365. In the Realm of Being
1
in brine
then born
everything spilling from around you
2
taking it apart
this morning
the sun arose
this morning
at 5:25 on 5/24
and today both
you and I are
50 years of age
for only 1 day
come tomorrow
the sun’ll rise
at 5:24 on 5/25
we are trapped
as we are and
governed by the
simplest of all
numbers that
make meaning
where otherwise
there might be
none even at all
these numbers
count us & help
see the patterns
3
light comes in and covers us
it is heavier than darkness and harder
to shake
sticky too and too much of it
and the stickiness appears on our skin
a glistening
so we wake
from the weight of light like water
flowing over us and the warmth
of light and bodies and bedsheets holding us in
so that we don’t drift off so far
into dreams that we cannot return
from them to hear the clapping of eyelids awake
a slow mouthing of the words for seeing
the intensity of morning is the break
from the dreamt a pillow of ants
spiders shaken like dust from gauzy curtains
toppling asterisks of emphasis or direction
towards explanations that never appear
kept just over the horizon and the attempt to
escape to elude to
forget the point of the elision
what is left out is always what is most important
4
leptodactylous
you had a hand in it
and fingers swaying
in a life
as any one of these billions
that comes only once
if something were to be made of it
you would
and hold
in your hand and its thin fingers
the cold gingerroot
what holds its own
tumescent secrets
beneath its rough skin
the flavor of scent of it
a hand to hold and be held
and hold back against
(there must be a wave to it
an unrolling of water
a sign of marine birth
in a submarine life
fathoms and unfathoms)
everything mysterious because
so ominously obvious
my brachydactylic fingers
stub children of my hands
still can hold a pencil
and draw still tap a key
to type and so words and
images tumble out of me
they are a kind of water
of birth the form that waking
takes even if mumbled gnarled
the vapid grotesqueries
of the hand
I have in it
5
not sure
actually you know
I am never
sure
just stumbling
children fell out of you
or we had fallen
for them
those few moments
of living in this
fell life
but they didn’t
fall but were
hard given to coming
out and forth
through brine
and blood into
light like morning
every time for
each of them for
this brace
of children
against the cold
sweeping of night
a day and a ½
you took or they
did to come
a child takes
a lot out of you
even when
it is from
you that is
comes
6
so given
so broke
so taken by
the thought of it
the pressure of zephyr
everything barometric
and in flux
the blood
between your legs
as it dries
to recall the birth
of each child
from that slit
the slip of them
finally
at the point
past shoulders
to slide
into my hands
body taken
by years to slow
voice given
by use to roux
everything sweet
by its recalcitrant
desuetude after
so much use
don’t want a body
to keep me a border
to show me
the boundary between
being and thinking
never’ve wanted
a body and can’t
find the use
for keeping it
yet it’s here
as yours is hers
how mine is
his
so matched
by their differences
as our children
a mismatched pair
and thus
perfected
body gives you
something or some
way to be
as an instrument
of thinking and
experiencing in
a world in flux
clouds swirl overhead
their violence so damn slow
they seem gentle in
their whiteness their bodies
in a state of disappearance
lost in their thoughts
enigmatic
and that is what
draws us to them
to our bodies
which form a shell
around us the definition
of the boundary between
a self and an other which
allow us the only way
to extend beyond our
selves into a body or
accept through our
boundaries another
body into ours
that another body
might come
as a person
into our presence
and surprise us
with the details
of its fingers and
its face
7
existence unmanageable
in the face of it
so the process is
distrust
of reality and the spurning
of its myriad falsehoods
and craven beings
look at it all through a window
and you might think it were
a mirror
your face turns
from the glass
and its transparencies
you accept its border
and that you must side
with it or take the other
side and still it is
and it is a looking through
our vantage is
ourselves
the world starts
ffffffffffffffffffffff
and from our eyes
the word ends
ssssssssssssssss
and with our feet
we don’t need air
to fly only
to breathe
what could be
the point
of that?
