Anne Tardos

“Four Plus One K (2000-2001)”

for Lyn Hejinian

A Note on the Notes

The notes at the foot of some of these stanzas came a while after the poem was written and even after it was first published in Conjunctions: 35, American Poetry: State of the Art (Bradford Morrow, ed.). In that edition I also illustrated the pages with images of people and objects whose names began with the letter k.

These notes were first collected separately, and entitled "How Memory Deepens: Analytical Footnotes to Four Plus One K." Here, and in my book The Dik-dik's Solitude, I place the notes directly below the stanzas they refer to.

Tunneling predator
Microsoft gravity
Embryo sassafras
Deepening memory

Kitchen.

The mechanism of deepening of memory becomes clear in the present moment, where life is available.

The kitchen as playground.

Female executive
Long-faced Britannica
Budgeting ecstasy
Bungee mark water stain

Kerouac.

When we purchased the online version of Britannica, we experienced a budgeting ecstasy.

 

A bungee is a long and strong rubberband capable of holding up a human being. A bungee mark water stain is the stain caused by the enormous splash resulting from the unplanned impact of the jumper.

Trembling monogamy
Money-back marmoset
Mildewing gingerbread
Standalone graffiti

Kiwi.

Marmosets never keep any money you give them—they always return it.

Kiwis are great. The fruit, the bird, the people, the clean air, the blue skies, the benefit of the doubt.

Biodiversity
Newspaper bondage
Ice hockey bodycheck
Monkey bread fantasy

Kafka.

Prohibitive skingrafts
Dictionary sailboat
Sensual troubleshoot
Django Señora

Kabuki.

Dictionary sailboat refers to the practice of going sailing inside a dictionary.

You troubleshoot your sensuality when you find that your señora likes dingos dancing the tango while playing bingo with a man named Django.

Kabuki, my eye.

I am in Mexico
Have you ever been there
Awfully dangerous
Absolutely charming

Kaddish.

Closer to life we could
Cheddar cheese drip-dry
Baby block patchwork quilt
Quadriceps paradox

Kilimanjaro.

A quadriceps can be a paradox, it can be an antilog, or a lozenge. Or a four-part extensor muscle at the front of a thigh.

Pregnancy teatime
Pottery pinchbar
Bumpy road mopping floor
Elderly tenderloin

Kangaroo.

Pregnancy teatime is something very cozy and proper and appropriate.

A pinchbar is a bar that will do in a pinch.

Elderly tenderloin kangaroo, refers to kangaroo tenderloin, which sadly appears on some menus.

Puritan work ethic
Willy-nilly waiting
Despicable pillbox
Gagging on arrogance

Kansas.

One person family
Triggerfish mango
Everyone different
Humble existence

Keyboard.

A triggerfish mango is simply a triggerfish's own, personal mango fruit.

Anyway Mexico
Faraway baby
Compassion for hostages
Particular emotions

Karma.

Want to say secular
Tunneling madness
Intensity happiness
Envelope pushpin

Kensington.

Vision of loveliness
Perforate nestegg
Carelessly overused
Artichoke lifeline

Keepsake.

During the weeks before
Clarity somewhere
Angler-fish sprout atop
Despite the fact Tolstoy

Kenya.

Vivero nursery
Fiberglass euphony
Fetching diacritics
Watchful hegemony

Kimono.

Euphony, while pleasing to the ear, can be made of fiberglass or not.

Belle de Jour Sévérine
Austrian writer
Mediterranean
Fancy Vassily

Kandinsky.

Sévérine was Belle de Jour's real name. She was not an Austrian writer. She was not Mediterranen.

And neither was Kandinsky.

Addis Ababa flu
Critical massacre
Aerodynamics glue
Jump collage triple cut

Kismet.

Zebulon heart attack
Temporary singsong
Suffragette etiquette
Meandering dropcloth

Karloff.

Timid alignment
Video video
Retribution sacrilege
Infantile granny

Kaleidoscope.

Euclidian assessment
Grammarian fallacy
Predicate calculus
Complex proposition

Kerosene.

Francis Picabia
Pokerfaced stingray
Soda jerk gravity
Pottery poetry

Ketchup.

Randomize clerihew
Distinguish a person
Sesame conflict
Perfidy treachery

Kepler.

Clear gazed gazelle
Visible expression
Lifelong resistance
To endless assaults

Kimberley.

Words upon words upon
Sketch after sketch
Oily gloomy naked brash
Clearlegged frowny

Kidneystone.

It is the kidneystone that is oily and gloomy and naked and brash and clearlegged and frowny.

Fenugreek diligence
Tenticle buggery
Mescaline messenger
Zeppeline Breckenrigde

King Kong.

Fenugreek is always diligent, as plants must be.

Internal secretion
Parasitic zoom lens
Angle interior
Hellfire hedgehog

Kentucky.

Granular recipe
Circular ring-neck
Space-shuttle riverbank
Salamander sadness

Kierkegaard.

The sadness of a salamander occurs elsewhere and is not to be confused with the madness of the salamander.

Roof garden prostitute
Permanent magnet
Mummification vest
Pocket mouse vortex

Kermit.

Podium spinnaker
Ocarina lipstick
Picador psychopath
Cavernous scullcap

Kiss.

The rest is self-explanatory: the picador is a psychopath and the skullcap is cavernous.

The kiss is Klimt's.