from I just want you to know that we can still be friends
Emily Critchley
In translation
It's the open sky with
its blue voltage made me do it.
It's a horizon again, not spectral, but
to-the-point minute. This almost
uncertainly provocative
is like quasi-private attachment.
Where you might have said 'crack open,'
we want to break.
Where you might have said 'indifferent,'
meaning no harm.
It's because permanently
substantive this
Greek orienting.
Is it a naming thing?
Clusters swallow.
The foothills of light penetrative.
What lizard -
are you clearing
into the space below my foot.
It's waters' iridescent
mimesis.
The blueness survives but
never a support network.
Struck so clearly from above,
it had Greek blood too. I arranged myself
according to your wants.
A matter of each pulse
attenuating.
That's the Spartan
in us both. Where's my
armoury?
In this world
Is the distinction that a collage is more artificial than a sex doll?
Is that painful copying the template of your mind.
What activity, if you swim naked, does that make you a free citizen?
When can resistance be satisfying even when it means you have no original.
One of your tricks is to impose your own mind on your years; I've noticed that.
No one's responsible for those choices. A lost year in a hotel in broad daylight.
Why is it disjunctive remembering your holding the girl till her anger was not mollified.
Why the restatement, have you pervaded what fears.
Will she be reinstated whenever you make love to a new transition.
That is, placing your barriers, or at least, removing them equally, in that particular pile.
The actual conversations we had were not about content.
The actual conversations took place somewhere different stylistics.
How can you not see I am altogether not shirking intentions.
There is this underwritten suppression, it clamps us with its concrete teeth.
How can you not see I am petrified whose eyes were mistranslated by the English. Translate that into the typeface. Even music has its rewards.
Even a simple sentence can hold enough water to flood a museum.
I just want you to look inside my sea-scape until you see Nereids.
I just want endless passion & the imprint of someone till I'm not a sex doll with a PhD.
I just want it to be redone over & over till it's perfect.
I just want syntactical impermanence, readjusted perspectives & your revolutionary propensities.
I just want I just want I just want
----------------
Published April 2006
-----------------------------------
Emily Critchley holds a PhD in contemporary, American, women’s poetry and philosophy from the University of Cambridge. She is the author of several critical articles - on poetry, philosophy and feminism - and several poetry publications. Her Selected Writing, 'Love / All That / & OK', was published by Penned in the Margins in 2011. In 2004 she won the John Kinsella - Tracy Ryan prize for poetry, at the University of Cambridge, and in 2011 was joint winner of the Jane Martin Prize for Poetry. Critchley teaches English and Creative Writing at the University of Greenwich, London.
List of Publications:
The Dirt Glitch Land Alter Affair (Cambridge: Arehouse, 2003)
How to make Millions (Cambridge: Arehouse, 2004)
I just want you to know that we can still be friends (Intercapillary Space, 2005)
When I say I Believe Women… (London: bad press, 2006)
Of All the Surprises (Switzerland: Dusie, 2007)
Who handles one over the Backlash (Norfolk: Oystercatcher press, 2008)
Hopeful For Love Are Th’ Impoverish’d Of Faith (Southampton: Torque press, 2010)
Love / All That / & OK: Selected Writing (London: Penned in the Margins, 2011)
Sonnets for Luke (Liverpool: Holdfire press, 2011)
IMAGINARYLOVEPOEMS (Paris: Corrupt Press, 2011)
This is not a True Thing (London: Intercapillary Editions, forthcoming)
In translation
It's the open sky with
its blue voltage made me do it.
It's a horizon again, not spectral, but
to-the-point minute. This almost
uncertainly provocative
is like quasi-private attachment.
Where you might have said 'crack open,'
we want to break.
Where you might have said 'indifferent,'
meaning no harm.
It's because permanently
substantive this
Greek orienting.
Is it a naming thing?
Clusters swallow.
The foothills of light penetrative.
What lizard -
are you clearing
into the space below my foot.
It's waters' iridescent
mimesis.
The blueness survives but
never a support network.
Struck so clearly from above,
it had Greek blood too. I arranged myself
according to your wants.
A matter of each pulse
attenuating.
That's the Spartan
in us both. Where's my
armoury?
In this world
Is the distinction that a collage is more artificial than a sex doll?
Is that painful copying the template of your mind.
What activity, if you swim naked, does that make you a free citizen?
When can resistance be satisfying even when it means you have no original.
One of your tricks is to impose your own mind on your years; I've noticed that.
No one's responsible for those choices. A lost year in a hotel in broad daylight.
Why is it disjunctive remembering your holding the girl till her anger was not mollified.
Why the restatement, have you pervaded what fears.
Will she be reinstated whenever you make love to a new transition.
That is, placing your barriers, or at least, removing them equally, in that particular pile.
The actual conversations we had were not about content.
The actual conversations took place somewhere different stylistics.
How can you not see I am altogether not shirking intentions.
There is this underwritten suppression, it clamps us with its concrete teeth.
How can you not see I am petrified whose eyes were mistranslated by the English. Translate that into the typeface. Even music has its rewards.
Even a simple sentence can hold enough water to flood a museum.
I just want you to look inside my sea-scape until you see Nereids.
I just want endless passion & the imprint of someone till I'm not a sex doll with a PhD.
I just want it to be redone over & over till it's perfect.
I just want syntactical impermanence, readjusted perspectives & your revolutionary propensities.
I just want I just want I just want
----------------
Published April 2006
-----------------------------------
Emily Critchley holds a PhD in contemporary, American, women’s poetry and philosophy from the University of Cambridge. She is the author of several critical articles - on poetry, philosophy and feminism - and several poetry publications. Her Selected Writing, 'Love / All That / & OK', was published by Penned in the Margins in 2011. In 2004 she won the John Kinsella - Tracy Ryan prize for poetry, at the University of Cambridge, and in 2011 was joint winner of the Jane Martin Prize for Poetry. Critchley teaches English and Creative Writing at the University of Greenwich, London.
List of Publications:
The Dirt Glitch Land Alter Affair (Cambridge: Arehouse, 2003)
How to make Millions (Cambridge: Arehouse, 2004)
I just want you to know that we can still be friends (Intercapillary Space, 2005)
When I say I Believe Women… (London: bad press, 2006)
Of All the Surprises (Switzerland: Dusie, 2007)
Who handles one over the Backlash (Norfolk: Oystercatcher press, 2008)
Hopeful For Love Are Th’ Impoverish’d Of Faith (Southampton: Torque press, 2010)
Love / All That / & OK: Selected Writing (London: Penned in the Margins, 2011)
Sonnets for Luke (Liverpool: Holdfire press, 2011)
IMAGINARYLOVEPOEMS (Paris: Corrupt Press, 2011)
This is not a True Thing (London: Intercapillary Editions, forthcoming)
