Issue 34, Spring '13

Breathing Book

by Patrick Lawler Issue 1 02.03.2006
  If you are given one set of letters, you can write down the
others.

                                          Francis Crick
                                This is a book

                                 of beginning

(words).
       This is a book

of endings

                                 (books).

This   is                            a forgetting
and        a remembering.   This is a book                    spun in the
gut.   This is a book           with (vague

boundaries.    This is a book       of premembering.

                   (You never know whether

          you are opening a book

                                                or a world.)
                                          breath
                  pressed
                                     in a book

                    (the givenness of existence

         I pretend to be
Godard's character

I am inside a book made of light

                    being in the midst       of is)

                                                other-flourishing
     wine-press for words
                             I lift a stone

out of my heart.

It is my heart.
This book is written               by Agrippa--

mesmeric        and                        swallowed.

                This book

sustains its enigmatic       correspondence                        with
the

silence      that spills                               around its shores.
This book                                         exchanges its presence
with the presence                      of the world.

This book    is                                          a dwelling.
                          It leaves                                  a blue
streak.

          It opens
               its soft mouth around) you

Patrick Lawler

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Patrick Lawler has three collections of poetry published: A Drowning Man is Never Tall Enough (University of Georgia Press), reading a burning book (Basfal Books), and Feeding the Fear of the Earth, winner of the Many Mountains Moving poetry book competition (2006).  “Breathing Book” is from his next manuscript Breathe a Word of It, which is the final in the quartet of books inspired by the four elements.