Gregory Vincent St Thomasino

1.

An georgics of Volta (Galvani)
in ’ist-ages epic

no one starts life as an adult
studies in Wittenberg

(motivation, oppositions, tactics)
plaints & sighs

tabernacling revivalists like Moody
where nothing plainspoken is said

in / an / as / I
to be safe or to meet with injury

yeses / noes (and the will
is called on then to solve the conflict)

busy buying / selling / emigration
(of buying & possessing)

hosts of carpenters, bricklayers, tinners & glaziers
his straight black lips (and ends in hands)

two squints into the chancel
it is the monument of Alice Hockmore (d. 1613)

This outcome is of course a possible one.
anthems of peace. They seem so dated now.

wishes, fears, hopes & memories
each is influencing and being influenced by the other

(a man’s patent leather slipper / mirror play)
probably horses / the boy’s passion for horses

distinctions a NY girl might hope to attain
(throwing an apple, the recognized love-challenge

among the Greeks & the Romans)
flickers, jewel fish, elephants & dogs

murder / suicide (enough
that they are evoked by external happenings)

2.

She can no longer eat peanuts. She can no longer eat
doughnuts. She can no longer eat chocolate.

(I love the way this couplet looks
mascara? if it pleases you

a certain more-or-less. And perhaps nothing.)
knowing, doing, making

is cognitive / is existential
making numbers / counting pages

the ’ister follows the ’ism
and luminosity is more effective than hue

had heard / (unable) to explain
could talk / (had nothing) to say

strength & will & cool white light
My parallel legs.

My parallel arms.
My body of straight lines.

3.

being milked or being rained on / cow in lea
(’cept for one palest rose at her bosom)

itself / myself
methods of division and collection

of the creation / of the discovery
(by incomprehension, or by bad faith)

tell me about the products you sell?
at mayfair, St. Ann’s

you are born / you are loved / you are going
How can I give up what remains?

I will forever deny you are going.
to be to do / to be what for

(and what to do)
Certainly.

but what about it, this
not me refusing to be not

4.

whats to do / protocols / to-dos
what for to do / whats & fors

nothing much ever happens here, ’cept it rains
your prospective thing is, really, only a perfectionism

how to chase after epitomes
(we can say this about her

though she has given no age)
but from my general purpose, I digress

my face / to do
(comets & eclipses

the celestial source of panic)
but is now so common that it can no longer be

so regarded
keenings going on (epic days)

hopping and pointing of fingers
the place / a question

a emptiness (felt / known / own up to)
in these small towns, churches burn down

my hair / my body
my skin

5.

sun up / sparrow eye, and next a whir
morning to do

after / for
(rested in a sleeve) a moving present

of Hanswurst, a
in signing Hanswurst

to think the unfamiliar
in terms of the familiar, trouble here is

is like / are like
an as isn’t as as a / point-upward

an as isn’t as as a / point toward you
preceded by its tail

(or, a gaining equal to that lost
but not in such a fashion as to pass through both

both full-face and profile sides-at-once)
as a point in favor of this view

there is the reversal of refraction (to orange)
however, if

the second refraction is bounded by parallel interfaces
the effect produced on entering, is canceled upon leaving

or, where previously a round (slightly more refracted)
had been spread-out

now, that (and so on to the most refrangible varieties)
was compressed back into a circle

about / these circumstances (have in mind)
got / was brought upon

(that’s your hook
but that you cannot lead with that)

any real persons living or dead
individually or in string

you will have gone ’round once
and yet only gone ’round half

6.

to be let free / struggle to be free
you are let go

walking home from the movies in the dark
picturing Faraday

with thumb, forefinger, and middle finger
held at mutual right angles

(typewriters, shavers, toothbrushes)
conviction & persuasion

if it is but agreeable to me,
the thinking of something

a pain,
is loosed into the boys’ room

(perfection in the sphere of social action)
a the or an a

being given (must precede) / thought by
he says, good things. He says, good thoughts.

he says, good (degrees of certainty / difference of objects,
objects of thought)

in the dark the corners appeared flat
theore / determining

practic / it real (much-or-little) (singly & separately)
that by / that which

in, with or around
(to a comparative degree)

with (or thing that) / at action of
(to a comparative degree)

sounds like electric bass, a finger bass, probably
(more for than against

or as far as in him lies)
to-consider

(our foibles, Father Beecher
our perfections)

to shrug and taste of his good bakings,
(and smile yourself to peace)

7.

when you see the words

MERCHANDISE
BARGAIN
DON’T PAY RETAIL

whose house are you in
the fathers leave their fears

to the sons
to fear, and to despair

(to be so-sure)
difficult as it might be

—what says,
way says,

the reverse of an ally
from do & off

or purpose / difficult as it might be
a sign out of hand

on the rocks or to the wolves
my mystery, the nature of my mystery

8.

are / of
I / cannot I?

(for which I have to-hand the praise)
you are courageous,

to have these dreams,
and to go back to-there,

and upon awakening,
feeling alone and feeling regret,

to reexplore your room,
your warp and corrugation

9.

I have told myself his lie a thousand times,
at bed time, at sun up, at midnight

(at midnight,
on the streets, alone & in pairs

with or without shoes on,
and fain,

not import-to,
i & one or nine)

these two points, his fifth
extend unsayably

(what has been said)
some shirts bearing the monogram GVST

I understand the to be there in the morning light
I understand the to be a part of the daybreak

and to want for nothing
to be made needful by a loving god

the urge of unsatisfied instinct
or in painful anticipation

mutual ties,
and danger is in may

(as a rule,
and, such as we have)

the sounds machines make
numbered I to XII

and also individually named
hence acts,

(which otherwise)
which acts, unadmitted

(in a so-to-speak
or, such-as-serves

has replaced the external)
I occupy