Julia Istomina – Blueberry America

Julia Istomina

Blueberry America

Who am I but by a fix, and another, a particle, and the congery of particles carefully picked one by another —Charles Olson, “In Cold Hell, in Thicket” 1 they gratified themselves into clumps of generative blueberry and fell down and lived I ate char of pestled spice and lived I drank the specie nectar of a pickled thoroughbred And lived I wove myself thrice round in bead And lived I hungered for a blueblood compote Drowned in its strength and lived 2 Blueberry thistle Arangivaya hubris * tied the knots git At the back git toward it git git on wit it Joltaya hubris, starry starry night as though The molten flesh of the arranged fire beside You sank its fangs in most sensitive region * The sole, beating out its path after picking And pickling they gratified themselves into Clumps, and then a larger generative clump And one great blueberry America. 3 A story he told, ay, about a dying old man Like all dying old men he told it slowly, Over time, bathing in seraya hubris while Tarring his own hide for caring, the life of it Taking breath and flesh, he hungered for The spirit and whistled with two wet front Teeth so the hounds would come away from His blueberry thistle, grown just as tall. A story told, ay, by a dying old man is Ginger root, taking root before you knew it, You knowing it all along and before, And waking, ay, the spirit and the whistle Like wind or Indian breath, as sweet as Blueberry America soil dressing soiled greens. 4 I am urging you to here, Where things are cold and unclean, But honest like dawn after bad light                          (you haven’t forgotten                             the night ranges train clutter                           but you still don’t let on you haven’t forgotten but you never will let on that you’ve forgotten what its like, to be able to let go, )                          Forget it 5 the state of affairs as they saw to it were mild tantrums like strong blow, inadequate whale blubber for perfumaria and pearls not taking to their cancer as expected, as everything must do its own life work, and make its living count,              the stale defeatism as they saw it not the Indians nor their bows but a ginger slighted        upturned refused – blueberry America blueberried itself because thistle and pestle go hand in hand, as degeneracy marks its weight in soil, in blight, then good use, the living thus counted. We declare ourselves the bluest of blueberry America, no us no us no us.. 6 I gorged on specie nectar of a herringed thoroughbred Fought the urge and lived, For love of berry generative, the kinks solidify as knots, Berry generative clumps into blueberry particular, This berry of Americas this berry berry splendor and The makeshift crews, (which uproot the thistle and the blight,              Nature/nurture, the unknown) This I have had to be given

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