1/
I should like to take a bow and explain: no, this was not how I meant it. It is rather the case the children you mention
are not removed, but gone, and not returning, as you've heard, from this situation of going, but, with a
brightness unimagined, conducted calmly from the future.
2/
When faced with such simplifying forces, it is often best to apologize. And then, like ripples returning to
compose a central grace, retract more than was enriched in the gesture.
3/
My friend, I am sorry.
4/
In negative stead of our great country, there have been many naysayers; nags; rattlers on the throat;
bursting more often than not with the vitality of a summer confessional. You must trust me when I
say, my friend, they are only correct because they explain nothing. Have any of them dared to visit
the least of our villages without a camera, in the buff, so to speak? Have their foreign correspondents
even once thrown the poltergeist from preconception, protested the tendency to haunt so neatly, nefarious to
invest in the plainest happy residents of things before them? No, I doubt they have the eyes for acceptance.
5/
Poverty. Can one devise a correlate? Showroom hopelessness. They see and say what they write. This
we cannot help. Such is the curse they bring us into, and report from.
6/
Yes, much pride. I will tell you. Our vernal core, rubeberry thickets, the flux of pheasants among
grasses; what more? the knees-beneath-bedsheets effect of cloudshadows flowing over foothills. These are the spirit
of reality. Where the millwheel revolves, water brings rings to bear. An old saying. Mountain-strong, any stream, I invite you friend, out of
mind and memory of that place, to pick one. It will curl you into a stronger representative embrace. The
aim of our creed and our legistators' tempered confluence, has always been that we, people of such a land, would
in our lifeways and means of being plain, aspire to be indistinguishable
from them.
7/
Any charges, rumors without a respect for borders, are often, more than likely, distortions. But these are
men who know how to devour one mother above all others. Trust not. The tourism on them is always thinking.
8/
You have heard, I am sure, of the thousand-plus laborers sealed like close-sliding fish in a
mass ditch
in Yenlo. Or, even more popular among our enemies, of breadlines that taper from city to city. And as a
typical compliment to irresponsible, groundless conjectures, one often hears reports sprout from the
mouths of cowards--that leadership is an elite in the worst manner, massaging bought girls with champagne
before cresting blonde tresses over pillows stuffed not with sawdust, but sweetbread. We must never admit
fantasies among table manners. I hope you should agree.
9/
Of course there is a concern for credentials. Who is this who would speak, without reservation, to convince me?
In answer to that, as with any matter of small-time immediacy, I would have you, my lungs my
recipient, my comrade quiet inside the hour, open all that was given you at birth and look at me. Out of freshness
of affection and with your own friendliness, would this shared stranger deceive you, to defy cleanly?
Friday, August 29, 2008
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Gaussless
Pauca Sed Matura wrote the Prince of Mathematicians, a love letter in reverse to the origin within
what would rob him of his death. Instead of a feather, a finger. And hinting to be paper, his bare chest.
The forms are immanent within what pretends to be nature. In the hawkswing, the wind that strips, flutter
intricate with drafts that walked the pauper to the edge of where it fell, to be plucked from specific uselessness.
Held to the forehead, they reveal themselves as the sky-treading creature we imagine. For the striplings
that can't, only pity. Which is rich against the wealth of nonkind. [On the burnished elbow-rubbed old
oak desk, a notebook pulsed by candlelight. His summer's yield, startling subtleties that had never existed.
On March 30th, the heptadecagon. On April 8th quadratic reciprocity twisted from lawlessness. The prior
number theorem of May 31st was crowned with a counterweight eureka concerning positive integers. Each
representable as a sum of at most three triangular numbers. This his notebook ate on the 10th of July. While
the sun rose and smelted, and the houses of idiots and slaves gave. Their reasons for complaining becoming
as wraithly beyond reach or index within as their own names. So plainly as they are
they can't find them.]
what would rob him of his death. Instead of a feather, a finger. And hinting to be paper, his bare chest.
The forms are immanent within what pretends to be nature. In the hawkswing, the wind that strips, flutter
intricate with drafts that walked the pauper to the edge of where it fell, to be plucked from specific uselessness.
Held to the forehead, they reveal themselves as the sky-treading creature we imagine. For the striplings
that can't, only pity. Which is rich against the wealth of nonkind. [On the burnished elbow-rubbed old
oak desk, a notebook pulsed by candlelight. His summer's yield, startling subtleties that had never existed.
