Ariel Resnikoff
From raisin in every bite (Furniture Press, 2022)
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Author’s Note. raisin in every bite gathers and convenes devotional notebook poems at the threshold of dreams, where sleep meets afterlife in memory. These poems fly in flocks, in fabulous company of so many living and dead writers, in love and care for that great company, a ragtag translingual family of freaks and poets and outriders. Much of this writing arose in response to a weekly bicoastal virtual social club of poets called “Confetti” hosted by John Coletti late into the night and early morning through the depths of the first year and a half of the pandemic. Although the pamphlet bears no formal dedication, the longer ms-in-progress from which it’s culled — poems w friends & ghosts — is dedicated to the memory of George and Elio Schneeman; and the present selection I dedicate to my friend, the late Kevin Killian, who I miss every day, and who I meet now only in memory and dreams and poems.
precisely, as to you
one need not be a chamber to be haunted,
one need not be a house;
the brain has corridors surpassing
material place (e.d.)
in muddy nests
sounds slosh over
pots, stream
over stones
heavy weight
less river winds
bewildered in
sensuous
accompaniment
‘s immense
sorrowful mess
& horror. such
odd inexplicable
beauties search
out relation to
learn the word
for pain
for pinecone
or acorn, repeat
it to share
in the riches
w everybody.
tiny palestine
sunbirds play
on fringes
strings in wind
‘s river foams
hovering hum
mingbirdlike
creaturely
loves
sit
& glow &
shimmer
under sunheat
speak in
sweet thin
beak songs.
i want to
learn the word
for pinecone
for acorn
for pain
w/o saying it.
in deepest
languages wild
ernesses
lush inflect
ions rise up
from frozen
winter soils
& tongues
entangled
droolings
last
least
speaking thru
sleep, letting
sleep speak for
gotten memory
after kafka w anselm
pressure morning
crows hop foraging
im/possibility mvmts
the sky looks up
giant blue yarm
ulke nazar ocean
eye in raging storm
entropy trance
on warm jelly
fish blinds
reminder dings
& reminds “b.b. p.c.
fri 7:30 am”
singing
sabbatean
sleep hymns
in anticipation
wakes to
pee texting
the already
awake on
diff time
zones, half-
asleep still
longing for
bed
what can i
write this
morn abt j.g.
who visits
my office
each night
thru bomb
shelter door
smokes deep
in words
mud-ash
from talking
dirt moistening
lips into saliva
bubbles
what can i
tell you of p.c.
who i never
met but who
visits in the
form of a
good word
btwn poets
a sweet salty
fume grown
into word
world from
grave beyond
grave
others you’ll
meet in their
poems, at the
mallard on a
rogue tues eve
why call this
conjuring the
dead when u
can say “hanging
out”
that life beyond
death in language
so perverse as to
exist for love
alone w no
ulterior
love is not
the subject of
this poem but
its seed &
fermentation
u, who inabit
this poem w
me, u reading
this now, who
dwell in poem’s
ecology
cook dank food
on shoestring
feast in language
epicureal
peter contacted
some in life &
thru his poetry
in the lives of
others after
death
peter who dwells in
poems w us
poet ghost
bless this
song
sounding
dunes of
words rain
down
in golden
hash oil
current state
reading diane this morning when
sara texts “on the bus to
dresden” “the language shall
be my element, i plunge in”
(that’s diane) one year & one
day today w/o her in the
world — “the wisest silly
jokester” sara texts, diane
raised up in good humor her poems
from breathing bodies
into air
on stumbling on frank at the free library
in sensuality i find a harvest dawn (f.o’h.)
as flabbergasted
ghastly ghosts
slink in crisscrossing
patterns cross a crowd
-ed page frank sips
supps, sits down w
atar & me at silo
cafe orders a papaya
juice on ice says to say
hello to harry her
father’s long lost
friend sitting one
table over the fire
pits heavy ash
covers feet
in bare soot bird
bath morning
night’s cashed ends
light, slightly
sunk we peel
grapes into finger
wine splash
puddles of blonde
hash pollen on
our eyelashes
frank takes a call
from bilaal
‘s youngest son, the poet’s
“stop by for
a drop, bring atar & ariel
on a cool september
promenade over
looking the medina
pillowly cakes &
bisquitim over thick
muddy coffee in crust
cracked alleys
letters calling back our dead
color our eyes
in bodies setting
sat in quiet
aleppo synagogues
our footsteps burn at
every hand forests
shudder ceaselessly
disturbed
frank coughs into
my arm, intimate as
a child , muttering
spontaneous hymns
from inward
thicket
“father of
sound wake
harp’s fallen
to earth …”
dream in d.f.