8
live in a bluestone
live quietly in a
bluestone house
with a bluestone
garage and the dogs
at the door to come in
live under a bluesky
live quietly under a
bluesky world
with bluesky
sight and your eyes
turning to sky
live by a blueway
live quietly by a
blueway highway
with its blueway
moving and the cars
running blue and
through and through
9
you don’t take
to swoonlight
life is serious
and deadly
(what we know
from watching
the dead grow
in number
my mother
smashed to death
your grandmother
gone when old
and gone already
my grandmother
gone after a century
and lived in three
my aunt gone too
young but two
decades older
than you
and almost no
breathing for
so long and
tenuous and
labored at that
your aunt gone
before we knew
it and as if she
had not been
here with us
and reading
words for she
cared for words
all these dear
and moldering
dead)
life is serious
and heartless
and my blackwalnut
heart too hard to crack
is made for such a
sharp and hollow place
to you my sorrows go
for I have made for you
despite my best and
insufficient attempts
not to despite the
blessings of breath and
blood and breasts
a heart so tight and
hard and cracked open
to let the blood go
through it and give
some pink to the skin
of my bones and won’t
it won’t grow into
what it must to be
and beat and beaten
I slip into the wait
for it to stop and
listen for the last
click the crack that
gives it away and
takes it all away and
belies itself the deep
red drops though few
that rest in the small
hollow in the heart of
the heart of this black
and hard as walnut heart
written with and for
what little heart I have
and broken breaking
not taking
swoonlight
for granted
10
you are the poet
maker of words
the care and
careful one not
overtaken by
the games of
sound sans the
meaning that’s
made but I
am a machine
of word and
writing so
taking your
whole day of
your first as
50 years and
writing to say
whatever might
need saying
or not
don’t expect
the words to
work or be
in any way
what would
be right to be
on this day
of yours that
is half-way
to somewhere
we might
never reach
the promise is
for words not
whatever you
might hope
words to mean
my words can
make no promises
after sounds
only sounds
or shapes
if you can
see them
11
the undecimal thought:
what comes
from coming
aching
pressed
chosen
pressure of being
pressure of flesh
pressure of being
in flesh and flesh
being in you who
are herself given
the noise at
becoming
the silence
afterwards
breathe for to take the world back in for once again
breathe for to gather the life of the breathe for word again
breathe for to show how the breast rising from the breast
and falls again
at the right tempo
and tirednesses
the breath rasps
and you exist
accordionly it is
a simple gestural
music and good
for the ear to hear
in its imperfections
12
each of us
singular
numinous
by our presences
multiplied
by the jointure
the making
out of us
or what we
can make out
distant from us
by the horizon
cluttered with
forests and hills
beings or beens
drawing toward
us as is
required
by the passage
of experience
through us
and thoroughly
13
most simple
so too difficult
to manifest
in a body
as complex
as yours
that skin
complected
of light
against the
shadow
that light
requires
by its fact
the most
simple fact
cannot ever
be explained
14
instant
and every instance
coming from it
the particular
instant at which
a certain word
turned
to face
another
that a sequence
became a set
I made a
mesh of
meaning
draw that veil
over your face
to hide nothing
to gently dissuade
and see
what comes up out of
these words
of the instant
that instant
of their making
this instant
of their taking
any instant
of their being known
which I give
over to you
as an instant
of words an
instance of
being
the play
that keeps
our race
and running
15
we have filled
with small and credible
objects
the rafters of this house
each memento meant
to provide for some passing joy
the pleasure of sight
of memory
these talismans we bring or make
too much of
everything
painting after
painting I’ve made
