Caroline Davidson

After Copland's “Quiet City,” and “Fanfare for the Common Man”

Dueling with mandolins for
your finger in me, dry bank dry sage we are not in a city this is a suspension bridge and this, a raised garden bed and never ours, but cracked banks come back to leave again why did I let you leave that early without taking a lemon or two, and under this cranked sepulcher, I wind around a rubber water-catcher, become a succulent you may tear after too much Bourbon, let me build this fanfare for you, common man, common man in bed, you don't make me tired enough there, just everywhere else.

Common man will you temper and butterfly-slice me with a serrated blade and how old is that Grand Organ? Exposed pipes, minimal exponents. There are more spills where that came from I assure you. Begin with an ascending triad. Style based on repetition, lying glass voice, embarrassed facing a crushed wall. Keep a strict schedule, common man.

Flutes cough in respective corners. I learn during the entr'acte: trash doesn't entirely disappear.

Sempre Costante

III.

These arias dal segno,
repetition from the sign,
more harbors, Galati,
Odessa, but an aria is a closed
system, a bruise, not a passage,
passing, a man passing through harbors
fraught with dead currents, stale
continuous orthodoxy pressing
strong on the kettle on your bled-
through mattress and I come
I come to no consciousness
but still say thank you but still
unable to claw my way into your
stomach so the constant becomes the
repeated act of scraping dry
bread on my neck to consummate
my beginnings with
our riddled
distance.