five poems from readiness / enough / depends / on,
then a brief essay
July 26-7 93
oblong windows lit
room a bare bulb
over the back steps
burning into the night
as if it’s all time
likewise facing the street
countless stars
and a few patches of cloud
October 8 94
slight
of a size
air
possible
a tree
to live
stirs
at rest
out
a while
the window
while there’s so much
soon
on round
after I’ve
earth, sky
waked up
to start
)birds too
the morning
about as quiet
there have
as flowers I see
been times
April 2 78
wind huge outside since when
falling asleep alpha rhythms I suppose
how many years
without death
August 6-8 78
maybe
words and things among us go
together enough
wherever your end is
December 2-3 1992
t h e w h o l e o r c h e s t r a
risen
up into the air
for dancing
after the storm
Larry Eigner’s readiness / enough / depends / on, his last collection of poems before his death in 1996, explores the precarious position of the self that inhabits an uncertain place between the sufficient and the dependent, between the assurance of passing from one state to the next and the unknowability of how and when that crossing will play out. Eigner’s “I” is situated on lyric coordinates where it thinks and feels in time and place, though the breadth of the spotlight on the self remains open-ended in order to allow the concrete to be brought into relation to a wider map. Continue reading
then a brief essay
July 26-7 93
oblong windows lit
room a bare bulb
over the back steps
burning into the night
as if it’s all time
likewise facing the street
countless stars
and a few patches of cloud
October 8 94
slight
of a size
air
possible
a tree
to live
stirs
at rest
out
a while
the window
while there’s so much
soon
on round
after I’ve
earth, sky
waked up
to start
)birds too
the morning
about as quiet
there have
as flowers I see
been times
April 2 78
wind huge outside since when
falling asleep alpha rhythms I suppose
how many years
without death
August 6-8 78
maybe
words and things among us go
together enough
wherever your end is
December 2-3 1992
t h e w h o l e o r c h e s t r a
risen
up into the air
for dancing
after the storm
Larry Eigner’s readiness / enough / depends / on, his last collection of poems before his death in 1996, explores the precarious position of the self that inhabits an uncertain place between the sufficient and the dependent, between the assurance of passing from one state to the next and the unknowability of how and when that crossing will play out. Eigner’s “I” is situated on lyric coordinates where it thinks and feels in time and place, though the breadth of the spotlight on the self remains open-ended in order to allow the concrete to be brought into relation to a wider map. Continue reading
Rogue Embryo 