books upon books
and never the right one
to read
all these utensils
to make all these foods
we eat
the flavors of these liquors
everything strong
pungent or piquant
the more evidence we need
to prove to ourselves we
are here
our tongues
tasting only
when not
talking
a flavor even
to the air
16
it’s true I can’t live
without music
about me
it is the aural
form of light
the shapes it takes
remind me of the shapes
I take a shapeshifter
not wanting to be
one thing certainly
not what I am
(who)
a shape for
a determined state
or place
and the repetition of it
and the repetition of it
and the repetition of it
and the repetition of it
and the repetition of it
and the repetition of it
is what gives it
its heft in my life
since it is weightless
I count on its heaviness
17
time was
inestimable for us
so we traveled
across the continent
as if crossing
the road
kudzu and aspen
palmetto and pine
there is no difference
between North Dakota
reaching westward so flat
we lose perspective and can’t
tell if we are running level
or slightly downhill or
slightly up and
the westernmost edge of
Montana rising up into
Idaho and rich for peaks
there is no difference between
th’abundant green Tennessee
gathered in e’s and Arizona
given over to white sand
that still holds the heat
firmly in place
in us grows some need
to hold the world in our hands
to plunge our fingers
into its giving body sandy
or loamy wintry or summered
green and growing or
brown and burst
a mania
so deep
a trip
700 miles
in a day
seems
possible
if only
because
we did it
18
waiting
for water
breaking
or boiling
what slips
out or
eventually
in
19
genuflect
and you can put on a shoe
the knee bends
at kneeling
light collects
at the ends of your hair
a trio of buttons
at the back
at the back of this white blouse
and the scrim of fabric’s held
and holds you
as if cupped
in a hand by yourself
or the good bed
for sleeping
or lying there
undisturbed
excepting
the voluminous light
that pours from streetlights
as you wander
in and out of sleep
and struggle back
into it
fighting against
light sifting
through your eyelids
and into you
20
I cannot write this poem
cannot write
the poem
this poem
should be
cannot struggle
against
the light
the poem
throws
upon me
cannot bear
the light
cannot bear
the words
these crippled
words
Get up, I tell
them, get up—
It’s time
to start
21
o
I awoke
from too
little sleep
too much
much writing
too so
I am
tired but
tried and
trying to
make out
or make
up or
out of
these words
a paean
to being
when I
don’t even
believe it
in my
odd and
careful way
22
inconsequential
but not without sequence
movement sinuous
not rectilinear
this is only a note
to you
and it carries but
the weight of lightness
gentle on its knees
and bending
it is a benediction
made in a place
for you in celebration
of your life
of those leptodactylous fingers
how they touch people
at the tip of them
with the quiet words
how you guide the water
of so many small lives
to make them larger
against any hope for hope
if you were
a body of water
yours would be
Crater Lake
deep and deep and
deep blue cool and calm
and we slept
near its shores
one night
in darkness
so deep
itself
that we
could not see
the boulders
surrounding
our tent
and children
23
exerting a wrinkle
into the weave
of a life exerting
itself against
that same weave
and its unraveling
we make
what we break
24
as under
25
over wrought
26
my thoughts
arrive in scraps
and patterns
it is a patter
that takes
the words out of me
and gives them
over to you
just as the mail
arrives as it just did
nothing to read
there but we never know
when there
will be
27
the garden is ripening
but ragged from disuse
traveling for most
of the spring we didn’t
make anything of it
but weeds and won’t
till later into the year
past spring’s fat middle
garden’s ripening and
going overripe
green and muddy and
grass grown tall from
rain after rain
and enough sun
the world is alive
just only a little bit
too
much
we cannot tame
ourselves so how
could we tame
the growing world
around
us?