On March 30th, the heptadecagon. On April 8th quadratic reciprocity twisted from lawlessness. The prior
number theorem of May 31st was crowned with a counterweight eureka concerning positive integers. Each
representable as a sum of at most three triangular numbers. This his notebook ate on the 10th of July. While
the sun rose and smelted, and the houses of idiots and slaves gave. Their reasons for complaining becoming
as wraithly beyond reach or index within as their own names. So plainly as they are
they can't find them.]
Mature at Ends
My mind needs the balance of demands, he told her, not knowing which way to agree with. So what does it mean
to be free to intend?
Already having been his example for twenty years, it was easy enough to swim around in. A
ghost-ladder of explanation swallowing an answer. To be the literal playground of a choice.
A limit.
Inside of which the antecedent chain of internalized shadows, ancestral as inhalation inside a sneeze, corral, no
horse, stasis overdose of running minus legs, has a field day containing fulfillment. Both of them were more than they
could handle, but in excess of what they could contain. And this, for lack of a convention more original,
they called love.
Which passing mirrors would echo as dependence. Because it feels like this, so often. With less time to
myself, but fiercely, involuntarily focused, what's left to think about itself, around its often problems, has a
concentrated richness. Where he stops, sated in arrival; departure point where she accepts him.
But I'm not that, I'm the man you are. Feeling like yourself when you're living for me. Not to say I'm some
feminine mist. Walk in, get lost, find yourself. And in the ambience I can't help but provide, since I'm it,
landscapes forever retracting into the helpful, like glory rolling around in the inexperienced, concentrate
on exact details on how life
is bereft.
By the time I'd graduated the fourth grade, and didn't even know it, my sense of constant acceptance
was almost limitless. She said. And so was a return message, with double measure.
So you need it too? And even longer, it sounds like, than it needs you? The turn darkening the length
was surprising him.
Of course. Not a day doesn't pull me through that I don't wonder why I am so definitely inside it. The kids,
their father, the country, its opposite, the people, their abstract collective involved in literal and responsive
war. Every time a cup meets my reach, out of the cupboard, I'm both less and more than its
author--but never exactly the precisely.
The more I think back, she said, hearing his pressure, from the beyond of myself, the less
I can demand it.
to be free to intend?
Already having been his example for twenty years, it was easy enough to swim around in. A
ghost-ladder of explanation swallowing an answer. To be the literal playground of a choice.
A limit.
Inside of which the antecedent chain of internalized shadows, ancestral as inhalation inside a sneeze, corral, no
horse, stasis overdose of running minus legs, has a field day containing fulfillment. Both of them were more than they
could handle, but in excess of what they could contain. And this, for lack of a convention more original,
they called love.
Which passing mirrors would echo as dependence. Because it feels like this, so often. With less time to
myself, but fiercely, involuntarily focused, what's left to think about itself, around its often problems, has a
concentrated richness. Where he stops, sated in arrival; departure point where she accepts him.
But I'm not that, I'm the man you are. Feeling like yourself when you're living for me. Not to say I'm some
feminine mist. Walk in, get lost, find yourself. And in the ambience I can't help but provide, since I'm it,
landscapes forever retracting into the helpful, like glory rolling around in the inexperienced, concentrate
on exact details on how life
is bereft.
By the time I'd graduated the fourth grade, and didn't even know it, my sense of constant acceptance
was almost limitless. She said. And so was a return message, with double measure.
So you need it too? And even longer, it sounds like, than it needs you? The turn darkening the length
was surprising him.
Of course. Not a day doesn't pull me through that I don't wonder why I am so definitely inside it. The kids,
their father, the country, its opposite, the people, their abstract collective involved in literal and responsive
war. Every time a cup meets my reach, out of the cupboard, I'm both less and more than its
author--but never exactly the precisely.
The more I think back, she said, hearing his pressure, from the beyond of myself, the less
I can demand it.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
The Ballad of Impossible Diogenes
1.
It happens mainly in the chest
what tiny sleepers go to sleep in
is merely empty and whispered only
what only can be to dry gin.
Impossible Diogenes ends usually
looking over lawns, hands huge within
heartblended warbling he
can’t say
exactly what it means—
to live inside one’s abstractions,
to turn away from neighboring
for the sake of larger neighboring,
with
head clicking like sprinklers
chick chinking ice
rhyming in the crystal.
