Bridge Rhapsody

Ish Klein

Tir na nÓg land of perpetual youth
spirals behind my south occipital.
If you are not from here, looking back does not break your neck.

In the view from Cincinnati, I’m in a coma
in a charity ward. My heartbeat is vertical
and tries the horizontal with regularity.

In the view from Old Antarctica,
I am nothing but a battery.

In the view from the concrete in the Brooklyn Bridge
I am a low flying plane that could finally
get them out of there.

Sense impending capture.
My clock face breaks vibrating concrete.
Smoke settles before my face.

I was so late to work that day;
my spirit taken into a bridge.

He stopped his car, his girlfriend nervous.
I asked what happened; you’ve got a really bad cut, he said

and drove off; thus escaping the counter clock.
The local custom is not to get implicated.

At the hospital, Dr. Football posed before me with a needle.
I asked for plastic surgery. Not possible said he.
Then butterflies.

Butterflies?!
Butterflies are exactly the opposite!

The Going mechanism and the Striking mechanism
separate that day
In the view from Old Germany, I am a mental defective

deported in a bus.
In the view from the National Institute for Health,
I am an animal systematically stressed by varying intensities of electricity.

In the view from Kalamazoo, I am a toppled tree
that bursts forth baby mice.
A convenience store for hoards,

Tir na nÓg the underwear
the counting wheel. In her teeth, the promise of atomized joy.

Every word you’ve heard, turns and torques
the desires around me.
Believers in the star witnessors.

Kids harnessed to apocalyptic power sources.
I mind this weight furnishing my motor power.
My chest is what the weight cord wound around.

In my opinion, unwinding the hour wheel is code
blue; therefore useful to move a great wheel.
I move as a second wheel, I escape opinion.
See V- the verge where pallets mesh in the cogs of the escape wheel.

In the view from Rome, I am red shoes.
I balance by Folio, I have some tee. I attach to the top
of the verge and so swing with it.
Weights shift as per adjustment.

In the view from Valley Medical, I am a diagnostic tool.
In the view from the kitchen, I throw away indigestible food.

Note the Striking mechanism coming together,
the projection for Detent,
the Bell hammer. Salt over metal
That sound is releasing the wheel and pinion.

It is the sound of someone, me in fact

someone of several frequencies

who has taken to escaping systems

who has taken herself into the sea fold

who has taken herself out of this time.

Ish Klein is the author of the poetry books Moving Day and Union! published by Canarium Press. She is also the author of the plays, Drummer 41, In A Word, Faust, and The New Deal. A compilation of her recent videos, entitled Success Window, has been released by Poor Claudia of Portland, Oregon. As filmmaker, she was the recipient of a 2005 NEA Digital Filmmaker Residency, and her work has screened at festivals and museums around the world. She lives in Amherst with her husband the writer Greg Purcell. They are two of the four founding members of the Connecticut River Valley Poet's Theatre. See some videos here: http://www.youtube.com/user/ishkleinfilms