Poetry: Lorsung

An archeology

Éireann Lorsung

 
When became the question others could solve
When, an issue of movement

Whiteness in the distance, was it cliffs or an underskirt decaying, hung midair
White heat across afternoons, even now

Weir, fishbed, river a straightened ellipsis after 1918

What red flowers were worked here in what hand
What blue

We covered the stove with Delft tiles
We laid our bones across one another, to be found like that

Wing of a bird torn off by hand

We made a space between New Year’s Eve and Epiphany
We filled it with scale models of our belief

We brought blue flowers in from fields we didn’t own
 

 

Lessons and carols

Éireann Lorsung

 
[audio:https://newfound.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Lessons-and-Carols-1.mp3|titles=”Lessons and carols” by Éireann Lorsung]  
1
First of all things will be hung from hooks.
At the top of the wall the intersection of metal
              and wood.
The first thought is a thought of construction.
Mostly we are concerned with the repetition of
              form.

2
Formal repetition is a repetition of sound.
Formal repetition is a repetition of of.
Formal repetition is a repetition repetition.
Formal repetition is a a.
Formal repetition is is.
Formal repetition repetition.
Formal formal.
——.

3
We have delayed the appearance.
If a structure the body turns grey or invisible
              look it’s nighttime we couldn’t see it
              anyway.
Appearance as a function does not mean to
              look at.

4
Speaking of the body the multiple of the body:
              bodies. It has to be said we are not
              interested in the tactility of bodies.
These days the code word is distance.
We whisper it just about everywhere, into our
              listening machines.

5
Quality of luminescence.
In the manual we learn to lay out artwork and
              to apply it.
Here on the floor I have placed your reflection
              and the yellow light.

6
If concern for the body emerges we prefer to
              encase it.
The substances are wax, oil, soil, stacks, locks,
              bones, boxes, emulsion, rocks, wire,
              chalk, line, suspension.
We place the bodies in the places for bodies.
              This is where they breathe quite loudly.
              In the places the bodies can enjoy going
              unnoticed.

7
Your intellect and beauty may be safely stowed
              in this crack.

8
Make landscape out of the body. This is what we
              will call iteration.
With the first noise tell us where you are.
The light is made to show us.
Some things are larger than the body.
These we suspend or place on top of body-sized
              things.

9
When we say landscape we talk about distance
              primarily recorded.
We mean the surface of a wall.
No, we mean the painted surface.
The incorrect awaits a finer definition

10
Nothing haunting the space between those soft
              soft objects.
For example polythene, plaster powder, powder
              paint, thread, arguments, cologne.

11
The places for sitting are roped off.
A century pursues us even here.
There is for instance a woman’s hand raised and
              the collection of marks you might at
              one time have called a cinema.
 

 

Éireann Lorsung lives in Nottingham, UK, where she did her doctorate in Critical Theory, writing about love and deconstruction. Her first book, “Music for Landing Planes By,” was published by Milkweed Editions in 2007. A second is forthcoming, also from Milkweed. She edits the journal 111O.