For one is married to the world too:
resurrection music, silence.
Having forgotten the names
and chucked his glasses except for driving,
he lived in constellation mostly
of shapes and sounds, a fuzziness that only
the dog that licked his face knew enough
to slice though, waken the man
and at this point that beautiful madman
laughter like, well, what was it like?
Nothing I can say with this pulse
between holds. Enough to hang
a church on, enough to unhook
a church. A beautiful television set
exploding across anonymous suburban landscape.
2.
Funny, he would say, comfort carrion
from the tub, beside him
the old good dog, gold dog
he could not be unkind to.
Through the window
truthtelling through the absence
of such words,
the loud, raucous, mewing cry,
the harsh kwup and rasping,
the fat stars like incandescent berries—
mind not that they are usually darker
blues and reds,
he could almost taste the night
like a thick jam he could scoop
with his fingers and with the boundless
certainty eroding, the appetites too
readjusting, he could travel almost
back to zero, save for the occasional
appearance at dinner, the looking over
of math homework, the trilogy
of dance recitals—but quickly, quickly
back to the tub, the gold dog, the snubbing.
3.
All this animal’s gathering
and still the prayer for stillness,
withdrawing from the names.
Impossible Diogenes could not make nice,
could not hover reasonably, or recover,
could not keep his hangover
to himself, could not end
an evening with grace after
so much had been gossiped gracelessly
across lawns and shrubs,
could not use forks or knives in a European
fashion, could not stop listing could nots,
could not embrace thread count
as a viable means of living—
having come so far from something
honest, something that did not wreak
manipulation, something that a small-minded man
would not abandon family for
fifty, sixty hours a week,
he stuck to his tub, planted among
the old bikes and lawnmowers,
the tire irons and board games,
the boxes that said Ancient Age
and Beefeater, he would not relent
and only paid taxes to avoid comparisons
with Thoreau, so tired he was
of the rampant need
(wired in our brains, he did not know)
to degrade by connecting, to downplay
or make graspable
grass and fire, love and love's
load of love
comprehensible
(which, in theory, was fine,
there’s nothing wrong with hitching a ride
onto, but in practice was not fine
because few, if any, felt a prevailing will
or could summon the necessary vigor
to go beyond comparison, similarity,
most simply let the case rest
once they felt a reasonable sense of control)
and this he could not stand knowing.
4.
His first speech, given outside a crowded
bagel shop, went: “the truth
is always beyond what is polite,
what seems similar, what is unruffled,
what is wrangled without even the
proper degree of altercation—that, at least,
would make a thing respectable—
into a context that might as well be
the top and bottom eyelids closing
yawningly, onto big sleep . . .
and you must not trust
the truth either.” When they threw
bagels at him like a dog
he thanked them in the way that any
gold dog would: marvelous arcs
of piss ending with spleen rupturing gas.
his first arrest.
5.
The prison letters
to Better Homes and Gardens (an early target)
under the guise of famous manners
columnist Jill Globule, read: “No creation
without creation. Destruction comes later
and if creative is creation named
anyway. Know before going further
that anyway is lazy. And if the eye
is flabby, then the I (and its
subordinates/coordinates) is flabbier.
Likes to be this way though
and therefore applauds an indiscriminate
looking, a half-looking a looking
that conspires with all the other looking.”
Later, in the garage again, his youngest
daughter asked, “What’s the matter, pop,
why are you doing this? It’s not that
I’m embarrassed, I just want to understand.”
He said “trial
by ordeal . . . poppa wants to know
if he can float.”
6.
Her simple acceptance of this response,
her quiet kiss on his rough cheek
ruined one quest for honesty
and started another. He would swallow
their poisonous cares
so that she would not have to.
But changing the world for daughter’s sake
meant scorning the world.
He would solve this problem later, he would save the momentous
times for when
small victories could buoy him
forth. You can only undo so much longing,
endless the aching heart, the swollen machine.
7.
