Brake Failure in Terza Rima
I
The ‘66 Mustang ‘s copper color matched my Frigidaire . A 15
Galloping horsies stampede on plastic upholstery b
To the Big Country no longer roamed by Packards or Corvairs A
II
Syncro -mesh 4-on- the- Floor standard Phallic Shift moves smoothly B
First to Third, with no- jam downshifts. My dad’s cool perfect present C
Thrush pipes and Hooker Headers cut V8 backpressure hugely , B
III
It Sounds throaty and mean. Totaled in a wreck, the event C -1
Wasn’t fully extinguished. when the front end frame was straightened D
At Sampson Auto Frame Repair, where We meet by Accident. C +0
IV
, The upward vaulting cowl and thrusting hood looked straight and , DED
True, but that front wheel shimmy at 65,only vanished +0
When I broke the shimmy barrier at 90 MPH and +0
V
Thus set A Mass Turnpike safe speed at 95, I Banished +0 EFE
Doubts what me worry, just stop before hitting something, Disc brakes F +0
Insure response . Move over shitty hippie VW s. I crush +0
VI FGF
Your peace and love flatten you under my Kriegswagen, to make +0
BU by Noon & hand in a Husserl grad school paper +0
Structures of Consciousness spin , war chariot wheel hubs that take +0
VII GHG
Me flying down the long hill into / the last toll at “safer” +0
90, with foot off the gas. i slam the brake, flat to the floor +0
Couldda gone farther if there was no floor./ 10, note I, in glacier +0
VIII HIH
Stillness inside. What Shall I hit toll booth or car? /11 , I explore +0
how many car lengths to a crash? , there is a new Citroen +0
In my sights. Third to Second, then pull up the hand brake to score
IJI
A quasi –parking into the car ahead. Nearing The End,+0
I am at peace, resigned to my fate, /9 Belted in for impact. +0 J
I might not be impaled on full stop into the Citroen +0
JKJ
I Make the French Connection. Spared, Adrenaline surge retract +0 J
Hits back. I get out & see I shan’t be driving from here on +10
I Shift to neutral, push it through the gate and pay. My last act +0
Before walking into Boston
I pushed the car through the toll, paid the toll and walked into Boston
Private Mythologies
The first father of a fallen bloodline.
has trespassed into human precincts.
Trapped in being wholly formed,
Unable to become/ In this eternal future passed
Your Punishment is Constancy . How can you think
the thought you have always had or find
Lust in senses un-acquired and unborn?
I do not speak your name . IN THE SILENCE of you.
It is a capsule of angel’s blood that cannot flow
In MY continuance . / I am not half of you
you mock me Since I know
you do not care I am the last,
Spartan Boy
I feel stupid, and baffled by my affection,
So Late in coming and so absurd, 2
Like being shot in the ass with an arrow . 3
You have no use for this now, 3
Once when I preferred 2
A thé dansant with unprovoked danger 2
You, Wolf cub tough girl, appeared 2
Entering my rooms in animal aspect ____
Wary but curious, Hungry and fierce s
The soul of you secured inside that guarded perimeter
I would not cross without your leave or sanction.
I wanted you wild
like the Spartan boy, who must expect
That The clawing, thrashing fox he hides cannot be reconciled
to unnatural submission
as the beast tears its way to freedom
through him
Thought Experiment
If thought is a shaped charge we hold against the world X
Then Each new thought hits your last In head-on thought collision
The run-on succession never reaches the outside.
If I could think about what I know and know it still—
Then I can falsely claim to think and will
what is. Only shards of Acts and sensual inclinations purely abide
In the chaos we conspire to order by fixing them to an origin
they never had. We declare the near- present actual, a stand-in
Place holder for a quicksilver after- and-before. The non-stop time slide
Moves onward in recursive revision
(N+1)!, [N=Thought] + 1! Factorial] X
Divided by Thought (N)!. [factorial]– [(N+1)!/N!]: — Equals =N+1
The thought and the thought’s thinker
and the thought about the thought and that thought’s thinker
never reaching the Thinker, always ahead one.1
This is my body. handed off
to thought .
Quod erat demonstratum 1
Catherine Ventry is a lawyer of long standing in Newburgh. Before law, she was temporarily in grad school for philosophy, and repaired office equipment for IBM after dropping out.