the maples
own the yard
we are merely
serfs to their
majestic
shade
28
transfigure
to transfigure
the world
we occupy
and create
I move to do it
can remember
when my life
was all thistles
or all ocean
or Lake Erie
as my backyard
and the mulberry
going purple
for summer
or searching the Andes
for guinea pigs
lost in the caves
of Barbados
or the hills where
I was born
penisolate
the scent of
fresh fish
storms of weaverbirds
or termites
the light of
the sun quenched
by burgeon
and burgeon
the overwrought
earth abundant
in so much of
everything we
don’t want
that much of
29
our lives
are complicated by
a sprig
of mint
a gentle
mid-green
bouquet
upon crushing
the way
the leaf plasters
to the tongue
a Host
and the white
flat body of Christ
how the tongue
perceives
the ridges of
the leaf its
veins some
how reminding
of the fat red
veins that run
through my
penis plump
with blood
and desire
the leaf the
shape of a
single eyelid
held closed
for it
held
closed for it
for to feel
for to feel
to give away
the body for
to concentrate
on the body
to eliminate
everything
extraneous
to accept
as fact
everything
indispensable
30
mine is
a stray body
not required
for the earth
not apt for
continuance
one that
disappears
after the thought
of it and accepted
as an object
desirous but
merely
a velleity
passing
inornate
inorganic
ignorant
to the measure
of the music
he comes here
as it to be
not the body
of a man
appeared
before you
but a carrier
of this mind
small as the
pocket between
two legs
and just
and just
as powerful
31
everyone hates
a poem especially
the poets
because they
know them best
and learn that
poems always
fail to be
the poems
they should be
poets care
only for words
about poems
for the secure
conviction that
they can hold
the concept of
the shape the
poem takes when
it is as it should be
they want discussion
that tells us what
the poem best is
because that assurance
those words of prose
hold more of what
the poem is than
the poem itself
which is little
more than a
contraption of
failed ideas painted
brightly and given
a shine but wobbling
at its center
about to fall
and hated
and hated
and hated
for failing
for always
failing so
I give you a poem
today on this
special day
marking your
first fifty
years because
you are inured
to my failure
and may be amused
by my attempts
to avoid
it at all
32
oasis
stasis
basis
*
coeur
care
core
*
have
he’ve
heave
*
nox
knocks
gnox
*
two
twa
twee
*
one
won
win
*
pour
pore
poor
*
first
thirst
thrift
33
abducted and inferred
these words
are articles of self
small fragments like
a flake of skin
drifting into snowstorm
you may not
notice them all
or the ice that forms
on them in the storm
and its aftermath
but they are here
exemplary in their
cavalier way
expressive the syrups
of my body not
emotions but the grimy
fluids I’m filled with
blood mucus urine
semen all these syrups
of the human body
these representations
of the self
in real life
34
the day has moved past morning
and I keep writing
this is a diary of a day
in which nothing happens
because all I do is write
my conversation is outward
to you but you do not exist
at least not here or now
I could discard all these words
and you would not ever know them
though they had still been said
toward you
who is not here
made myself a lunch
to stave off hunger
since playing music
hasn’t done it
cut up
red onion
red pepper (bell)
celery
tomatoes
fresh basil
and added
black beans
a little salt
pepper
when the beans
were warm and
the vegetables
were crunchy
I scooped spoons
into my bowl
added sriracha
sauce and ate them
I am well now
not rested
but fed and
energetic enough
to continue
with this write
35
shadow of
the frame
holding the
print against
the wall is
laminated
to the wall
laminated
to the air
before it the
wall itself
laminated
to the room
behind it
laminated
to windows
to the green
light of the
backyard to
maple the
fence around
it to alley to
street to the
park down
the road the
highway the
green sward
of the state to
Pennsylvania
New Jersey
Connecticut
Vermont the
Altlantic the
breadth of
North America
the Pacific the
sky at night
the sky’s blue
in daylight the
stars’ plenilune
for everything
is in layers of
sight and sound
and scent we
move through
these without
noticing how
we burst thru
each layer
as we go
36
the darkness
of bookbinding
velvet sheath
upon the words
the strangeness
of the words and
strangeness of
covering them
books arrayed
in darkness
holding the
darkness in
only when you
open a page
when you crack
a book open
can you see the
light it holds in
the light we
force into hiding
37
it is a paint-by-numbers window
the chatoyance of light through the closed window
light moves through glass better than breath does
sunlight off earrings arranged neatly
the bedsheets reflect the sunlight but don’t take it in
