Carrie

Bennett

from EXPEDITION NOTES

[Into a dream]
May was a round urgency, Martian my world. To myself the barograph
sheet, stove noon, reddish darkness, shadow of clouds. The Ice Age almost
60 degrees below zero. I wrapped the air by some lucky vapor ventilator
like engines. I was hours all day, a radio schedule. Little America were moving
now. You try to cut more glycerin. The trick is ambitious and docile. From
the first expedition fire, blandishment, the blizzard, balky balloon. And
stuttered a telephone: I wished on the anemometer, my little explosive lungs. My
tongue, my nose, I guessed my roof. At midnight a wild suffocation. The
trapdoor, my lungs a ladder again eastward. Bitter touch breathing, I turned
from my glove. I froze from the slipping. Came gradually my first trip
forming an underground, thinking how beautiful a blizzard rise. Nowhere
the Barrier wrenches and sliding little throat, I have secured the storm my
only lantern. I drift like a moving wall. I had had enough of this periscope sighting.
The trapdoor of tiny pellets, one false step. I found my mittens. I shoveled
the air ghostly. A hundred years was nearly an hour. Talk Little America above
zero. I was informed Chicago was in code, more powerful and practiced in
fireworks. I am finding man and the stars subject to brute force and slavery.
Which were nightmares? Of clocks sure memory. Of transfigured face. Of disaster so
simple. Of little nevertheless down my teeth. Of aurora box, sun sickness, animal-like.
To hole the hurt with me. Of blame recognized the blow at fault.

Carrie Bennett

[For the momentary revelation]

Underground a task sometimes sounds soundless. I have been startled
asleep, my self surface-like, unsettled another planet. Another geologicmemory. Light crystals as big as a shoe box barely bright, moonlightfetched sky. Instantly a rainbow a silver Apple-green. I estimated massive
streamers straight vanished. Rare pink blood, distant sacrifices witness my
compensation, its natural size. Good luck mistake, I broke the fire. Ask
Little America how carefully nature was getting me. Was wrong the ache. I
felt fine. The only fault was censorship which did not recognize a man
without a falcon, a spent rocket, a simple thing, the breaths freezing mitten.
Suppose the disorder is air engine, radio, vents clear of ice, vitamins,
especially vitamins. At midnight a spotty glow and also my trapdoor.
Solitude is a wolf. In civilization, more of a wrench in me clocks the air.
Absent-minded crucial galaxies, grand animal expanding for the momentary
revelation.

Carrie Bennett

[Up singing late]

My scheduled contact. My better broken vanished my fingers
uncontrollable. My sometimes did a flight reflect. My why bother? Here came
the radio schedules better excuses for contact. Pretty silly afterwards, you
otherwise. You weak hold, you greatest enemy. I wrote lungs, my minor
misfortune, my phonograph, my yellowed places. Mostly I cook fresh seal
meat. My existence, little, little. Lantern, its a tough job this stupor. My
trace a wind north. Another thing, could have been more careful with Little
America. Even now I sometimes. How fingers wont obey. You stop, you stop.
Im trying A, B, C, my three mouthfuls of food. I was meteoric snow. I was
transparent turret, four quadrants in the sky. Its not over yet trapdoor. As
though a great city of draining light. Bright weather vane, try the words.

Carrie Bennett

[Other people in Antarctica]

As if a well wildly filled the flashlight on my wrist. As if my mouth was the
little clear covering I was incapable. As if you start the charts of your own
tragedy. As if lantern. As if sinking seaworthiness nailed the tallest tree. As
if snow, my hands drunk a number of small things. As if clocks ticked
confident in Escape, winds, anchorage, quiet swing. As if stronger
nourishment: a piece of chocolate, later anything twisted on the floor still
warm. Write a message Little America, reasons for weak fire unbearable
breath the lantern a ledge the lantern a string nail red cracked tallow. As if
anything so friendly seemed mistaken. As if sleeping pills, flashlight, cupped
palm, shrinking universe. As if call it God. I learned wind would mean a
gallon more. I learned night meant a radio, a condition reporting. As if code
would betray me. Suffer salt crackers, unspeakable night magnificent, I had,
I had light. As if these were facts. But how? You precious something by the
shelf. I eavesdropped on Little America. As if. As if poor thing haunted too.

[Note: Language and phrases have been appropriated, primarily through

erasure, from Alone: The Classic Polar Adventure by Admiral Richard E. Byrd,
a memoir of Byrds time at Latitude 80 08 South. I restricted each poem to
one chapter from Alone: May II: The Blow, May I: Intimation, June:
The Struggle, June I: Despair. The titles are words from the last
sentence each poem is based on.]