Jordan STEMPLEMAN

Hook and Eye


The great sound from the other side, from where fertility humbles, from where cheapness
is death for only those that build themselves around it. What you can do is this, but to
have this name as yours, charts the fits that were thrown and the roll taken by every and
all known thing that brought us together, held us for a time so that we may end this now.

As the voice split into a pause from your body and a necessary action, much like travel
when the stores are closed and the day shortens itself, the understanding of admonitions
began to seem unfair. It was from that earthly ache we knew of to be voice. The human
tap devoted to the mission ahead, of you, moving far ahead, mensal and stable to keep.

How on eyes are the undecided the exercise for the pliable move? The earlier it seemed,
the more we attempted to elicit each question. The singer who tried to keep up with the
refugium, slippery and alone as it was. The lower vibrations that shook, but also lulled us
on into something much more quiet and spacious, enhancing this ensemble once more.

The methods go on infracted, pointing to lush studies in making sure each of us arrives
home okay. What came to the mouth was exactly what stuck to the recesses and was
thought to stay there well beyond its use. And now it is here, clearing up what went on
without it, accepting the sight of other additions with their dance of modeling phrase.

This exchange has always suited us well. It's what we owned before the inlands wind
split the brush into sects from the summer fires. And these instructions, retold again to
one another, fill our defenses, even under blankets bested by the cold. It's there what we
anticipated gave way long before things moved before us, passing what we'd given away.

To guard this as a random means, to efface the pressing development in the spirit of
strange taste. It all goes together so well, to the point that requesting something else, not
only indicates a fallacious pull to terminus, but also to the passing of the gutbucket in the
hopes the night will piece itself on, forgetting all the listless space that determines it all.







The Custom of Tradition & Routine

This can go beyond the one comparison, but if uncertain,
as one opens, you open one, the background engenders
a new diversion, placing what was known to hold place
in charge of all the rest. To it, there must be joy
when even in age, it's discovered to use words to lean in
for it, to nearly topple each time lapse, each fascination
marred by what's asked to appear again. Planes that charge
to an outward line, beyond knowing where they began,
from a discipline that is tracked by an inner appearance.
But even their old annotations finding a wintry route,
returning to the clipping urge for it to end here,
drifting by what carries it for its size and trappings.

Mirador
(an assemblage of titles from the wonderful poems of Barbara Guest)

the past, a short
narrative, the next
floor, an afternoon in jeopardy,
composition, the red gaze untitled,
a burst of leaves freed color, nostalgia
of the infinite, a dawn walk quoting
Theodor Adorno, vignettes alteration
echoes the brown vest, Hans Hofmann
the trickster, modernism the gold tap
instructions she honors, De Chirico
the hungry knight, roman stripes
a different honey, supposition,
the smooth stair freedom, green
numbers, imagined room





More unlike than to remember


Never before the birthday, the feelings flushed
By what happens more often to others. Then, as hoped for
There fixates a space large enough for interests
To return to what was in one self, long pulled to the surface
For a waiting observer drifting without patience.
But after the day of abandonment, those who returned
To the exact place couldn’t begin to know what to look for,
Let alone stay and give sense to the important moments
Long returned to, elsewhere, where for now is there.





Bobby Fischer


The prisoners asked him how successful
A move such as Smothered Mate would go over
On a new prisoner not yet booked. Without
The exchange of information for toothpaste
And a cup of soup from lunch, the champion
Remained icy flat, somewhat reading
In a bunk above the players. The opponents,
Now well into feelings of insecurity,
Began sweating out each move, hoping
The American would be assigned a long night
Of kitchen duty, his perch abandoned,
The game allowed to continue for old time’s sake.





DeLorean

When the V-8 was shimmied under the hood
of the Tempest, it became the Goat.
Much later, the wings opened upward,
to the point one could keep the mirror
flat, thereby keeping the lines in their lines.
The drive was like burning Hollywood
all over the roads of Northern Ireland.





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