Anne Tardos
Lacan Says
Nine 64
Lacan says to “Eat your existence, mange ton dasein.”
There’s no field of sense that can be quilted.
(I don’t really know what that’s supposed to mean.)
We are here, that is, to protect each other.
Attaining a semblance of consistency within the archetypal neurosis.
(I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean, either.)
The seventh line wants to talk about suffering again.
The eighth line declines the invitation gently but firmly.
The ninth usually knows the way out of here.
So Quiet
Nine 65
It’s so quiet today—don’t know what to say.
The uncertainty of the uncertainty and then the uncertainty.
Is the road we take imagined or already given?
Are we inventing our lives as we live them?
Why do we ask questions no one can answer?
Have we finally found a groove, you and I?
A modus vivendi that’s livable for both of us?
Don’t you hate a poem that’s full of questions?
Shouldn’t I try to answer some of them somehow?
My Love Is Strong
Nine 66
[After Sonnet 102]
My love is strong but more work is needed.
It’s hard to “translate” a Shakespeare sonnet like that.
You can publish my language, but who reads it.
When I sing, I follow my Philomel, the nightingale.
That hip nightingale who understands the tiger’s camouflage totally.
Sometimes it’s preferable to not sing, to not speak.
To not keep to Shakespeare’s format or line count.
Great ideas grow on trees and delight the tongue.
Not to bore you with my, and Philomel’s, song.
Don't Blame Me
Nine 67
Don’t blame me, I was hacked, not my fault.
Nobody is wrong, everybody is right, nobody is right.
I reach across something white from a nearby universe.
And see a familiar looking mirror image of myself.
Quantum teleportation used for direct transmission to another universe.
Oh yes, this could be another mind-bending poem.
Fuddy-duddy shame-face what am I doing here.
Swim butter sway, split level reptile, heebie-jeebie rucksack.
All part of the puzzle: Every bit of it.
Everything
Nine 68
Everything, but everything, tends to be working against me.
It’s the way in which the world functions, basically.
Existence is assured to those who overcome every obstacle.
Evolutionary bonanza can cause being to overcome non-being.
Cascading enzymes within a single cell of the brain.
Enough stability to keep things from collapsing into chaos.
We get to choose how we might perceive life.
The capybaras, giant rodents, easily pushed around by swans.
Must symbolize who they are—as simple as that.
The Right Tone
Nine 69
In writing: find the right tone, and you’re off.
Leave the phony stuff behind, you don’t need it.
That doesn’t mean that devices are to be avoided.
Who is to say how this will be understood.
“Luminosity Exercises, designed by neuroscientists, improve core cognitive functions.”
Fact is that we care about each other, axiomatically.
This internettedness, this reciprocal symbiosis, partnership, partisanship, this fusion.
What it all means is that we are together.
The ninth line is simply the way it is.
The Thing
Nine 70
Determining what constitutes this “phony stuff”—is the thing.
Try sensing when it’s okay to open your mouth.
Sometimes it’s preferable to not sing, to not speak.
Yet I can’t break it off in the middle.
There are certain rules to follow in these poems.
Gentle, modest, unassuming, minimal, and easy to follow rules.
Take line seven, for example, this very line here.
Or line eight, the penultimate one in this exercise.
The ninth usually gets to deliver a punch line.
Finally We Learn
Nine 71
Finally we learn that we are dealing with images.
It doesn’t matter what the fantasy is or isn’t.
To stumble upon a reality that’s easier to navigate.
Somewhere between naïve realism and some form of idealism.
The weirdness of being human; brain thinking about brain.
No reason why Nirvana should be hidden from me.
Lucky just to be alive—a sense of being.
The blowing out of the flame of the self.
The abandoning of craving, anger, despair, and hissy fits.
You Buy Me Eggs
Nine 72
You buy me eggs and watch me eat them.
Sometimes everything seems like a movie or stage set.
Suppose we really were animals before we became human.
And then there is the appetite, let’s not forget.
Now I know what this is—what we are.
When I wrote that, it was a while ago.
Of course I no longer know anything about anything.
Until the next time, when I’ll write it down.
Then I’ll know what this is, before I forget.
The Masculine Point of View
Nine 73
The masculine point of view I can only imagine.
And now I shall go take a little nap.
Take a nap in the middle of a Nine?
Why not, it has been done many times before.
It’s called a break, a coffee break, a siesta.
How difficult it is to end one’s writing sometime.
It’s as if the writing just wouldn’t let go.
Forcing the exhausted writer to stay up and work.
When all she wants to do is to sleep.
Genre-Free Nights
Nine 74
On those genre-free nights, she just writes and writes.
Tourism, lovers’ strolls, arm in arm under the sun.
Mine is the ever perpetuating fricassee of life’s continuity.
Above all, be clear, man; be totally totally clear.
No point in dashing onto stage and be timid.
Knowing, you know, I know nothing, you would know.
I made a mistake: I said the wrong thing.
Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals, by Iris Murdoch.
Is there any point in questioning such a notion?
__________
Anne Tardos, a New York Foundation for the Arts fellow, is the author of Both Poems, I Am You, and The Dik-dik’s Solitude, among several others. She has been writing NINEs since 2009. The poems are constructed of nine words per line and nine lines per stanza.
