pax americana would like to apologize for a printing error on the selections from Clinton Krute's "Wiliam Tell" in issue one of our print publication. Below is a full reprint of the sections from that issue. Clinton has recently been published in They Are Flying Planes.
I.
The ground felt heavy, but not too heavy.
It felt good to lay our heads on it.
Porcelain whispers are audible
from the Rare Book Room,
all had little bearing, though,
on the administration's decisions.
And we, left as if divorcees,
thin, spaced devices,
as a belt of clouds
slapped by the flowering steam-ships
across the street.
At night we remember,
but you have forgotten
or seem to have forgotten,
slips of insect repellent
snitching on the masthead,
near where we dined.
All for the best maybe
that "the links," were still moist at "tee-time,"
that workmen rambled across bronze thrones.
Again, it is important to point out,
a stealth hearing piece receiving stale
Icelandic memos (of baked otter and cream
sauce, of cracked leather) bugged us too,
for something is at least better than everything.
Sand castles, drip castles, bore themselves
regally then, sterilized to their regressive fate
(all this has passed, a matter of course).
Concern is native here, the Rock of Gibraltar
now seems nothing so strange, or so large, nothing.
Besides, it was summer,
ice became salient, travels beckoned
from the choke-cherry-strewn paths of youth.
V.
What I did for summer vacation,
the milkman delayed at the post-office,
thinking he was Daniel Webster,
he bought himself a drink.
But before we get too far, the lathe spins
rapidly, dog shit on upholstery.
Many goals scored in Rio de Janiero,
beautiful city, so natural, like moss
growing on a seaside cliff.
We are new to this, this, this
this gulling of prospects, the vivid
lamplight protruding into conversation,
attempting to imagine the chiliagon,
compiling the lurid videography
of a nation's third trimester; not this nation,
but the nation that's next in line
to feed black seals,
that leans over the rail
draped with a clean bright flag
of exotic colours, the sneer of British
spellings in young eyes.
What's needed is a net of greater capacity,
more tightly woven, as
the hands of children
playing, "this is the church,
this is the steeple," are tightly woven,
with a message inside,
a blanket wrapped in celebrity,
knitted by a relative never asked for.
Now it covers and warms your legs
the wooden chair squeaking as you,
F.D.R., wheel out to chat with friends
on the veranda of a retirement home,
thinking to yourself
how unfair your life has been.
IX.
She was aging rapidly, upset
With the way photographs of nature
Were produced, she felt comfy
In her room with Bob Barker.
Felice was unclear
Of any motivation toward anything other
Than the genesis of fantasy worlds
Forever arriving on the landing pad
Of awareness, a rooftop
Swimming pool filled with sparkling partiers.
Whereas Thomas cleft to
The well-hewn orange-groves
Where he had first experienced
The New Harmlessness, and watched
Peacefully as the sky filled with slow air-mail.
Goats would ramble in beer-helmets,
Sipping at tubes leading
To two frothy Bud Lites, representative,
In that day, of the way in which,
With both hands in pockets,
One would allow the thumbs to rest
Outside of the pockets, giving the impression
Of a casual demeanor in intense social situations.
The City Council had ordered them removed,
So Felice burned her complete collection of
People Magazine, allowing smoke to fill
The garage, staining the aquamarine
Hood of her Prelude. Tet was four days away.
Beneath a browning kitchen sink,
He crouched and pondered the simple beauty
Of a wheelie, or thought of mouse droppings
As ant cocoons, or their tubular coffins.
Briefs spun agelessly in the washing machine.
Gentle Giant crawled from the radio's speaker.
XII.
Far from the house
close to the brook
where everything screams platitude
near the creek
where cameras spin yarns,
far beyond the dale and
outlying crops of freedom fighters
who sleep in shadows
sleep dreaming of tender hooks
past every caged hat
and the cigarette smoke of the heavy bear
who hunts for the sheer thrill
of sleeping in shadows
of opening creaky doors,
beneath the "weeping dame"
the billboard of a weeping dame
who is weeping for a very good reason
who weeps along to Variations on "Blue Wedding"
and other great hits
around the bent mountain range
pulled violently from the earth
by some goddamned kids,
out to make trouble
out to write letters in the snow
with magic markers
out by the barn
behind the barn, actually,
near the hawthorne bush
that lives next to the melville bush,
which is furiously writing fictions
that will only be appreciated posthumously,
we sit and drink cups of water,
content in our knowledge
of each other and of history,
completely unaware
of the pleasures of conjecture.
