The Poetry of Timothy Lavenz

Center Region

where one lands now unnaturally, decanted, ready
to launch freed keys on capillary tractions to hyper-seed scan
virtue is energy made reason: this quoted from the gutter
channel by glance discovered in the unequilibrious magma
splashing aura once more of the Ichabod flora in spite of itself,
heat prancing into beloved distances anathema
to peek you into the standard: time comes when the index
meanders in the raw blank of let’s chapter
seeking shelter, no, echo of guzzled crater incomplete, we chose
there lo this cackle at the burgeon of candle’s odious crack
line orange irreversible into the cluttered real dismantled
inviting that, to more the feel of it, inwards

Dance

No sentient remainder in the peat, tulips
despite the wipeout sprout craniums
fervent to wander thru the sprung leak –
drowsy outing to the unfathomable cling
of sleep’s whole silver possibility.

Humanless was that splendid offering:
pinecone, coast, rising heat.
I surveyed the dawn’s benevolent creep,
honey-orange spurts and mockingjay peeps,
with a meal of torqued words, snagged
from the mute chalice of the charred hands
eager to drink the mixed relief
for tomorrow’s grief-delivered people
clarified to perfection by extinction assumed
and the hard-won gallop of final innocence:

Unglorious, ungodly, divine release;
Medusa’s blithe gift: free feet.

Poetry

A phlegmatic film of
friable spirit and naughty deed
over drool-wafting nothingness is
our prime world decree:

A spider’s net, prepped to catch
drift of notion and animal sneeze,
casting safe lines to
unsuspecting regions,
levitating in the rugged elsewhere.

(Scamper faster, knead.
The gaps and leaks
sliced so cursorily in the shield
run deeper.)

The weave feeds the vacuum,
the vacuum eats the weave,
love and scar tarry
piquant
in creation’s unequal:
the existence of poetry.

ŚŪNYATĀ

Outside unbending pavement shines, blue
From the flashing bulbs of a passing ambulance.
Everything’s out there, is what I think then
When I see and don’t think. Between my eyes
An imaginary square of divine concentration dissolves
Naturally into a series of partial elements, chaotic
As I was before and after this. The light
Is gone now. Dare I share with you how,
Inside out, heart can become tranquil reservoir
For all sorrow’s reign in outer world,
For all humanity’s chain to breaking stones?
Were it a gift to give, I’d give it! but I’m
Helpless and hopeless for answers. Who suffocates
In private understandings, owning amok desire’s
Brand and scar, dragging overblown mental powers
Into hallucinatory tomorrows, clutching
Relics of the past, only to end a bounced check.
But what can’t be done with love’s secret!
Such is the main inspiring source which leaves
Little left to observe, save it all unchained:
Our expiration date not chiseled on missing stones
But delivered into fires raging inside us of truth.
Salvation: simple as a glance at the lamp within
Myself—who floating off forever must be you.

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Timothy Lavenz is an independent writer and translator whose journeys in the word can be traced at fragilekeys.com. He earned his B.A. in creative writing and philosophy from the University of Iowa and his M.A. from the European Graduate School. His critical essays on literature appear in Kunst und Kirche and Oraxiom. Innerving the ghosts of language is his thing. He frees moths.