Happy birthday, Big Other contributor Heller Levinson! Celebrate by reading these five Levinson poems, which we published in 2024!

“Yet where danger lies,
Grows that which saves.”

—from Friedrich Hölderlin’s “Patmos”

wrench lateral

carapace bleed

rowel

from which turbulent fathom this

tremor, this blush foment, this

rut to ridgeline,

pour

of the Overwatch,

meridianal blur,

primed with scatter, crumble the border

pall,

quicksilver

littoral rumble

from the riot of incendiary meter,

skirmishes flicker

a

momentary

piety

Note:
The italicized word, “scatter,” resonates with Hölderlin’s lines: “Though it is fearsome how God / Scatters Life in all directions.”

Crossfall Incidental Cobweb

clutter cluster                    muck

   musty, fibrous

     silk decimate

muse portal

ponder tower

from seize station to

formulator

collec-

ting

pass-

ings

Note:
crossfall = The transverse sloping of a roadway toward the shoulder or gutter on either side. Outpouring from this term are notions of suspension, liminality, threshold, meander, trespass, flâneur, rebellion—off the beaten track, the roadway, the routed—passageway, initiation, among others.

Crossfall Catalytic Errancy

crass displace               extremity haunt

mishap leaves lash the sequel

disruptheave                   cleave

crag

cliff

          crumble

The breakup a catchup toward

A latency trembling in the alcoves of coherence

chisel chafe
edge-burrow
rife
residual reveille

sluice saporous banality chunks vaporize

through err the improbable

the eros of windward

Descend

loll

i

gag

down

decline

drizzle

     `

      shroud-wrapped, shouldering shadow,

shuddering from the shrapnel of unslung — totter-tilt

   declivitous jerk

   vertiginous wrack

   hazardous gaggle

   lop-

sided dangle . . .

shred or amass?

how much gathers in the downslide?

“It’s always there, not here. Even when you’re right up against it, it always evades you, … like [being in the midst of a] city, Every Which Way forces you to make countersteps, twists, & turns continuously.”

Does the plethora of “way” (every which) nullify a “way,” a definitive direction, a path?

Do Serra’s vertical plates exert as much downward pressure as upward manifestation, are they as much about prairie as city?

to orient, to WayFind through the interstitial murk, to calibrate without compass or tool — hunch-reliant, sub-aqueous, cast-forth — to sough amorphous, ferret fume in the unhitched fathom frigate spin of pure fetch

these

abyssal recitations froth forward to

sate

an irremediable

want

Note:
The long quotation is from Richard Serra’s description of his installation Every Which Way.

Rupture Verge Breakdown

crossfall precipitous                                                            amplitudinous beset

cubic mayhem, globulous crush, . . .

   swaglagged                                                                         words,

pus-stained, writhe from the

scowl of ragged puncture, intricate

stab, lethal sabotage                       wilting

in the gangrenous broth of a cirrhotic

manifesto, banished, downgraded,

squelched, imbibing inferior filtration,

battling groomed venoms,

each step forward peppered with malevolent spike,

manacled

to a

violent

dissolution

(Image: Julie Mehretu’s Untitled 2 (1999))