ACTION Cover Photo: D.B. MacMillan , 1910. George Grantham Bain Collection, Library of Congress. Author photo by Mel Keiser. Action © Anthony Opal, 2014 This work is Open Access, which means that you are free to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work as long as you clearly attribute the work to the authors, that you do not use this work for commercial gain in any form whatsoever, and that you in no way, alter, tranform, or build upon the work outside of its normal use in academic scholarship without express permis- sion of the author and the publisher of this volume. For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work. First published in 2014 by Peanut Books a literary offshoot of punctum books Brooklyn, NY http://punctumbooks.com ISBN-13: 978-0692335543 ISBN-10: 0692335544 Library of Congress Cataloging Data is available from the Library of Congress. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ I USED TO MAKE THE BIGGEST FEASTS FOR NOBODY. -L.O. Peanut Books | Brooklyn, NY ACTION [ poems ] Anthony Opal CONTENTS 10 | ACTION 11 | SLAVE 12 | THE CITRUS-BIRD PROBLEM 13 | EXODUS ETC 14 | SMALL GOD 15 | BACK ROADS AND WORM HOLES 16 | LIST 17 | MECHANICAL SUNFLOWER 18 | KING DAVID 19 | THE WAY YOUR T-SHIRT HUNG 20 | COMING DOWN THE MOUNTAIN 21 | SCRAWLED LIKE A FILEFISH 22 | THE COYOTE 23 | YOUR BEST OWL SUIT 24 | ENTERING THE WATER WITHOUT LOOKING 25 | NO SNOW IN THE JUNGLE 26 | HALLELUJAH TO PORNOGRAPHIC COLLAGE 27 | THE WING’S BODY 28 | GOOD MORNING 29 | WAKING UP TO SNOW 30 | JOHN CAGE 31 | HALF A BIRD MASK 32 | INVISIBLE PLANE 33 | VARIETIES OF WAR 34 | STAY 35 | GOLDEN CITY 36 | “FRESH AIR YOU ARE AN ART STUDENT” 37 | THAT OF THE PHARISEES 38 | MOBILE ENOUGH 39 | CATHEDRAL 40 | NO SMALL PREMONITIONS 41 | AS YOUR VOICE IS A BOTTLE ROCKET 42 | FIGMENT LIKE A FRAGMENT 43 | “I LAUNCHED A BOAT FRAIL AS A BUTTERFLY” 44 | ALBINO PEAPOD 45 | VODKA IN THE SHOWER 46 | THE BEAST 47 | THROUGH A MUTED TRUMPET 48 | OF COURSE THE DRUMS 49 | HIPPOPOTAMUS 50 | THAT WHICH POINTS AWAY 51 | GLITTER-BOMB HALLELUJAH 52 | A SMALL HILL LIKE A SMALL MOSES 53 | MORE NAKED THAN EVER DRESSED 54 | SON OF HOW WAVES ARE SPUN 55 | LIKE A TORTOISE-SHELL HAIR-CLIP 56 | ELECTRICITY FOR THE SYMPHONY 57 | ST FRANCIS AT THE WEDDING 58 | THE WHOLE GARDEN 59 | OUT OF THE WHIRLWIND 60 | UNFOLDING THE NAPKIN 61 | NOTIONS OF LOVE 62 | WARMER WEATHER 63 | TO LAUGH WILDLY AT HORSE AND RIDER 64 | FROM THE MOUTH OF GABRIEL 65 | SOLA SCRIPTURA 66 | BY THE OTHER SIDE 67 | THE LIONS ARE PACING ACTION 10 ACTION dear god-and-a-half dear action painter dear compassionate sloth and hammerhead shark who willingly gave up the hammer dear directionless each and every direction at once dear homeless zoo keeper dark inverted sun and broke- winged finch healed-winged falcon dear surprising January rain running quickly from rooftops like prophets’ voices in the wind which brought it to them not beyond infection or cancer or arthritis or fevers or doubt but rather those unseen jet streams howling throughout the land to break things up again 11 SLAVE I take my medication and then fall in love with a gull the holy slob that I am its toes dug into the sand and the other gulls held up by strings though nothing casts a shadow anymore on a day like this I want to sing a song to myself in the silence of myself something like “dearest bird you are too much for me to handle I’m not worthy to untie the thong of your sandal” and then to imagine this gull wearing sandals and fall asleep for the first time happy due to the absurdity of the very grandeur of a mute being 12 THE CITRUS-BIRD PROBLEM only one bird breed lives in lemon trees until I Googled it and found out that many bird breeds live in lemon trees and that it’s actually a problem people have keeping these birds out of their citrus the worst being the oranges but then I Googled that and it turns out the citrus-bird problem is universal and not a joking matter like