a measure of indifference. Language appears in Philadelphia’s drinking water. Language stands at the second floor window and stares longingly at a rendering plant. Language distrusts long poems. Language attempts to taste the real and ends up with a mouthful of sand. Language annoys its siblings by patting them on the back of the head. In 1976 language was invited to join the Book-of-the-Month Club. Arguments with language often lead to hours of awkward silence.

***
The first six sections of this are revisions of pieces I wrote for a collaborative project that was never finished. The title and section headings are taken from “Course in General Linguistics” by Ferdinand de Saussure.

Bedtime: a good night’s sleep is
important to your recovery. We
suggest that you try to sleep by
midnight.

If you are unable to sleep or
awaken early, feel free to approach
staff for assistance.

Nursing staff makes regular
rounds during the night
using a red flashlight.

This is both to ensure patient safety
and to document, for the doctors,
how many hours patients are sleeping.

If you are awake and see the
red light, please speak or wave
to the nurse so that you will be
counted awake.

***
I’ve been looking through the early posts on this blog and found this one. I still find it hilarious.

*

Follow your instincts
and make more enemies.
Not even Billy goats in your lingerie
can break the curse. On Wednesday,
however, the enraged mob
becomes less threatening than the sight
of barnyard animals rooting in your sock
drawer, which as we have discussed, should be taken seriously.

*

A rotten cell
phone connection could make this a perfect
misunderstanding. You believe talking
for the sake of communication is essential
as you are in the midst of a delusion
concerning your voice.
Nevertheless, in order to chat through machines
you should remain out of the vicinity
of strangers who want to steal your larynx.
Static is a language. Call me.

***
This is made out of horoscopes I wrote for Read Write Poem back in 2010.

*

Whether you’re dripping
pine-scented candle wax
in your navel, feeding rice to your leopard
with a spatula or accompanying your clone to the plastic
surgeon’s office, you’re doomed
to fail. But, falling asleep in your leotard
just means you have a problem
with setting goals. Your hands
are in the casserole? Well, then. Dinner awaits.

*

Even the shiniest
doorknob should be cleaned
with an alcohol wipe
before tasting. Don’t allow
your sense of proliferating
bacteria keep you from giving
the bus window a curious lick. Nibble
a stapler, savor
the gas station’s cash register, or sip
a spoonful of puddle water.
You know what they say,
“You can’t dance if you don’t take your shoes off.”

* * *
This is made out of horoscopes I wrote for Read Write Poem back in 2010.