there are no flowers here but I think of flowers
swans in many colors slipping over water (they have no legs)
an egg in the palm of a hand with thin fingers
thinking of the reason for painting
the scent of paint that I can only imagine through falling light
the barricade between word and meaning
shoes are too heavy for my feet though the floor is not a cloud
eaten enough to fall asleep and it would be a short fall
the world comes to an end not on a Saturday but when we die
the day I die the world ends
the world ends for me
38
ent(erring in)
to sleep)fullness
of be(ingot w/
beauty leftless)
what make to
do)ing yet been
in care)fault
man(nourish
I meant to be
some)onesome
man or bare(
lyght of daye)
nomatterwhat
I dew)in the
morn)ing’st a
re:ason t’wake
& gives me
w(hat breat)hes
I need to find
my kname am(
ongry the bram)
bless wherein
rasp(berry cane
is abel to rise)
humped & dusky
with sword of
thorn & ma(king)
it(sweet redfruit)
but fullofseeds
39
afar all galas and altars alas appall all stanzas
these theses represent essences when seen
I insist rigid districts in illicit witticisms
O no books loop nor loom no words for works
Thus much blurts untruths thru us
40
this only note
to use in muse
and musical
version of what
capricious one
I might be or
have been finds
not you but a
place for you in
static reliquary
for the moment
of the word only
that moment
because once
said and given
the word rises
and drifts away
leaving evidence
in a memory
but nowhere
else the vision
these had of
you falling away
the walls come
down the valley
opens green and
steep at extremes
flat in the middle
the voice that
could speak inside
that green would
echo just a little
in a check and
die away every
breath steps thru
thinking to the
last thought a
body would have
which would be
something like
The sun I feel
now on my skin
I do not care
what time it is
but the sun
is warm and I
think yellow
upon my crepe-y
fingers moving
only slightly
because of it
41
~ is a sign of breathing
… and I am breathing through these words
[what I don’t hear is{these word}s]
cañon is a forgotten way of breathing through great poets
if you + I ever discovered what it was about then we could tell*
a cat is occupying^^this sentence^^or sitting next to me
¿what/could/you hope/to achieve/by cutting/your breathing/that way?
¡I am falling\over each\one of my\words!
can,you,see,the,problem,with,writing,and,how,it,is,not,speech?
(is it possible to care for anything more than for words?)
“she is ready to scribble something back but don’t quote me on that”
—Oui, oui, oui: all the way home…
Speaking | requires the effort | to stop
*the asterisk leads you nowhere†
42
articulated
it is an
articulated
words the
articulation
of words the
articulation
of fingers
these fingers
pointing at
words arti-
culated by
a mouth and
tongue or
these words
articulated
by fingers
rummaging
over a key-
board for
words to
make out
of letters or
words made
out of sounds
by tongue
words spewed
from mouths
that speak and
taste that kiss
articulations
of a thought
by fingers by
mouth by a
simple mind
in the simple
pleasure of
communion
43
it is all momentary
this life
and happens within
moments strings of
moments until
they stop
until it all stops
our moments have
been numerous and
singular and over
the time of years
years enough for
two infants to grow
into adulthood one
to marry for the house
to be empty but not
too empty for us
we still have the books
the books and this
material culture what
defines us walls of
words really or letters
walls of text but made
for the eye who loves
text whether it creates
sense or mere shape
for we feel in our bones
the urge of sense
the scent of signs
even when those signs
those symbols of our
language are corrupted
shattered crushed and
somehow
beautiful
44
other-
& -ly
I am
son’t
good
for be
ing w/
4 long
it’sn’t
real/ly
my flt
mr my
in10-
shun
to be
not as
others
wd hv
me but
as the
word
might
ask/
sept
or as
I mght
make
tht wd
or word
be 4 me
it’s the
form’ve
my(nd)
to find
how th
wrd cn
be wrkt
& wrckt
2 do wht
it shdn’t
to make
it do wht
it might
be to hv
it be in
flux & fl
owing ov
er the pg
& yr ears
45
muscscledd out of sleep today
to keep the writing moving
to move the word over the page
I am looking for a way to keep from sleeping
a way of waking before every sleep begins
I am clotted by sleep, made scarce and useless
bundled into dream to live something I might never remember
sleeping away this quarter of my life
don’t want to sleep away something so precious
precious and painful
something so vile and precious and painful and necessary
46
ascendant
and airy
these promiscuous efflorescences
all of a sudden
grown out soggy earth and rain out of grey
every leaf of every tree shuddering through the breeze
something moves so something must live
