Rob Stanton
From THE TUYMANS SONNETS
103. Easter, 2006.
The runner
flags (any subject, pursued to this degree,
is inexhaustible).
Murmurs gesture
toward silence.
Death
songs of children no
reason not to start
unthinking praise. Renaissance of what
will suffice. The
track may well be
circular.
Get used to it.
The random checks. The standard balances.
104. Ignatius of Loyola, 2006.
The idea
of man: partly
translucent – grey, pitted, chiselled, bald – a blank
slate, wiped at will, to
be written on. ‘He
enters me [...] I
cannot enter him.’
(The day’s accumulation the
night’s long work.)
Endures forever in
ever-
harder bonds. Remains
as disciplined
as any corpse.
105. i.m. Michelangelo Antonioni & Ingmar Bergman
Blank pensive souls, aloof
to their own suffering, adroit
and acting
dumb. An over-
advertised & arid afternoon.
Let’s look. Abandoned
flagellants and other
impassive adherents. See
above. An
inner exile in a
land of dislikes.
‘A yellow and a
black sun.’ A bandage over
offended eyes.
106. The Exorcist, 2007.
Some
lose aura. Some
never possessed it. ‘[T]he
TV
picture [a]
starting point’: you can’t step in
the same bath twice.
Caught up we
cannot gauge
the loneliness involved – or ours,
for wanting to watch
the shadows holding
body
parts apart.
103. Easter, 2006.
The runner
flags (any subject, pursued to this degree,
is inexhaustible).
Murmurs gesture
toward silence.
Death
songs of children no
reason not to start
unthinking praise. Renaissance of what
will suffice. The
track may well be
circular.
Get used to it.
The random checks. The standard balances.
104. Ignatius of Loyola, 2006.
The idea
of man: partly
translucent – grey, pitted, chiselled, bald – a blank
slate, wiped at will, to
be written on. ‘He
enters me [...] I
cannot enter him.’
(The day’s accumulation the
night’s long work.)
Endures forever in
ever-
harder bonds. Remains
as disciplined
as any corpse.
105. i.m. Michelangelo Antonioni & Ingmar Bergman
Blank pensive souls, aloof
to their own suffering, adroit
and acting
dumb. An over-
advertised & arid afternoon.
Let’s look. Abandoned
flagellants and other
impassive adherents. See
above. An
inner exile in a
land of dislikes.
‘A yellow and a
black sun.’ A bandage over
offended eyes.
106. The Exorcist, 2007.
Some
lose aura. Some
never possessed it. ‘[T]he
TV
picture [a]
starting point’: you can’t step in
the same bath twice.
Caught up we
cannot gauge
the loneliness involved – or ours,
for wanting to watch
the shadows holding
body
parts apart.
Copyright © Rob Stanton 2019
Born in County Durham, raised outside Birmingham, educated in Cardiff and Leeds, Rob Stanton currently lives and teaches in Austin, Texas. He is the author of The Method (Penned in the Margins 2011) and Trip- (Knives Forks & Spoons 2013). A previous excerpt from his Tuyman Sonnets appeared in Molly Bloom 4.
