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08.19.09
Six Poems

Cervical Vertebra Variation (1) 


Syringes crescendo incrementally. Segmental sound drift. Rostrum-gist shifts from leading edge to trailing. Feathers shed antithetically (molto molting melodeon). 

Song of suction bellow and reed. Seven-process processional (one spinous, two transverse, four articular). Song of rachis and foramen. Spinal chorus.


 





Cervical Vertebra Variation (2) 


C2. Axis. Song cycle symphysis. The second cervical vertebra a pivot on which the air changes direction. Rotating wave

of Warblers. Palm Warbler’s 6-plume repetition. Yellow Warbler’s variable sweet-sweet-sweet. Caudal draft.


 



Cervical Vertebra Variation (3) 


Backward-fold the cervical atlas. The spinal incunabulum articulates the isochronal loral line. Hollow bone archaeology. Canarygrass reed, elemental cannulae, transitional fossil thoracentesis (Pulmonarius lithographica). Cryptic

Archaeopteryx. Air-swindler. Non-bird bird. First flight

fires the neural arch. Trachea-crammed turning radius (mesotarsal ankle joint notwithstanding). Windpipe fipple, stippled hum (hyoid hymnody). Os sacrum. Sacral canal. Holy bone. 

 

 

“… a magic carbuncle of flaming fire …” 
—Thomas Nuttall, Manual of the Ornithology of the United States and Canada, 1834



 





Lore (hummingbird) 


              1
Deep-keeled. A nickel’s weight of charm and troubling. Airway territoriality. Pendulum arc bronchus flit. (Left, right, two-step flight.) Ventral symmetry. 


              2
Vocal fold ventriculus: hover assimilates hum. Tin ear tune an agonistic buffer. 

Buzz note vocalization. Wing-box stammer. Stuttering chase call.


 



Lore (hummingbird) 


              1
Three-gram refraction. (Pulsatively breathtaking.) The jewel-necked vocal nexus a complex harmonic of nectar and reflecting. Wings fan flashes of fire. Rapid 

hovering exhalations. 


              2
Exhilaration of capillaries. Song sung Audubonic. Lyrically alveolaric. 


              3
Colour flutters three hundred breaths a minute the lungs hum red. Glittering fragments. Vignetting gems.







Lore (hummingbird) 


              1
Contradiction in terms of feet. Short-syllable Apodiforme. Choriambulatory chorus. Humming carbuncle. Tongue to the trumpet blossom. Flame-licked. (Ruby-tipped stylus.) 


              2
Tap tap the bronchiole tree. Deoxygenated orchestral. Red sap surfs surfactant. Sip, hover, slip 

through windpipe and reed. Sound peregrination. 


              3

 

Elliptically migratory. Follow the floral artery. Flight strung with Paintbrush, Blazing Star, Torch Lily. (Bloom synchronicity.) Crimson stung metabolic. 

Sylvia Legris's latest poetry collection is Garden Physic (New Directions).