Matthew Rana

Matthew Rana is the author of Ardour: Poems from the Daud (Nion Editions, 2022). His critical writing has appeared in Los Angeles Review of Books, Tripwire, Jacket2, and The Poetry Project Newsletter, among others. He is currently a PhD candidate at the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis, University of Amsterdam, and lives and works in Stockholm.

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From Odds to Evens

11.2

see to twitch the mist

never seen anything quite like this

before a stair

the negotiation hums

like what? like this

a crash too gross

the children like this

are short-lived

edged the cusp of

this phase of night like this

like this

and like that

you say of the refused body

just grab it

spellbound like this

moonlight don’t confess like this

to the grid cat even brighter than that

sprung out like what? like this

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13.3

no flower given

a homonym

to pool – hearts or whatever

ascending could not

could never

aspiration – just picture

what you dreamt

when you heard phool

what would come from there?

rush of breath –

nothing helps

no tool or clamor

some footage lost in the wave

ska berätta för er

a lovely pony

too easy for sympathy’s mind

a flow could fuller the hurt

or pool

crocuses locked in snow

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Jugalbandi

(After Barbara Guest)

the wave of ti-re-ki-the

dha from out-ka

a “brown” ta a the ta

tun thes na

te ga made-new kat

“Rhythmic.”

hanging dha dhin half tun

in the drum ga red ga

rag kaf

ta tonal tins

the tun finished

loud

dhin dropp’d from the ruckus “burst”

was te-the loud

‘ ’

dha’d like in the skin

na stretched –

for hands of am be re

ta loud & ga

dhin-ing “composition” of wait

loud up on the te’d-in tun jumps all over

the tun

a na tin na

gas in dhas & ghains tuns the te or hard kat

dhin-ing bled ripe

of dhusk ke tin-ing na a vast phool

or as tin-ing tun’d a ta & tin high

night ti-res in the ga dha

ti on trill

‘ ’

ti-re-ki-thes roll

ga tun dha te na by ear on us

dhin the day & tins

the way is lit ta all rungh

‘ ’ in tun fog cast

te-the “suite” of na be ring-ing

in for ga te-thes ‘theme’

of lung tun re quest the kat

who dha (what dha how dha when)

dha-ing big dha tin na fall on shy thes

“the composition”

the am of my ta ka ti-re-ki-the qua te-thes tun

to bend ‘ ’ “ethnically positions”

two fingers strike

out sound

one ta the other ga

a loud

or tin in my dhin like ga & tin be in

time when thought

“drained hands

lightning held” na a border of thes

dha ti dha-ing (a dhin-nable dha)

struck “the structure” te-the tun

te-the tun

when dha lit up to mouth its tun

the thes kat

‘ ’

ka bled tin

snatch’d a pearl

in time

as

“Musicalities”

or hard in most of the

drumm’d chain

a chain of chirya

tun dha’d ta & the hum of dhin na

how the fig “appears”

tun dha & the tin of our dhin

ta not on or ga-fullness

as when tin na dha dha bends

Resonant

the ga the dhin the phool

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