ERIC BAUS

A DELPHI
THE CONTINUOUS CORNER

 

           

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A DELPHI

 

Minus tried to write his own bible. It began, So what, saliva. So what, milk.

Iris told us her dad died in space. The whited out vowels rang in my ears. Stupid moon. Stupid burned up blind spot.  

The not-doctors said his name had burned up. We never knew how it sounded.

*

The city refused to paint my brother. He banged out his nerves on birthdays. I use years, and they remember.

This was in the annex of the indivisible.

Escape your leaves, Minus said. I said, I have never used camouflage. It felt so good to lie, all that noise loosening inside me.

I like lies.

*

The burned up hills had grown more graceful.

I like hills.

They feel like hands.

*

When Iris wasn't looking I named her Ruby Foot. Hey Ruby Foot.

Her questioning pulled. Why are you always floating?

She said she tried to sign my name but the ink was immature. Stupid minutes.

*

The city wasn’t looking. This city wasn’t old enough to look.

The city said, This city isn’t old enough to say.

*

Minus told me not to breathe when the not-doctors floated by. He sat in a chair and covered his mouth. I hid behind the blinds.

This was in the entrance of the opposite pharmacy.

Minus’s bible began to speak, Hey Ruby Foot, it streamed. Iris’s water was turning clear, straining itself through her teeth.

*

In the organs of her father’s owl, Iris heard half of her name.

My brother threw a brick at its head. He was helping his cells divide.

Iris scratched the city’s face with the keys she had in her hand.

Whatever the opposite of prophecy was was what I was listening for.

*

The city decided to follow me home. Can I ask you a question? It said.

I put my gum in the subway slot to keep it from saying my name.

Hey Owl Boy, can you hear me? Hey Mister Face, what’s your name?

I would like to be called A Different House. I would like to be oxen and bread.

*

Minus water. Minus air. Behind the house with a tree growing through it.

I woke up alone with my feet in the branches. I woke up behind the sky.

The not-doctors took the needles out without removing my sheet.

Iris was outside holding her breath. My brother had floated away.

*

The city appointed a second owl to see if my brother had drowned.

The owl was sifting the blanks in our herd. The city was clovered in sound.

I like noise.

Iris likes space. She thinks it feels like snow.

*

My brother returned from the burned up hills. He contracted a diffident voice.

Whenever I asked him a question he branched. He woke up outside his breath.

*

Minus’s bible was reading itself. All those invisible vowels.

Crossing out the sky, the landscape stretched, moving the apex of the so-called.

An inverse tone accrued in my tongue. The octave’s egress bruised.

*

Iris awoke with wool in her mouth. Grass grew over her eyes.

The not-doctors thought she had seen the bad wheat. She will need a second reading.

Minus’s blindness spread to his hands. His fingers were starting to slow.

*

Inscribed, blighted, tongue filled with snow. A throat so other I entered my name.

The blotted out passages hummed. Beetles bloomed underfoot.

This was in the attic of a different house.

I slept throughout the stings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE CONTINUOUS CORNER

 

Box normal.

Box normal, okay?

Miss was just around the corner and I knew she could hear
the sound our hands hid. Ding tried to box normal but both
bees opened anyway.

Wake up, little what, wake up and be still.

Miss said I should not speak because a bee is clearing its
wings. This made an image, for a time. And if I did, I would
wake up without a throat.

Ding put both bees back and my ears got clear. I woke up a
little. Miss put a page in my throat because it was not yet a
story.

Wake up a little more, Ding. Be still, and hear a bee breathing.   

*

My silence had been long enough for the room to reappear. I
decided to play “flag” on both pianos. Ding preserved the
sound of a tiny hive.  

Whose house is this, with Halloween wine and dark crackers?
we wondered. Miss wondered too, but as an adult does, with
real wine and lighter crackers.

“flag” is a game for one player. It begins when two adult
vines enter the room. The fourth and fifth players hold still
for various intervals of time, closing their eyes. All involved
divide into thirds until the nest becomes neat.

There is no such thing as bee’s blood. Try telling that to my
throat.

*

These I knew, even in the dark, by hand, but when I woke
into the room the ceiling lowered, and the blooms did not
want to play their parts.     

Purpose mirrors are real but I wondered how the big hive
sounds.

Hello. Normal Hello.

The room held together somehow despite the vibrations of a
non-standard greeting.

Would I be allowed to walk around the continuous corner?

The blooms grew large and blocked my path. Normal Hello.

Had I missed the turning of feet? If I had it had certainly
happened suddenly, quickly, during the strong pause my name
created. But since the corner was still in the room I decided
to≈walk. My head lowered. My path lowered. The continuous
corner remained a sill.

*

The paper path bloomed and rose toned bulbs corrected our
steps. A cloud and a code, crossing.

