Dmitri’s secret dissent in the parrot axis (impetrarc sonnet), Steve Parker

Judith Nelson, Split Infinity, 1993, 30X36


Dmitri’s secret dissent in the parrot axis (impetrarc sonnet)

(to his loving wraith, Suliko …)

 
whether (it) were (Shostakovich) in the mind
of the Leningrad metronome—the dead
resistant pulse of a city … life-lined,
thin, hollow—(was) the subsistent onward /z/ed
of a living corpse propagandized into legend
(“… Baby, Zed‘s dead“—Pulp Fiction) end (war) to end

all (beat); the rat-walk; the invasion themed
(water or feet) or scurry—(for all) immanentizing of despair
a (-) semic shift—Stalin’s Walk perhaps re-dreamed
by Pixar—[¿memed?] resistance en plein air
…..(not) ………his polysemics on display for all (to see)

—at home he pulses with the secrecy
they’ll never even know (how hard)—their fall (or call)
he feels with music, pride and secret glee

__________________
Steve Parker

 

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