from end user Gregory Fraser

Needles to Say

Heroin and darning, thistle of my Scottish birth; royal knitters' in the court
of Henry VIII-needles to say, in land-time we mean nil, and travel mostly paper seas.

By syringe, we should give ourselves to fruit and infant laughter, plunge the moon's
dilation in Gwendolyn Bay. Hypodermics of sunlight, injections of vitamin D

to keep the rickets away. Ask me, and every country should select a stitch,
as Denmark chose the "cross." Romantic collars, tablecloth of filet crochet.

You find the pulse, tighten rubber on the upper arm; I'll swab and jab the crook,
draw until we understand only what our names allow. Samplers that bless

a cozy abode, Rich's "ivory [ . . . ] hard to pull." Needles to say, it's always
summer for the reader, though the spring of sounding out words is passed.

No wonder June nights dive like gulls as we try to hold one longing, failing
as the brush toads failed to convince: the seventh kitten was a sad mistake.

Unlike embroidery, needlepoint uses canvas to form new fabric. The very fine
is called petit-point. Like needlepoint, I pry cherrystones apart, and you

spritz lemon into their china bowls. This late, Montauk, only the rudders
of our sexes steer. The winds are salty and a shadow sprawls beneath

our neighbors' pine. We fear these neighbors, needles to say, but are protected
by heat lightning's electric fence. It's good to be only seasonally afraid.

I dropped a diamond on Led Zeppelin I, began the spacewalk of my teens.
(You recall LPs, those Hegelians with their spiraling ideals.) And once,

a doctor drove a long one in my ankle to drive an ache away. Earlier,
no later, no now: my wife pokes hormones in her thigh, calling herself,

with a chortle, The Hen. But her laughter is missing something more
than the terminal "s" in a mistyped transitional phrase. It could be

we can't have children, and it seems-clearer than ever-
poetry can't take their place. Needles to say, you'll say.

Note from the end user Gregory Fraser:
I was working a lot with the renga, and with a combination of "scientific" and "religious" texts. I gathered a lot of passages composed with Gnoetry into a large block, and then started to add to and strip away from the language in a relatively wild rush. I let the draft sit for a couple of weeks, adding polish and form very late in the game.