ÿþ<html> <head> <meta http-equiv=content-type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <title>slope 16</title> <style type="text/css"> p,td { font-family: "georgia", "arial", "helvetica"; text-decoration:none; font-size:11px; color:#000000; margin-top:9px; margin-bottom:9px;} p.poem { font-family: "georgia", "arial", "helvetica"; text-decoration:none; font-size:11px; color:#000000; margin-top:40px; margin-bottom:60px;} a { font-family: "georgia", "arial", "helvetica"; text-decoration:none; font-size:11px; color:#77280a; } a:hover { font-family: "georgia", "arial", "helvetica"; text-decoration:underline; font-size:11px; color:#77280a; } </style> </head> <body bgcolor="#ffffff" background="images/bg.gif" topmargin="0" leftmargin="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0"> <table border="0" width="750" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="center"> <tr> <td> <object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=4,0,0,0" width="750" height="127" id="topmenu" align=""> <param name=movie value="topmenu.swf"> <param name=quality value=high> <param name=bgcolor value=#ffffff> <embed src="topmenu.swf" quality=high bgcolor=#ffffff width="750" height="127" name="topmenu" align="" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"></embed> </object> </td> </tr> <tr> <td> <img src="images/page_top.gif" /><br /> </td> </tr> <tr> <td background="images/page_bg.gif" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 50px; padding-right: 50px;"> <img src="images/title_new.gif" /> <p><b>E.A. Hilbert</b>'s work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in <i>American Writing, The Boston Review, LIT, Pleiades, The American Scholar, Fence</i>, and the <i>William and Mary Review</i>. The poetry editor for Random House's online literary magazine <i>Bold Type</i>, he lives in New York City.</p> <p class="poem"> <b>Depressionism</b><br /> <br /> Digitalis, digitoxin and digoxin, foxglove <br /> Without light to remain it is forceless and corrosive <br /> <br /> Black reports directly to dimension and octave <br /> Little one, the darkness is all around us.<br /> </p> <p class="poem"> <b>I Can t Sleep Without Pills and It s Cold</b><br /> <br /> I caught pure clatter of bone, glassed-off skeleton,<br /> Strove to rush crosswise overnight,<br /> Found myself nailed hard to a starbelt,<br /> <br /> Until all left of my ice was air.<br /> <i>For a transcript of the preceding program<br /> Please send as much money as you can to: Me.</i><br /> </p> <p class="poem"> <b>Comas</b><br /> <br /> This is a function of seeing<br /> Accused without antecedent<br /> <br /> Cherish not comfort but light<br /> Something unfolds skies deeply<br /> <br /> In a grotesque funnel<br /> Or is it a cage<br /> <br /> The swimmer still breathes<br /> Broken when the faint star turned sideways<br /> <br /> The experiment continues<br /> Ash is stuck down on crystal<br /> <br /> A milky lava laid across the sea<br /> And still you don t comprehend the contortions<br /> <br /> Watch the canticle turn to counterfeit<br /> Coins in fixed rows<br /> <br /> Resembling accidents too broadly<br /> Massed to behold<br /> <br /> The script-writer drew two limiting points<br /> Postulated starving dancers in a silent stadium<br /> <br /> This unmapped <i>terra firma</i> resembles<br /> A medieval system of vapors and scars<br /> <br /> This is unstoppable<br /> What tapers downward and hurts so much<br /> <br /> What blanked edition has been passed<br /> Along a frozen white rail<br /> <br /> What outcome transmits boundaries even<br /> As it matches incipient organisms against sunspots<br /> <br /> What is not injured after this hardest of falls<br /> What is free from staircases<br /> <br /> Scattering its orange blockade<br /> An ornamental obstruction in the process<br /> <br /> Of shifting downward<br /> Glimpse into a lenspiece<br /> <br /> The architect will be ascertained beneath a peeling stile<br /> They are not monstrosities and<br /> <br /> Are content with serenades and menstrual floods<br /> The walls are wetted with seething granite<br /> <br /> Fissures grow out in the lustrous<br /> Vicinity of your childhood<br /> <br /> In time glaciers will align to every point of the compass<br /> And leave perforations rather<br /> <br /> Than words to guide the eye and the heart<br /> Your poems will be taken from you<br /> <br /> In the same diurnal curling that grieves me as well<br /> All of your entanglements will slow to a horrifying finale<br /> <br /> A pure signal is made known in a broken sieve<br /> Flint and egg-shells blow up in the dawn like feathers<br /> <br /> The flexure is sightless<br /> Naked and dripping in the greasy spray<br /> <br /> They witness the fleets<br /> As they tow their dull grey tonnage<br /> <br /> In from the horizon<br /> You are not immune<br /> </p> <p class="poem"> <b>In Seed Time</b><br /> <br /> Glint of cracked black and seething streams<br /> Killing a figure that followed us for centuries<br /> <br /> Images fracture in acrid lather over the highlands<br /> What arrives commences and demands<br /> <br /> Summer swings its hot flashlight over<br /> The wrecks of seas timed and freed<br /> </p> </td> </tr> <tr> <td> <img src="images/page_bottom.gif" /><br /> </td> </tr> </table> </body> </html>