definitive mechanisms for monetizing forests by Jan Clausen


 
I.

 
Boat towed past fires                                   as they let coffins down

 
      knout            derisory             mission             critical                 figment

 
          (Everything as evidence                           of   [something])

 
          as                               once

 
                behind the bar

 
                                                    Stoli Orange Stoli Peach

 
                              warbled

                                                                                    in lambent

 
                                                        iterations

 

 

 

            My hangman, what a honey,
                          wants to thank me for my service

 

 

                                                                            via e-mail, as I dangle,

                                                                                            offers funding for a bash

 

 

          And here’s Mr. Job               heavyset pale

                                            an acolyte

in puffy coat and backpack

 

                                                      diffusing dolor

                                    through the subway car

                                                w/ censer-swinging voice

 

 
MAY I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION         PLEASE I’M SORRY to disturb

you         can anybody help           me I just got out of the hospital at 4     o’clock

pm this afternoon I         had a massive seizure rushed             to the ER they kept

me in the hospital         27 days everything         I own was lost       in the

fire so         I’m in the shelter now but it’s not a safe space           of course you gotta pay
for your own food & clothing         and I’m very thirsty and I’m very tired and I’m very
hungry and I’m very sick           but blessed to be alive     believe me I don’t enjoy              
having to find myself in this     type of fix       always     count on that paycheck   long as
you got your health can       anybody please you’re happy to be           so very fortunate
excuse       me I’m so thankful

 

                                    a nickel or a dime

 

                                                          etcetera

 

                    and how indeed

 

                            shall suffering be remastered

 

    what makes a story of it

 

 
                                    in Old Church Slavonic

 

 

Esperanto

 

 

                                                                            Kreyol

 

 

II.

 
                Anthropocene in freefall             here’s some cool

                                                                                        stuff to do

 

                    Self-weld a tall bike and ride it                     into a carbon sink

                    Sing countertenor                                         in a “complaint choir”

                    Sketch a pussy                                           in a grievance meeting

                    Hang reflecting mirrors                       from the upper atmosphere

                    Pronounce in a voice of tragedy                               “I deading”

                    Exclaim in a dream                                     that sounds like mortar fire

                              (pleas’d as punch with your savoir vivre)

 

I open winter cupboards           polar air rushes out         grit between my teeth

                  from walking in the wind

 

    III.

 

                    E. Flatbush katorga           once upon a time

 

              deep in a 2-fare zone             Xmas eve       the hood-
    shadowed faces             coat-fortified             as only those know how
to bundle up               who hail from true warmth

 
                          “Can’t get a bus now, just wait’ll these cuts—”

 
                resourceful, intrepid

they leak into abrupt

                  dollavans                             or gypsy cabs absorb them

              gripping their hard-bought burdens

 
                    (So, where’s the sun?)

 
      clumped in the huddled brick three-families

 
                    where there is too much furniture & prayer

 

 

                                        (Nonetooclearwherethepainis

 
                                                                                                  comingfrom

 
                                                                          intheNewYear)

 

 
                                                                                    Oncearth

 

 
                                                        Once                     “saving” it

 

 

sowbugs         &             sawbones                         these mortals amaze

 
                                          “Why can’t they just fix it

 
                  so I plug my prosthesis             into the nearest USB port?”

 

 
bardo                     bravado
              albedo                     zettabytes         mission                             bye-bye
                                                                                          [illegible]

 

 

                                        brothels               armadas

 

 

                              hard-wired to go                     on & on

 

IV.

 

Once                       remember once

 
  turning over in bed

  in the gradual gleam

  of a cloud-heavy day

  the comforting scratch
  snow shovel on concrete

  beneath the cold-furred pane

 

 

            once                     remember

 

 

        once

 

 

                                    when

 

 

                                                                                              again

 

 

V.

                  Siberia                                   to blazes

 
                                still                 there’s cool stuff to do

 
                                        miles north of here

 
                      in old-school Yankee wintertime

 
                                                villages where

 
                          rapt icicles drool in sheaves

 
                                                    stout & sparkly-phallic

                                    off

 
the edges of the eaves

 

                A perfect blue and white day,
margins of the world smoothed by snow. Sun spooling
liquid already adheres to the darkening spine of mountains
at 4:15 p.m., its last hurrah a shout of energy bounced fiery off windows
high on a frozen hill. On the way to this sinking moment, I found a low white bank that
made a brilliant screen for the shadow-projections of tree trunks—maybe birch, more
likely alder—growing along the ditch. As I followed the unpaved road, well sanded over
the ice ruts, the sun low on my right cast my lumpy human shadow into the twiggy mix.

 
I kept stepping lively, delightedly observing my small flattened self moving through
the shadow-forest.

 

 

VI.

 
                    Boat towed past fires                                   as they let coffins down

 
                        Everything as evidence                           of nothing

 
                                  (She         foresees “nano” drones the size of hummingbirds

 
          able to pursue                           targets into homes)

 

 

 
                                        once

              still

                                                          notyet

nomore

 
                                        I say

 
                      unto

 

 

 

                                              whom

 

 

 

      So here’s my Siberia of shaggy winter horse shapes recumbent on frozen upland, shockingly loud
      and vulgar donkey bray, slow-mo caravan of snowmobile headlamps in a dusk field. The Rich &
      Hollister graveyard up on the ridge, sugar loaf topping on old granite headstones. Miles and
      miles of back roads where you rarely meet a car—then sudden town, with its irrational dearth of
      sidewalks, the main drag a dangerous two-lane highway squeezing decaying clapboard up
      against the nervous little river. I pass a young woman cradling a purse, her face turned
      deliberately toward the stream of traffic. I’d say hello if she’d give the slightest sign of
      acknowledging my presence in the landscape. She hobbles over the ice ruts, her feet in thin
      pumps, and I wonder does she resent the degradation of going on foot in a land where
      everybody drives. A quiver of frozen daggers points at a grimy snowdrift, jazzing up the squalor
      of houses in disrepair, porches cantilevered over low tricky waters. Dodging commercial
truckers         barely slowing to make the curve, I spy asbestos siding sullied to waist height with bits
of frosty         filth deposited there by a winter’s worth of wheels in such an awful American hurry.

 

 

 

                      Barbed cups anointed                     ship awry

 
                          &   later still

 
                                    this latest of late advice

 

 

 

                                                                                        be patient with the body

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

Note: Katorga: Russian term for the Tsarist system of penal servitude in Siberian labor camps.

 

 

 

 
Jan Clausen’s eleven books include novels, a memoir, and five poetry collections. Veiled Spill: A Sequence is forthcoming from Tarpaulin Sky Press in 2014. The recipient of fellowships from the NEA and NYFA, she teaches creative writing at Goddard College and New York University.