Lacan Says
Nine 64
Lacan says to “Eat your existence, mange ton dasein.”
There’s no field of sense that can be quilted.
(I don’t really know what that’s supposed to mean.)
We are here, that is, to protect each other.
Attaining a semblance of consistency within the archetypal neurosis.
(I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean, either.)
The seventh line wants to talk about suffering again.
The eighth line declines the invitation gently but firmly.
The ninth usually knows the way out of here.
So Quiet
Nine 65
It’s so quiet today—don’t know what to say.
The uncertainty of the uncertainty and then the uncertainty.
Is the road we take imagined or already given?
Are we inventing our lives as we live them?
Why do we ask questions no one can answer?
Have we finally found a groove, you and I?
A modus vivendi that’s livable for both of us?
Don’t you hate a poem that’s full of questions?
Shouldn’t I try to answer some of them somehow?
My Love Is Strong
Nine 66
[After Sonnet 102]
My love is strong but more work is needed.
It’s hard to “translate” a Shakespeare sonnet like that.
You can publish my language, but who reads it.
When I sing, I follow my Philomel, the nightingale.
That hip nightingale who understands the tiger’s camouflage totally.
Sometimes it’s preferable to not sing, to not speak.
To not keep to Shakespeare’s format or line count.
Great ideas grow on trees and delight the tongue.
Not to bore you with my, and Philomel’s, song.
Don't Blame Me
Nine 67
Don’t blame me, I was hacked, not my fault.
Nobody is wrong, everybody is right, nobody is right.
I reach across something white from a nearby universe.
And see a familiar looking mirror image of myself.
Quantum teleportation used for direct transmission to another universe.
Oh yes, this could be another mind-bending poem.
Fuddy-duddy shame-face what am I doing here.
Swim butter sway, split level reptile, heebie-jeebie rucksack.
All part of the puzzle: Every bit of it.
Everything
Nine 68
Everything, but everything, tends to be working against me.
It’s the way in which the world functions, basically.
Existence is assured to those who overcome every obstacle.
Evolutionary bonanza can cause being to overcome non-being.
Cascading enzymes within a single cell of the brain.
Enough stability to keep things from collapsing into chaos.
We get to choose how we might perceive life.
The capybaras, giant rodents, easily pushed around by swans.
Must symbolize who they are—as simple as that.
The Right Tone
Nine 69
In writing: find the right tone, and you’re off.
Leave the phony stuff behind, you don’t need it.
That doesn’t mean that devices are to be avoided.
Who is to say how this will be understood.
“Luminosity Exercises, designed by neuroscientists, improve core cognitive functions.”
Fact is that we care about each other, axiomatically.
This internettedness, this reciprocal symbiosis, partnership, partisanship, this fusion.
What it all means is that we are together.
The ninth line is simply the way it is.
The Thing
Nine 70
Determining what constitutes this “phony stuff”—is the thing.
Try sensing when it’s okay to open your mouth.
Sometimes it’s preferable to not sing, to not speak.
Yet I can’t break it off in the middle.
There are certain rules to follow in these poems.
Gentle, modest, unassuming, minimal, and easy to follow rules.
Take line seven, for example, this very line here.
Or line eight, the penultimate one in this exercise.
The ninth usually gets to deliver a punch line.
Finally We Learn
Nine 71
Finally we learn that we are dealing with images.
It doesn’t matter what the fantasy is or isn’t.
To stumble upon a reality that’s easier to navigate.
Somewhere between naïve realism and some form of idealism.
The weirdness of being human; brain thinking about brain.
No reason why Nirvana should be hidden from me.
Lucky just to be alive—a sense of being.
The blowing out of the flame of the self.
The abandoning of craving, anger, despair, and hissy fits.
You Buy Me Eggs
Nine 72
You buy me eggs and watch me eat them.
Sometimes everything seems like a movie or stage set.
Suppose we really were animals before we became human.
And then there is the appetite, let’s not forget.
Now I know what this is—what we are.
When I wrote that, it was a while ago.
Of course I no longer know anything about anything.
Until the next time, when I’ll write it down.
Then I’ll know what this is, before I forget.
The Masculine Point of View
Nine 73
The masculine point of view I can only imagine.
And now I shall go take a little nap.
Take a nap in the middle of a Nine?
Why not, it has been done many times before.
It’s called a break, a coffee break, a siesta.
How difficult it is to end one’s writing sometime.
It’s as if the writing just wouldn’t let go.
Forcing the exhausted writer to stay up and work.
When all she wants to do is to sleep.
Genre-Free Nights
Nine 74
On those genre-free nights, she just writes and writes.
Tourism, lovers’ strolls, arm in arm under the sun.
Mine is the ever perpetuating fricassee of life’s continuity.
Above all, be clear, man; be totally totally clear.
No point in dashing onto stage and be timid.
Knowing, you know, I know nothing, you would know.
I made a mistake: I said the wrong thing.
Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals, by Iris Murdoch.
Is there any point in questioning such a notion?
__________
Anne Tardos, a New York Foundation for the Arts fellow, is the author of Both Poems, I Am You, and The Dik-dik’s Solitude, among several others. She has been writing NINEs since 2009. The poems are constructed of nine words per line and nine lines per stanza.