He used the word unquenchable
at inappropriate times, raising the intensity
of otherwise paltry exchanges. In the dry goods
section of the grocery store, i.e., when
Roger asked him how he was doing, he would say,
“Like you, I live in unquenchable burnings,”
then he would grab his huge bag
of cat food and be gone. Quick exits
like this allowed others to quickly convert
the exchange into vapor via chuckle—
but later, it wormed up in him. He could not
masturbate. In fact, nobody in town
who had been in contact with Impossible Diogenes
could masturbate. Meanwhile, he swam in lakes
and rivers, ate perfectly good food
out of garbages,
and they could not masturbate; he smoked
without asking permission, slept
down among dogs he kept
bringing home, his breath
in perfect harmony with their snoring and harrumphing,
the days, the nights
softer now, more human
if such a thing can be uttered,
and still they could not masturbate.
At night, when he used to close windows
and lock doors to keep out what was wild
and promised harm, he altered the context
and values. That fear might sharpen
and disabuse privilege, for which he was
unworthy anyway. That fighting for one’s life
was a gift—either way you know what you are
capable of, you know how far you can go
without ceasing. When the uproar came,
therefore, he was not ready. Sleeping
the sleep of the honest man. They could not
pin a crime on him, only that he had
agitated them, only that he was somehow
bad for the neighborhood, for the property
values, for the children, there was even
one theory tying his behavior to the
failure of lawns to thrive. The was to be
a cautionary step. A precaution. The first
town murder in sixty years.
8.
Still they speak
of him in hushed
tones, a town's
silence
grown filthy as a gown. And what
lasts
through the lasting
is half song, half a heaven
of breathing.
It happens mainly in the chest
what tiny sleepers go to sleep in
is merely empty and whispered only
what only can be to dry gin.
Impossible Diogenes ends usually
looking over lawns, hands huge within
heartblended warbling he
can’t say
exactly what it means—
to live inside one’s abstractions,
to turn away from neighboring
for the sake of larger neighboring,
with
head clicking like sprinklers
chick chinking ice
rhyming in the crystal.
For one is married to the world too:
resurrection music, silence.
Having forgotten the names
and chucked his glasses except for driving,
he lived in constellation mostly
of shapes and sounds, a fuzziness that only
the dog that licked his face knew enough
to slice though, waken the man
and at this point that beautiful madman
laughter like, well, what was it like?
Nothing I can say with this pulse
between holds. Enough to hang
a church on, enough to unhook
a church. A beautiful television set
exploding across anonymous suburban landscape.
2.
Funny, he would say, comfort carrion
from the tub, beside him
the old good dog, gold dog
he could not be unkind to.
Through the window
truthtelling through the absence
of such words,
the loud, raucous, mewing cry,
the harsh kwup and rasping,
the fat stars like incandescent berries—
mind not that they are usually darker
blues and reds,
he could almost taste the night
like a thick jam he could scoop
with his fingers and with the boundless
certainty eroding, the appetites too
readjusting, he could travel almost
back to zero, save for the occasional
appearance at dinner, the looking over
of math homework, the trilogy
of dance recitals—but quickly, quickly
back to the tub, the gold dog, the snubbing.
3.
All this animal’s gathering
and still the prayer for stillness,
withdrawing from the names.
Impossible Diogenes could not make nice,
could not hover reasonably, or recover,
could not keep his hangover
to himself, could not end
an evening with grace after
so much had been gossiped gracelessly
across lawns and shrubs,
could not use forks or knives in a European
fashion, could not stop listing could nots,
could not embrace thread count
as a viable means of living—
having come so far from something
honest, something that did not wreak
manipulation, something that a small-minded man
would not abandon family for
fifty, sixty hours a week,
he stuck to his tub, planted among
the old bikes and lawnmowers,
the tire irons and board games,
the boxes that said Ancient Age
and Beefeater, he would not relent
and only paid taxes to avoid comparisons
with Thoreau, so tired he was
of the rampant need
(wired in our brains, he did not know)
to degrade by connecting, to downplay
or make graspable
grass and fire, love and love's
load of love
comprehensible
(which, in theory, was fine,
there’s nothing wrong with hitching a ride
onto, but in practice was not fine
because few, if any, felt a prevailing will
or could summon the necessary vigor
to go beyond comparison, similarity,
most simply let the case rest
once they felt a reasonable sense of control)
and this he could not stand knowing.
4.
His first speech, given outside a crowded
bagel shop, went: “the truth
is always beyond what is polite,
what seems similar, what is unruffled,
what is wrangled without even the
proper degree of altercation—that, at least,
would make a thing respectable—
into a context that might as well be
the top and bottom eyelids closing
yawningly, onto big sleep . . .
and you must not trust
the truth either.” When they threw
bagels at him like a dog
he thanked them in the way that any
gold dog would: marvelous arcs
of piss ending with spleen rupturing gas.
his first arrest.