something moves you
something about the sun the heat
the question of summer and its eventual fact
even the human flowers
even the human flowers all around you seem appropriate for the weather
not raining for once a cool breeze everything suffused by sunlight
47
swung
from center
the one
sung
slung
away in an arc
stung
by the memory
you have
a word
in these
thoughts
a sound
in the
way each
is made
crept
and caught
stuck
and bungle
dirt
and a shirt
crunched
and knuckled into it
the voice
is the way
the tongue
grasps to
clump this
many sounds
together
in one bite
one swift and small
one swift and small bite
and delicious
because it is juicy and wild
48
peaty scotch in
the evening fighting
between smoky and
sweet gives a silence
to the night after
words and food
too many words and
abundant food
all taken into your
body all processed
and given back to
the world
take a moment
to sip this peaty
scotch in the evening
to let it soak into
your tongue and
sting let it raise
your taste buds
to the taste too strong
for you when younger
but now you want
these vibrant flavors
49
these thousands
of words for you
come out of the
air out of wandering
from the way
a person talks
from one point
to another the
connecting of the dots
of all these thoughts
running through
me and I am run
through with the
thoughts of 27 years
more than half
your precious life
and I’ve forgotten
everything I had
meant to say and said
instead whatever
passed through
my head to recognize
this day this only day
in all of time when
you and I will be 50
by tomorrow the
time will have past
I will be 51 and you
will still be 50 for
hundreds of days
more and that will
pull you away from
me again for another
year until that one
day next year when
you and I will be 51
together for a day
we are in the same
orbit but at different
points in the ellipse
we are moving at
the same rate so we
never catch up to
the other we are
locked together and
moving as if through
space as if on the
same arc of time and
I am always just a day
less than a year older
than you just as our
children’s birthdays
are always eight days
apart we are close
enough to think we
are in sync but we are
just a hair out of sync
and revolving through
all that time we have
hoping to come together
for a second as one and
continuing as one and
continuing though we
are always two and
will certainly end
the end is night
or it seems so to us
the darkness that
envelops us that
creates our dreams
that makes the world
we live in for our
sleeping with its own
rules a place where
I might be ten years
younger than you
or a raccoon the place
where you may have
no birthday because
the particulars of
your birth are of
little significance
as every other fact
about you because
it is a world beyond fact
50
with brine
and giving
birth
with brine
and giving
birth again
everything
is spilling
from you
our children
your blood
that marine
fluid that
floated our
children tears
that’re happy
those that’re
sad and the
tears in your
body as the
children are
born cold and
crying cold
naked and
crying so full
of wonder at
the reason
why they must
be born at
that moment
and be made
to be
in brine
then born
everything spilling from around you
2
taking it apart
this morning
the sun arose
this morning
at 5:25 on 5/24
and today both
you and I are
50 years of age
for only 1 day
come tomorrow
the sun’ll rise
at 5:24 on 5/25
we are trapped
as we are and
governed by the
simplest of all
numbers that
make meaning
where otherwise
there might be
none even at all
these numbers
count us & help
see the patterns
3
light comes in and covers us
it is heavier than darkness and harder
to shake
sticky too and too much of it
and the stickiness appears on our skin
a glistening
so we wake
from the weight of light like water
flowing over us and the warmth
of light and bodies and bedsheets holding us in
so that we don’t drift off so far
into dreams that we cannot return
from them to hear the clapping of eyelids awake
a slow mouthing of the words for seeing
the intensity of morning is the break
from the dreamt a pillow of ants
spiders shaken like dust from gauzy curtains
toppling asterisks of emphasis or direction
towards explanations that never appear
kept just over the horizon and the attempt to
escape to elude to
forget the point of the elision
what is left out is always what is most important
4
leptodactylous
you had a hand in it
and fingers swaying
in a life
as any one of these billions
that comes only once
if something were to be made of it
you would
and hold
in your hand and its thin fingers
the cold gingerroot
what holds its own
tumescent secrets
beneath its rough skin
the flavor of scent of it
a hand to hold and be held
and hold back against
(there must be a wave to it
an unrolling of water
a sign of marine birth