The mandatory distance from the non-lethal ambulance is
one hundred solid digits. Keep that in mind. The minimum
time for hive transfers is half of half that. And, only half of
that beep is sustainable.

Be still. Do not discuss the continuous corner.

We had not yet acknowledged the distance but I could feel the
blooms bowing. What I wished for was what Miss had
walked towards from a great distance. Closing in is its own
reward.

A boom does not belong. I remember that much. A boom
does not belong and neither does its inverse. Rather, an
analog awaits. This is not an ambush, as an ambush implies a
corner and vines.

Ding boomed backwards. That is why her songs beep.

*

I remember being explicit. I said, I am being explicit, but my
not-body had incompletely accrued.

No adult vines allowed. I believed it and in believing it the
sign that told me to remain blank grew bewildered.

Rose schools allow implicit followers to bunk excess water. I
am allowed to transfer new water to any closed hive.
However, if≈I begin to believe any of the signs surrounding
the vines I am supposed to hover above the rain.

The language of vines is inherently explicit. Keep that in
mind during an ambush.

*

The determiner hums to denote its hide. Keep that in mind
during transfers. Whatever water is not collected expands the
vocabulary of vines:

I like your hide.

No, I like your hide.

*

The determiner knows that ants are not a symptom:

I am sorry, Miss, but they’re not coming up on the screen.
That’s like asking what the most important part of the floor is.
I mean, I could pretend that ants are a symptom, and give
you a small shovel, but that would be a false address. If I think
up a signature large enough for all the essential paper then
sure, I’ll let you know. Conversely, if the opposite happens I’ll
remain silent. Because the core of any sonar is silence, if
the opposite happens, believe me, you’ll never hear your name.

*

Miss wants more Halloween wine but the path is growing
dark. Boom boom beep. I am posing in the rain while the
altitude expands.

Miss is posing too but it takes her longer to wind. Winding
is not easy on a path grown dark. Miss is walking from a
great distance. It seems pretty great, from here.

*

We always proceed from a rigid mouth and a closed star.
More than the dawn, for someone else to find our edges
was the main thing. Who flung to me, who flung to Miss,
who flung went translated to regions of exactness.

Exactly, said the determiner: We help our songs to die.

We worked early and late, patiently and hard. We wrote
a story, which was lit, like this, from within, though from a
different source.

The blooms do not last long when they leave the outside. In
this spectrum, they live inside a rain system, where they think
themselves able to confer a natural redness, the perfect red of
their clapping hands.

Blend with the tree-tops, Ding, the room apprehends us all.

*

The determiner explains: “flag” is a game in four parts. It
consists of picking up any object in the room and saying
“flag” loudly. If an actual flag is encountered, the flag is held
in the right hand, lowered slowly, and the speaker creates a
strong pause.

Here, think of who is in the room, eavesdropping.

*

Miss does not notice the fireworks, Ding always sways, and
the perfect page retreats.

It says: The language of flags is not sustainable.

Please do not call me honey. Please do not repeat the perfect
page.

Instead of describing the room, Miss chooses to sing
“Instead.”

Ding remembers being opposed. She thinks, I am being
opposed. Yet this mention is less narration than the hour
where all her work goes.

*

Because I have a neat nest and a phonetic head, Miss allows
me to feed the bees.

Instead of describing the language of bees, I have chosen
to turn their flags into a phone. An infusion of fur into the
grafting emulsion allows a message to dip into view:

We have been (burned) discovered.

Look, I do not say, to my body. In its place I say I am trying
to demonstrate that we live in a non-tragic universe.

Hello? (Normal silence.) Hold the flag still.

*

The page in my throat won’t go away. I know that ants are
not a symptom, but I have chosen to transfer my water today.
Miss says I am allowed to play eat a piece of the toy piano’s
peel.

The determiner found my not-body but it was too immature
to claim: There is harm in the boy, but never thought.

I thought, I am clotting like a monument in soda water.

*

Bee’s blood contains two non-lethal booms: This is an
expansive shadow, and, This has been a long pause.

The vines never thought I would deny the perfect page.
Purpose mirrors silence. That is what they say.

Ding boxes normal. Adult vines dissolve. The continuous
corner is coming near. Flags are not a symptom of “flag” the
determiner wants me to say. The blooms re-live the continuous
corner in part of the perfect page.

*

Because we are no longer covered in vines Miss thinks the
opposite happened. The determiner echoes the blooms:

Animal flag. Ambulance flag. The perfect flag in a negative
box.  

The continuous corner describes itself. It says: Do not look at
the fireworks, and, Our songs are dying much too slow.

Wake up, little image, an ambush awaits.

Believe me, fellow flags, these booms will never beep.