Security Posture

by Sarah Dowling

Security Posture is a series of sidelong glances at bodily details, at intimacy, at forms of connection that structure lives and provide safety. Shards of fractured lyrics recombine into dense patterns of repetition and repositioning in order to register desire as well as coercion, mourning as well as doubt.

Genres: Poetry

88 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2009

Reviews

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Note paper, white linen. A row of buttons and the roaring of waves. Wouldn't it just stop. Birds' shadows across the pavement, fast, silent. Closer. She says her hand in her hair. Suddently, the square is dark.

purports to wick it

and so tenderly

until everything

stop up the ears

*

If she lay down on the groun

went ahead to

structure it all disappeared

the she of hold, she of thrall
the thrall in which others

rolled over and

lost something done

If she lay on her back and thralled

what she lost she st

to cause

lost sight of her
all of and

if she was rolled over

with others, with fearing

*

If she lay down

disappeared from the sh

like a shadow, like

thrall from the ground her
shoulders and

go on and was rolled

about what she

If she lay and fearing

and lost sight

and back

and down like a shadow, all of her

rolled her structure

thrall, and disappear

*

Come hand. Wouldn't it just loose. Then camisole, white shorts. Streetlight through the concrete. Shoulders, hair. Even curtains stop.

and is there a way

stuffed this

kind of punctuated

of what is heard

*

If she was made to

cut back

with all of it

cut back to assurance

, made to do

a hand

and just go on

If she lost sight of this

of the ground

all of it moving

the back so cut
the structure until

this hand

which

*

If she laid there

what cut

what lost

stuck with assurance
with surety and all of it

back like this to go

the ground, all over

what would have made her

would have made

this

surety of thrall
in response in which

response cut

back response

*

Series of waters. Even, then softly movement. The hand just wouldn't waves, wouldn't hair. Fast, not so much falling as clothing. Not so much flying as silent.

and if they can't

that have been threatened

is rendered

wax

*

If she lost sight of it

lay her back and ahead

around

on her back she lost the thrall in which
if her, if structure

if all of her

in which, if hold

If

on the ground others

went ahead to st

to thrall

made it until she

and hold her
back all of her sh

until how hold

in it, in

*

Woven, thickly pressed. The skin becoming wouldn't. Shadow on the pavement, shoulder and loose. A darkened square. Stop, like the roaring of waves.

pulled off hard

or slowly

stopped up

in the very same

* * *

This I will never be able to narrate



As the back seat is remember because of a detail

As if without doubt, without knowledge
a gesture will tell it.

As if from memory, a subject, from pulsing. As if
from childhood. From ecstasy, from a fall
from words. As if from the body differently.

As if between tenderness a series of gestures
that constitute the body in writing/writhing

and compel

*

This was not a caress.

With eyes on the water makes
you suddenly turn around her
arm, her leg, splash up. Fastidious,
the sea not yet blank and sullen
taken into suddenly. Her
back a bare body
calling on the water.

The fulfillment

*

This was

Here
was the almost. Arm her
eyes on the water, legs
about to call
to take touch. With a bare
little surge your body up your back
turn around if not suddenly.

as assurance.

*

This

The sea almost
within. Splash calling up
at you here on your arm, on
your legs your eyes
about the water. As if suddenly
body, blank and
sullen. Taken
not yet bare with anyone.

The way you

*

not a care .

Yet it had nothing, eyes
in the sea. Calling an
arm and legs about to surge
up. Not yet. Turn around
taken in fastidious
eyes and then bare
herself on the water.

control

*

"security posture"

evidence
found in the way you

control

your response spread out
evening when I turn in

palatable
assurance

fulfillment of obligation
of another, a surety

*

not a caress.

Calling to here, her sullen
blank legs taking this
within eyes in
water. ABout to surge your
back almost. Touch
made you suddenly
turn her this armed you
here.

another, a sure .

* * *

Meanwhile as the back seat, women. This dark
blue persists as the body dictates its clichés
writhing closes its eyes its mouths that open
to repetition, touched
within their movement. A series of gestures

as always evasive. A thought begins
in the mouth, plays as memory back
against seat into hand as face over
turning through.

Scenes as a series of actions. In relief,
strokes of the body,

*

Once a wind comes up and goes away suddenly.

could wrap a treetop
grasp

wrapped around as if clinging
to as if bent against
broken in some

thing strewn or

blown before

warning

osage orange
faling

each having
its own

Once I heard it.

*

Once, it

some one
that continues to

does it work that

, falling

before or there

putting hands over

the side

s because an answer

evenly

distributed underf

Once it brings certain

and takes away

*

Once it

th

s.

made a

and

inaccessible because

yourself

where I was sleeping
wrapped some

and only happening once,

*

wants
such a
that it's always

somewhere


or there,

just

stop

*

Once the car st

the lights

the s

touching
on wants

this

will want
to

some other

*

even your

, work

that

because
each having
its own

*

, are touching.

stand

as if clinging
to an evenness
covered, like

*

absent

whatever type of
falling, other times

yourself

*

a treetop or leaves

like

or blown

Once the door is

and

st .

*

Once I am c

Before

this

tangles, st

where something

pries

itself

is pried

and the radio clicks ,

*

Meanwhile as what makes her say: It's late.

Makes rough and senseless. Makes extravagance
of surfaces this transparency that the body carries
within itself relieve in a set of decisive gestures.
Makes a movement of hand toward

clothing that intervenes
and conforms exactly.
Makes the tension of skins' extreme concentration.

Makes hand toward grasping against

the narrow movement
w i / thin a memory

*

sky, the against
is spread out evening when
I turn over
there I turn
myself, like
stones

soft white walls
you are my assurance
f
you, everyday
turn, pass her delicate may I

pool I leave it
turn you're what
like stones f
the against like
f

*

f
like against the
f stones like
what you're turn
it leave I pool

I may delicate her pass, turn
everyday, you
f
my response are you
walls white soft

stones
like, myself
turn I there
over turn I
when evening out spread is
against the, sky

*

f like f what it
I everyday, f my control walls
stones like, turn over when against

against stones you're leave
may you are white
myself I turn evening, the

the like turn I
delicate you you soft
there I out sky

pool
her
spread

pass,
is turn

*

...

[Holly Raymond · Rating 5 out of 5]

I opened for Sarah Dowling at a reading and so I heard some of these poems for the first time live-- it was very material, very predicated on a kind of swaying back and forth and a really kinetic, almost twitchy pace. It was really great, and when I compared a friend's performance a few weeks later to hers, he looked unsure of what I was talking about. It turns out that everyone I've spoken to who has READ this book but not seen them read conceives of them as a lot more deliberately paced, almost incantatory.

I really like my way of reading these poems, and maybe it inflects the degree to which I like them. So, I don't know. YouTube her if you want to check these poems out, and I mean, you probably do want to check them out.