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From “Exile”, By DENNIS PHILLIPS

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And we who assemble. Packed goods carried in.

On shining trays. That oil is pressed

and used, drilled and pumped.

Or arteries which once did not know

and now know, or their brains

or their research.

This would be towns. Congregation.

Human intercourse but first

a person or family then

a bend of river or fertile plain.

And we who gather together.

That far away there’d be a farm. That many farms

and villages and towns and coitus and train tracks,

highways, jetways, shipping lanes, language.

Or a laboratory.

That once none of these all of these.

Gathered together with faces.

Esteemed colleagues.

Many dozens. Silent spines.

From “Arena” (Sun & Moon Press: $10.95; 171 pp.).

1991 by Dennis Phillips. Reprinted by permission. “Arena” is a collection of eleven long poems. Very large ideas and heart-stopping, lyrical phrases are punctuated almost brutally; so it is poetry that leaves you gripping your innards .

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