5.
The prison letters
to Better Homes and Gardens (an early target)
under the guise of famous manners
columnist Jill Globule, read: “No creation
without creation. Destruction comes later
and if creative is creation named
anyway. Know before going further
that anyway is lazy. And if the eye
is flabby, then the I (and its
subordinates/coordinates) is flabbier.
Likes to be this way though
and therefore applauds an indiscriminate
looking, a half-looking a looking
that conspires with all the other looking.”
Later, in the garage again, his youngest
daughter asked, “What’s the matter, pop,
why are you doing this? It’s not that
I’m embarrassed, I just want to understand.”
He said “trial
by ordeal . . . poppa wants to know
if he can float.”
6.
Her simple acceptance of this response,
her quiet kiss on his rough cheek
ruined one quest for honesty
and started another. He would swallow
their poisonous cares
so that she would not have to.
But changing the world for daughter’s sake
meant scorning the world.
He would solve this problem later, he would save the momentous
times for when
small victories could buoy him
forth. You can only undo so much longing,
endless the aching heart, the swollen machine.
7.
He used the word unquenchable
at inappropriate times, raising the intensity
of otherwise paltry exchanges. In the dry goods
section of the grocery store, i.e., when
Roger asked him how he was doing, he would say,
“Like you, I live in unquenchable burnings,”
then he would grab his huge bag
of cat food and be gone. Quick exits
like this allowed others to quickly convert
the exchange into vapor via chuckle—
but later, it wormed up in him. He could not
masturbate. In fact, nobody in town
who had been in contact with Impossible Diogenes
could masturbate. Meanwhile, he swam in lakes
and rivers, ate perfectly good food
out of garbages,
and they could not masturbate; he smoked
without asking permission, slept
down among dogs he kept
bringing home, his breath
in perfect harmony with their snoring and harrumphing,
the days, the nights
softer now, more human
if such a thing can be uttered,
and still they could not masturbate.
At night, when he used to close windows
and lock doors to keep out what was wild
and promised harm, he altered the context
and values. That fear might sharpen
and disabuse privilege, for which he was
unworthy anyway. That fighting for one’s life
was a gift—either way you know what you are
capable of, you know how far you can go
without ceasing. When the uproar came,
therefore, he was not ready. Sleeping
the sleep of the honest man. They could not
pin a crime on him, only that he had
agitated them, only that he was somehow
bad for the neighborhood, for the property
values, for the children, there was even
one theory tying his behavior to the
failure of lawns to thrive. The was to be
a cautionary step. A precaution. The first
town murder in sixty years.
8.
Still they speak
of him in hushed
tones, a town's
silence
grown filthy as a gown. And what
lasts
through the lasting
is half song, half a heaven
of breathing.
Monday, August 25, 2008
A Lady To Coast A Random Sense of Wonder
She was wearing her American Flag silk dress. On the boardwalk the evening tourist crowd could almost
get lost in the interference she was running. It was twilight. Folks were letting their real hunches and
desires out, to hover a half inch over the delicate hair-haze of their forearm skin; her chestnut double
ponytail brought their own dividedness to light. Where the retina and the genital could meet, and agree--what she
was taking for a walk that evening was everywhere.
Like midges in the head, no one overlooking Bar Harbor could have guessed, she was mixing facts about
that bay with them. Acadia Park founded in such-and-such year, the outlying islands, what they're known
by, chief products brought to arrive and disappear. Just a week ago she'd ejected smoking from her habits.
So there was her first secret: on her left buttock, as a joke, or as a promise for an installment plan, she'd
let her new husband, her new young husband, plant it like a pun, butt of, punchline, right there. Where
only he could close his eyes and think.
In the colonial-style house at the top of the cliff-face, he was there. She couldn't do the same and that
was natural. To imagine him in the foyer asking the hostess how long the wait would be, it would take
open eyes and a modest ambition of looking there. As the porch reverses its angles to shivery kicks of
light. Candles on tables set for couples. In his absence and in honor of his fifteen minutes away from her
she made the gas station hipflask appear and, after ditching a sip, welcome the purse again.
The lesser modes of endearment
are also higher blows of discernment.
