Stigmata of the Poet: Sensitive Reactions

Phil Hall The Oak Hunch ends with a sequence called "Index of First Lines" which opens with a discourse on missionaries, islands and the nature of words which leads to an image of the poet manifesting stigmata in a very visceral fashion.

I am the one with these stinking wounds in the
palms of my hands—these gifts?—my articulate
hands that can not make straight arrows

I like the ambiguity of "articulate" meaning both jointed and enjoining.

The coda takes on the aura of an homage to James Merrill with a most striking image.

I hold the blunt end of my pen in my mouth,
and put my palms together so the stinking holes
in my hands make one hole I can see through.

Bowing my head, I shove the pen through the
hole in my hands—planchette!

Before you run to the nearest Ouija board and instigate a series of Ideomotor moves, consider that Hall identifies as nodes to this sequence two other poets: Ronald Johnson Ark: The Foundations 1—33 and George Open Of Being Numerous (where we find Oppen quoting Whitehead (believing it to be from Pierre Teilhard de Chardin) "In these explanations it is presumed that an experiencing subject is one occasion of a sensitive reaction to an actual world." which sensitive reaction brings us back to our reading Hall who ends his sequence with little faith in any way back: "SAYING A LOST PATH BACK, as of old . . ."). A bendy arrow.

And so for day 2231
21.01.2013