from obedience [the clock is on time]
the clock is on time
because the stars fall
because all form forms time
falls on the body
freezes a book
beneath the water
because the water is an organ
because all arguments are similar
similar singularities
because we can never discover the subject
because
because is always an object
which is an object among objects
which is neither and or
because we expect to find a similar
before a different set of circumstances
being repeated for convenience
causing a similar
to seem familiar
which we think
has an experimental conclusion
similar to a set of circumstances
based on an object
that falls in the water
which is a simile
because nothing is like an egg
or a concept of an egg
because there is no apparent singular
couched in a connection between
sensible and secret powers
because the question occurs in a medium
which is a thing
among other things
multiplied times a hundred times
because
a thought is an object within a thought
an oncoming proposition
of a possible position
a reference to clocks on the body
as an object without a memory
a memory without thoughts
because the future will resemble the past
because we want our colors to match
because on a supposition
resembling something that could happen
because the hand that shook the hand
of another mislaid thought
is based on an object
that relates to the clock
because maybe
what matters is a seat
in a new convertible
because what matters is good theme music
an antidote to putting the horse before the cart
or a thought with an anecdote
because the object could swim before it could walk
like interchangeable silence is a demand
for milk in your pudding
because we are doing the doing
which is based on the bones of direction
because matter is everywhere
and like a hammer
we feel the touch before meaning
remember touch through memory
as an object with destiny
that wrote an essay
something that astonished someone
that’s now a thought in time
that has a past
that’s now newer than before
before it could ever be a question
From obedience (Factory School, 2005). Copyright © kari edwards. Used with permission of Frances Blau, literary executor.
“The poems I have selected for this feature are two related passages from the book-length poem obedience by kari edwards, who was one of the first visible trans women poets in the U.S. When I heard edwards read these passages at a reading in Brooklyn in late 2005, I was listening to them as an out but pre-transition young person having trouble imagining the (seemingly unthinkable at the time) possibility of a life as a trans woman who could also be a poet. kari held space for that possibility in the poetry scene and as a presence to be reckoned with in the larger literary world. I remember she held the stage with a powerful presence, and she read these passages like lightning, pure bombarding waves of sound, as if on the edge of thought almost too fast for us to keep track of what was happening in them, with a momentum and speed of attack to each phrase that transmuted exasperation and sadness into a kind of philosophical, epistemological prayer dancing on the head of a pin, yet leavened with a little mischievous humor. obedience, the book-length project these passages come from, reflected edwards’s increasing interest in Jainism, so there is a meditative spiritual exploration here along with an interest in philosophy and science of cognition derived from her time at Naropa. Rereading these poems in the aftermath of my own recent transition, I can discern a depth of reference now (‘the bones of direction’) that viscerally acknowledges the fear and pain that trans women feel in having to negotiate a new and strange relationship to time. I think about the young person listening to kari edwards reading these passages, and I think about how much paralyzing fear I had in my own negotiations with time, and how many walls I had set up to block myself from being happy. And I want to go back to the young person who was sitting in the audience that day listening to kari edwards read these poems, feeling so many conflicting things, and tell her, ‘See? The future is going to be possible.’”
—Trace Peterson
kari edwards
Known for her work as a gender activist, kari edwards published several books, including the posthumous poetry collections Bharat jiva (Belladonna Books, 2009) and succubus in my pocket (EOAGH Books, 2015).