domestic uncertainties by leah umansky book preview

7/31/2019 Domestic Uncertainties by Leah Umansky Book Preview

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DOMESTIC UNCERTAINTIES

LEAH UMANSKY

B L A Z E V O X [ B O O K S ]

Buffalo, New York


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DOMESTIC UNCERTAINTIES

by Leah UmanskyCopyright 2013

Published by BlazeVOX [books]

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without the publishers

written permission, except for brief quotations in reviews.

Printed in the United States of America

Interior design and typesetting by Geoffrey Gatza

Cover artwork:Behind the Curtain, by Leah Umansky; mixed newspaper and magazine sourcesinfluenced by Emily Bronte's Penistone Crag in Wuthering Heights.

First Edition

ISBN: 978-1-60964-114-6

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012944195

BlazeVOX [books]76 Inwood PlaceBuffalo, NY 14209

[email protected]

publisher of weird little books

BlazeVOX [ books ]

blazevox.org

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We mostly understand ourselves through an endlessseries of stories told to ourselves by ourselves and others.

*

The fiction, the poem, is not a version of the facts;It is an entirely different way of seeing.

Jeanette Winterson ART OBJECTS


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And Then It Came Upon Him That He Would Marry Her and She Would be His Life

I. AND THEN IT CAME UPON HIM THAT HE WOULD MARRY HER AND SHEWOULD BE HIS LIFE

The woman occupies the supreme position: a songstress; a slave; a harbinger.

It always comes upon him. A slight wonder coming. A coming. A wondrous a-coming: that

he would marry her. Her.

Marry is so close to maritime; so close to maroon; so close to martyr.

(the implications delicious)

This was drowned. No flotsam or jetsam.

It was meant to be murdered; marooned; dinghy-ed along. The larger vessel was love. The

larger vessel waslove. No wonder if carried or towed; towed or carried I was the supreme

one.

I was the larger vessel.I controlled the wondering.


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II. THE DOORWAY WAS NO DOORWAYThe doorway was the night falling. A slit or stirring.

Would you still have wondered all those abouts?

maybe a-slightened wonder;

a glorification;

a plagiarizing.

Remember:

I was the transfiguration.


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III. THE MEN WILL DO NO MORE. THEY HAVE LOST THE CAPACITY FOR DOINGI am still a romantic. I am still a romantic. What is not-done or not-doing is undone. What

is not-romantic is just wrong. What is not-wondered is past.

The left past. The left stampede.

yes

You were rabbeted. Burrowed. You do with the hind-legs something post-humanistic. You

gnaw and gnaw and gnaw but lose your sense. There is no nomenclature for what is left,

but the Left-Husband. The one who wantsto do. Who wantsto do. Who wants

He was her ________________.

He was her ________________.

He was.


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Story

[1]

This story is duty-bound or duly bound.

Only too prone are the mean and narrow; the absurdities lie in the words.

damn. damn. damn. damn!!

An immediate outlet no?

Re-order damn and it is still a four-letter word.

I want to describe this the way a spinning-topwounds down. Rewounds; unwounds. Fawn

over it like one of Prousts Madelines &

wait for it

it is still as sweet.

Ahh the subtext is duly noted. No

emotional rendering or meandering. On withit.


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[2]

Lets tell the story like Prendergast.

Fleshed-out and flushed. Blushed.

Raw Umber. Violet. All the faceless stares: the lipless.

Now turn, lets Renoir the story so its hazed or haloed:

In each girl, in each eye: a spectre of the

golden past. She has my blonde; my blonde,

my blonde. Let the clock: break.

And the catalog will read: 41609

And the subtext: cast-ironed and hinged; sailor-knotted in cord and framed in ladles. Yes, ladles.

Lets weird it all out like Barnes.


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[ 3 ]

It was all appositives.

You never loved.

Say it for me.

Say it.


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The Art of Unloving

Unfolding is a lot like undressing which is a lot like

unearthing something precious. It is the same as fire sparkingred or blue. Red unfolds the blue at the bottom of the flame

which unfolds the smell (of what carbon?) into the air.

Nevermind the definitions, the logic or schemas.

Linguistically or not, the art of unfolding can be studied like

prefixes and suffixes.

Let us look at love.

We humans, love other humans and sure, pets too, places

even, but that emotion has a name and its name is love. We

also unlove, the way we can unitalicize a word and what do

you know, that word is unitalicized. Its the same with

indentation. We can unindent a word, so why not

unemotionalize the word, or the whole story?

If we came to love, we can surely come to unlove.

Its sort of the same as unfolding. When we fold we make

something neat and compact, but we also close it down,

dont we? In the act of unfolding, we expand the thing, the

truth, or the story of the thing.

When I said, I loved you, folded in that love, in a small,

parchmented tuft, was my ability to unlove. Like my ability

to unclean this for you, uncover this for you, unlight this for

you. Read the smoke signs. Decipher soot.


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Contemporary Folklore

Exaggerate the dimensions midlife

See to this nuisanceIf only it meantmistress

or what was not fully dark. It might sickenevery word. The wordless. Every

singsong.

(I let you dandle me)

In plain sight - there is no question. No.

No. No question. Now, sigh. Now, sleep.No billowing, now. I am just nostalgic for

great secrets. All just a reminder of what isno longer. For what is no longer,

functional.

So, here:

for glory, for beauty,

thou shalt not speak of: beauty,

the beauty.

Array yourself

cast abroad the rage.

Enquire, even. Lust, even.

All beauty is departed.

You set it in majesty I am making it, remaking it, gilding thegornisht.

Now, only I shall be great.

domestic uncertainties by leah umansky book preview

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