a group of us
in the street
for a reading
in d.f. which
might’ve
happened
but never did
bernadette’s the
honored poet
& we read
all of us
together
in a square
to a great crowd
everybody’s
translingual
it seems
our poems
& conversations
slip easily
btwn english
& spanish
bernadette closes
w a fav
if i suffered what else cd i do
& we retire to
an outdoor bar
a block from the
trotsky residence
the bar i shd mention
has a moat
& crocodiles in it
snapping away
but we are not
afraid order
large glass nargilas
& mescal w mint
on rocks
smoke giant plooms
of hibiscus lemon
shisha over back
gammon tables
bernadette leans
over to me &
suggests we
poison some
fascists i’m an
old poet she says
i’ll do it & they
can throw me in
jail, & y’re a
young poet, ariel
you can clean up
the mess laughs
phil almost chokes
a siren sounds breaks
dream frame for a sec
it’s the police
they’ve come to
murder someone
you see what i
mean ariel
but the cops
are clumsy
they’re not
expecting the moat
& trip suddenly
as one ugly wall
into the crocodile
waters
a horrific scene
ensues
which we flee
relieved & not
overly worried
abt the cops
like the egyptian army
after exodus
free, we cut out
to a 24hr taqueria
& order
chicharrón prensado
tacos to share
rumspringa galore
washed down
w cold horchata
someone’s shlepping
a typewriter
probably bernadette
& we sit down
in the street
to drink &
feast
& write you
lord of grass
after dark
reclining doubt
supplanted grief
at an ant farm funeral
wakes the campers
from heavy sleep
in camo green
burning grasses
for a night job
to a moon god
a parched peach
punch in mouth
feel my tears
fill yr eyes
key’s in b flat
piercing skin of
peach cheap panel
faces wince
heaps in twisted
sheets & bedding
tense sentences
fences’ groves
lost traces in sleep
follow trails
to redwd stands
w poems tucked in
breast pocket
like dew drip
ping off pine
wraps injured
bee in warm felted
wool mixed linen
gestures arriving
from skies beyond
tallest trees
& searches fwd from
futures to sound
finds a piece
red & smokey behind
bottom left molar
& begins to sing
it’s good to swim in a church (b.m)
“what was i just going to say?
we drink. alli pours another
glass of red. riv finishes her
pastis. b makes a face at
pasta. we are drunk &
stoned on giant joint
& several bottles of
wine & now pastis. it’s
getting twd that time
& we still gotta eat the
peach! that pici was
divine. I love it i think
the duration of dinner
btwn hrs & years
keen
no one will know
but the ghosts
k.k. told me
he believed he
had had a stroke
the v last time
i saw him, look
at me ariel, i’m
not me! the first
time i heard him
read, i cd hardly
believe such a
poet existed &
lived among
us at a gala
fundraising for
rachel’s new bk
k.k. was happy to
do it, arrived by
bart (refusing
cabfare), ate
burger before
hand (tho dinner
was served), asked
linda & me to
sign his auto
graph bk beside
rezzy & george
(when he
was the celebrity)
taking our picture
for pleasure
(not to post
but for his collection)
gave the best
reading of the
night (tho everyone
was great — hey sophia,
hey eleni)
drinking two diet cokes
(quickly, consecutively)
hugged me tight
when he said goodbye
(see you soon friend)
the last time i saw
kevin on this earth
at alan’s father
‘s reflectrograph
show at right
window: “i read
fascination on
the airplane, i tell
him, fucking
loved it, “you
perv, he laughs,
“what did yr seat
mate have to say?
reading over yr
shoulder thinking
now this kid’s
a real freak!
what i remember best?
at any given reading
kevin wd find the
least initiated
person in the rm
to chat to & take
their email or number
the most generous poet
i ever met
hands down
& again i’m reading
fascination,
this time in bed —
“you really
are perverted, i hear
kevin smile
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