Now what does that mean? It means her legs, golden brown, are not examples of summer; but summer an
expanding hem. Like breeze she can feel so much of, it brings from
far-off locales smoothness
from having shaved in the motel that morning. Eagle Lake, California; Jacksonville, Florida; pinpoints
of absorption from wherever these glances and, in the intrusive, longer rough stares she makes returns to the
real a shared nuance. Tonight how many will host a cameo of her goldflake sandals? How many will explain their
withheld directness up her full and, as her husband says, happy thighs, to the destination point where their hands
are waiting? The harbor-clinks and water-slaps on docked hulls sound almost just like them.
She's watching a boy now. Maybe five, taking him in as if her name were Belinda. When mom stoops to
lift his hand off the ice-cream freezer's edge she'll look with the resonance of a Kristin. Babies. Before
or during or after, takes two vaguenesses to phrase them. And then they hit the blastbright open action
and hover out of instinct to crawl. And then, if thirty years are lucky enough they'll get the
pleasure of being
a lightly tanned blonde prizing guests to notice with intelligence. A paradise waiting for her
beau by the wall.
get lost in the interference she was running. It was twilight. Folks were letting their real hunches and
desires out, to hover a half inch over the delicate hair-haze of their forearm skin; her chestnut double
ponytail brought their own dividedness to light. Where the retina and the genital could meet, and agree--what she
was taking for a walk that evening was everywhere.
Like midges in the head, no one overlooking Bar Harbor could have guessed, she was mixing facts about
that bay with them. Acadia Park founded in such-and-such year, the outlying islands, what they're known
by, chief products brought to arrive and disappear. Just a week ago she'd ejected smoking from her habits.
So there was her first secret: on her left buttock, as a joke, or as a promise for an installment plan, she'd
let her new husband, her new young husband, plant it like a pun, butt of, punchline, right there. Where
only he could close his eyes and think.
In the colonial-style house at the top of the cliff-face, he was there. She couldn't do the same and that
was natural. To imagine him in the foyer asking the hostess how long the wait would be, it would take
open eyes and a modest ambition of looking there. As the porch reverses its angles to shivery kicks of
light. Candles on tables set for couples. In his absence and in honor of his fifteen minutes away from her
she made the gas station hipflask appear and, after ditching a sip, welcome the purse again.
The lesser modes of endearment
are also higher blows of discernment.
Now what does that mean? It means her legs, golden brown, are not examples of summer; but summer an
expanding hem. Like breeze she can feel so much of, it brings from
far-off locales smoothness
from having shaved in the motel that morning. Eagle Lake, California; Jacksonville, Florida; pinpoints
of absorption from wherever these glances and, in the intrusive, longer rough stares she makes returns to the
real a shared nuance. Tonight how many will host a cameo of her goldflake sandals? How many will explain their
withheld directness up her full and, as her husband says, happy thighs, to the destination point where their hands
are waiting? The harbor-clinks and water-slaps on docked hulls sound almost just like them.
She's watching a boy now. Maybe five, taking him in as if her name were Belinda. When mom stoops to
lift his hand off the ice-cream freezer's edge she'll look with the resonance of a Kristin. Babies. Before
or during or after, takes two vaguenesses to phrase them. And then they hit the blastbright open action
and hover out of instinct to crawl. And then, if thirty years are lucky enough they'll get the
pleasure of being
a lightly tanned blonde prizing guests to notice with intelligence. A paradise waiting for her
beau by the wall.
Donna Rising
It was how she knew, maturity, the proportionate cowl, was growing over the once feeling parts of her.
Or should it be bright, sensitive, owed. Equal, mutually when in the presence of others stealing to attain
balanced parts of her. Familiar to take on how to account for when it came and talked. Spent a whole stretch
called life in a shadow. And what was, that past shape too flat and ground-devoted to be filled, but caulking
for the fickle moving vacuums committed to the fixed given out of affection for other people? Time to
be someone, of her own. Eased into the charged sift. Back, reclaimed like she never was before. It took years. It
gradually selected strength without her help. It found purpose where usually once there were only
insecure misbalances. Millimeters, the men that claimed understanding unfolded, revealed how much of
themselves were composed of her. And how could any of it stand to improve, if they were what they claimed--
husband, brother, father? The moving nuances of a great, blind, interchangeable loneliness. Which could
be owed directly to neither--division from prior wholeness or its instability. The brevity of cucumbers, peppers,
tomatoes from her garden, their interchangeability, their frank minor ness, once the clods were washed, were
pedagogically simple. The twists and misgrowths were their only deviation. The rest a phylogenetic
transference. One end of an unseen smile to another. That felt like
teeth all the way.