last night when Jake made fun of Jean-Dominique Bauby by blinking his left eye and then regretted it or the time when I took too lightly the citrus-bird problem that we were having metaphorically 13 EXODUS ETC we hung our harps on the poplar trees growing left-leaning from the muddy banks of the river our captors demanded that we sing songs of G-d’s good deeds and faithfulness in times of trouble I saw a dead bush burst into flames my mind reeling with hate for each stupid fish-mouth that came to the surface for air as if the river cared or the river was fair which is when Levi stared singing about the time Moses struck a rock with a stick and just couldn’t get the water to stop 14 SMALL GOD and who am I to not slowly fashion a small god from the fingernail clippings of the girl I love Jackson Pollock of the body was an idea I had for a sculpture imagining if chaos were spatial like what happens when a word disappears into an object between us the vase of your shoulders or as André Breton put it better “my wife whose shoulders are champagne” and then to wake in the myriad mums (my pubic hair littered with mum pollen) to Adam’s excited utterance “oh bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh” 15 BACK ROADS AND WORM HOLES darkness and diphtheria mix with softness the shape of a brick-cornered building encompassing a map of West Africa (explaining this tit-for-tat and stray cat moaning as some suffering is just too much and the only way to get at it’s by back roads and worm holes the removal of all things to make her say “okay okay I remember that”) the firefly fat with light swarming inside the jar to make the center of the palm bright as the person carrying it I used to have so much to say before the rain carried me away and now it steers 16 LIST things I would miss upon leaving here frozen pasta referred to as “the nests” real sonnets by unreal prophets pale darkness of the morning our bed the silence therein noise of the fan waking in the middle of the night to take a piss without lights on stumbling back upstairs glimpsing the snow the nocturnal crow the possum digging in the compost bin the laughter of it inside myself and G-d still unresolved by hope in ecstacy the Fibonacci sequence coupled with this reality of strange mercy that pulls us inward 17 MECHANICAL SUNFLOWER “I hope like a hatchback bird at least some semblance of worship comes from these” was supposed to be the last couplet of this last poem but I couldn’t get there and so decided to start here (with what gratitude) as I walk through the hospital lobby and out into the parking lot leaving behind tubes of blood with my name on them address and birthday it’s all so odd how someday I’ll be just one petal on the mechanical sunflower which is why I think she keeps telling me that for some love leads to discipline and for others it’s the other way around 18 KING DAVID no longer allowed inside the temple I take pills in order to access the absent G-d shaped door a portico outside which I wait like King David at the back of a cave huddled and itching my chest from withdrawal while having the wherewithal to withstand it all I find myself cleaved from innocence and experience alike remaining alive solely to coincide with the hell of “we strive for five” around the corner where sunlight streaks the streets like water only more beautiful as sunlight is able to be displaced by a shadow 19 THE WAY YOUR T-SHIRT HUNG dreamt of you but not as a scholar I couldn’t have dreamt anything kinder or more supple or gentler or smaller than the curves of an airplane window (the divot of your bellybutton becoming a universe to be flipped over like a cosmetic mirror one side magnified the other normal) as if it were you the wife of my youth of apple bearings and single trees the receding light plain-old-light inside a plane of light and how we love to fly I remember touching down in Sierra Leone the way your T-shirt hung in the humid air