99. Random Shapes of the Abandoned Poem

at the outset
am coming
am making what
from what to make

to the utmost
are being
are extending past
what past there is

sought
thought
ought
brought

delicacies yet
hard to the touch
tough to the tongue
and tortured into being

poets with their words
best without clothes
watching what
they steal from us

see it
say it
sign it
sing it

to make a poem
with the shapes
of the words and where
they don’t interlock

layers of sense
in strata
each level of meaning
another floor to an abandoned building

the pulse
the plus
the pus
the pull

algebraic
worked out in sections
until the segments of the problem
were a code equaling a number

inmost to the poem
to walk through it as a body
to bear its fragrance
through the nostrils

thine
shine
fine
mine

finding in the crease
the meaning
and increase
toward an opening fold

obsessed with
or obscure
the object of one’s
obdurate desire

fray’d
and f’ded
array’d
and splay’d

beauty to be sentenced
to the word or
its phrases
the independence of the letters of its body

the stairs
the air within it
do they go down?
do they go up?

hesitate
or she
levitate
or deviate

happy in the skirt
to go around the water
wading
and waiting to go in

punctual
in the form of punctuation
the page punctured
by puncta

sign
sing
singe
sting

a frame of words
to make the shape
of meaning against
the shape of letters

dimensions
elsewhere might be
dimentions
elseways to be

welter
cairn
heap
of words

arrangements of sounds
chairs against tables
of lives for a time being
of _____ against a page

listen
closely enough to the word
against the _____
silent

nipple
ripple
stipple
make

sediment of sense
seductive
conductive
conducive to

he draws her
he draws away
he draws away from her
he draws on her ideas

discover
disorder
the leaves
in eaves

memory is not a text
redaction is not forgetting
italics are not insistence
capitals are not shouting

lips slip
off the word
or the word’s out
and slip the word back in

it is in
a bit of at
is it an
in

contiguous
and continuous
in the form of a sentence
of life or death

downfall
from grace
and all the words
for Adam’s animals

in as is
a bit of it
as if an
is

the contents
of consonants
resemble continents
or shoals

ink as a process
of thinking
to think through
to think upon

for
forlorn
and lorn
of love

concrete in the abstract
a visual distraction
the eye caught
in the tangles of the eye

marks on the page
like marks on the body
like the body bearing words
forth and forward

ark
art
arc
are

contours of the words
as bodies before you
as shapes of height
and certain roundness

a word is a figure of speech
a sentence is
a sculpture park
every letter bears the weight

be to be
as is as
to in to
he as he

exhausted the word
and wrung it out
leaving just the outline
of a point

shelter
in the form of shade
if the sun moves
it may disappear

elder
berry
man
hood

the soothing sound
of a dove
calling out the letter o
to whatever would listen

word
as an ort
as a board
as the book

or on
of or
on of
of or

iridescent
to descend
into light
and be

in and
into and into
and through
and out

be
is
am
be

the author
lives in
the word
or words

nothing
but words
nothing at all
nothing but words