Or should it be bright, sensitive, owed. Equal, mutually when in the presence of others stealing to attain
balanced parts of her. Familiar to take on how to account for when it came and talked. Spent a whole stretch
called life in a shadow. And what was, that past shape too flat and ground-devoted to be filled, but caulking
for the fickle moving vacuums committed to the fixed given out of affection for other people? Time to
be someone, of her own. Eased into the charged sift. Back, reclaimed like she never was before. It took years. It
gradually selected strength without her help. It found purpose where usually once there were only
insecure misbalances. Millimeters, the men that claimed understanding unfolded, revealed how much of
themselves were composed of her. And how could any of it stand to improve, if they were what they claimed--
husband, brother, father? The moving nuances of a great, blind, interchangeable loneliness. Which could
be owed directly to neither--division from prior wholeness or its instability. The brevity of cucumbers, peppers,
tomatoes from her garden, their interchangeability, their frank minor ness, once the clods were washed, were
pedagogically simple. The twists and misgrowths were their only deviation. The rest a phylogenetic
transference. One end of an unseen smile to another. That felt like
teeth all the way.
Friday, August 22, 2008
Eight Good Songs, One Good Meal
Yesterday I argued with a physicist
about the musical qualities
of the words "meandering" and "wandering"--
it took him a while to see the difference
through every fault of my own
way of think-talking
which is something I now accept about myself:
I talk myself onto the highwire,
flip, maybe land on a toe,
then cut my losses.
What this does to, or for, the listener
I can hardly imagine.
Old ninja movies from my childhood
apparently still taunt me
to throw smokebombs
when the odds tip way, way
out of my favor--a man
cobbles together
a morality, doesn't he?
(Ah, that's the idea
I've been searching for
since I started this poem. You see,
I've been writing something
called "The Balled of Ecstatic Morality"
and now I'm wondering if
I just finished it
or just started,
or if, some drafty day,
it will all merge
in the quickly folded hands
that at
once pump
the heart closer, then further from
the unsearchable.)
Oh, and I meant to mention
one of the songs
so as not to confuse intelligence
with coyness, or
Ticonderoga
with silence.
Look, either way,
I declare simple
chicken and rice
and earthy, open wine
an occasion
for tears and laughter.
That Tuesday evenings are
so easily spent
on collapse
must again be
disputed. Who will
form a union
for the ordinary,
who will bribe
the powerful men
who would obliterate
all our simplest words? Good Christ,
sign me up.
I no longer accept
the loss of magic
or the indignity of sense.
I want to crush basil in my hands
and drop my nose in
and come up clean.
Good Christ
are you with me?
about the musical qualities
of the words "meandering" and "wandering"--
it took him a while to see the difference
through every fault of my own
way of think-talking
which is something I now accept about myself:
I talk myself onto the highwire,
flip, maybe land on a toe,
then cut my losses.
What this does to, or for, the listener
I can hardly imagine.
Old ninja movies from my childhood
apparently still taunt me
to throw smokebombs
when the odds tip way, way
out of my favor--a man
cobbles together
a morality, doesn't he?
(Ah, that's the idea
I've been searching for
since I started this poem. You see,
I've been writing something
called "The Balled of Ecstatic Morality"
and now I'm wondering if
I just finished it
or just started,
or if, some drafty day,
it will all merge
in the quickly folded hands
that at
once pump
the heart closer, then further from
the unsearchable.)
Oh, and I meant to mention
one of the songs
so as not to confuse intelligence
with coyness, or
Ticonderoga
with silence.
Look, either way,
I declare simple
chicken and rice
and earthy, open wine
an occasion
for tears and laughter.
That Tuesday evenings are
so easily spent
on collapse
must again be
disputed. Who will
form a union
for the ordinary,
who will bribe
the powerful men
who would obliterate
all our simplest words? Good Christ,
sign me up.
I no longer accept
the loss of magic
or the indignity of sense.
I want to crush basil in my hands
and drop my nose in
and come up clean.
Good Christ
are you with me?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)