in a submarine life
fathoms and unfathoms)
everything mysterious because
so ominously obvious
my brachydactylic fingers
stub children of my hands
still can hold a pencil
and draw still tap a key
to type and so words and
images tumble out of me
they are a kind of water
of birth the form that waking
takes even if mumbled gnarled
the vapid grotesqueries
of the hand
I have in it
5
not sure
actually you know
I am never
sure
just stumbling
children fell out of you
or we had fallen
for them
those few moments
of living in this
fell life
but they didn’t
fall but were
hard given to coming
out and forth
through brine
and blood into
light like morning
every time for
each of them for
this brace
of children
against the cold
sweeping of night
a day and a ½
you took or they
did to come
a child takes
a lot out of you
even when
it is from
you that is
comes
6
so given
so broke
so taken by
the thought of it
the pressure of zephyr
everything barometric
and in flux
the blood
between your legs
as it dries
to recall the birth
of each child
from that slit
the slip of them
finally
at the point
past shoulders
to slide
into my hands
body taken
by years to slow
voice given
by use to roux
everything sweet
by its recalcitrant
desuetude after
so much use
don’t want a body
to keep me a border
to show me
the boundary between
being and thinking
never’ve wanted
a body and can’t
find the use
for keeping it
yet it’s here
as yours is hers
how mine is
his
so matched
by their differences
as our children
a mismatched pair
and thus
perfected
body gives you
something or some
way to be
as an instrument
of thinking and
experiencing in
a world in flux
clouds swirl overhead
their violence so damn slow
they seem gentle in
their whiteness their bodies
in a state of disappearance
lost in their thoughts
enigmatic
and that is what
draws us to them
to our bodies
which form a shell
around us the definition
of the boundary between
a self and an other which
allow us the only way
to extend beyond our
selves into a body or
accept through our
boundaries another
body into ours
that another body
might come
as a person
into our presence
and surprise us
with the details
of its fingers and
its face
7
existence unmanageable
in the face of it
so the process is
distrust
of reality and the spurning
of its myriad falsehoods
and craven beings
look at it all through a window
and you might think it were
a mirror
your face turns
from the glass
and its transparencies
you accept its border
and that you must side
with it or take the other
side and still it is
and it is a looking through
our vantage is
ourselves
the world starts
ffffffffffffffffffffff
and from our eyes
the word ends
ssssssssssssssss
and with our feet
we don’t need air
to fly only
to breathe
what could be
the point
of that?
8
live in a bluestone
live quietly in a
bluestone house
with a bluestone
garage and the dogs
at the door to come in
live under a bluesky
live quietly under a
bluesky world
with bluesky
sight and your eyes
turning to sky
live by a blueway
live quietly by a
blueway highway
with its blueway
moving and the cars
running blue and
through and through
9
you don’t take
to swoonlight
life is serious
and deadly
(what we know
from watching
the dead grow
in number
my mother
smashed to death
your grandmother
gone when old
and gone already
my grandmother
gone after a century
and lived in three
my aunt gone too
young but two
decades older
than you
and almost no
breathing for
so long and
tenuous and
labored at that
your aunt gone
before we knew
it and as if she
had not been
here with us
and reading
words for she
cared for words
all these dear
and moldering
dead)
life is serious
and heartless
and my blackwalnut
heart too hard to crack
is made for such a
sharp and hollow place
to you my sorrows go
for I have made for you
despite my best and
insufficient attempts
not to despite the
blessings of breath and
blood and breasts
a heart so tight and
hard and cracked open
to let the blood go
through it and give
some pink to the skin
of my bones and won’t
it won’t grow into
what it must to be
and beat and beaten
I slip into the wait
for it to stop and
listen for the last
click the crack that
gives it away and
takes it all away and
belies itself the deep
red drops though few
that rest in the small
hollow in the heart of
the heart of this black
and hard as walnut heart
written with and for
what little heart I have
and broken breaking
not taking
swoonlight
for granted
10
you are the poet
maker of words
the care and
careful one not
overtaken by
the games of
sound sans the
meaning that’s
made but I
am a machine
of word and
writing so
taking your
whole day of
your first as
50 years and
writing to say
whatever might
need saying
or not
don’t expect
the words to
work or be
in any way
what would
be right to be
on this day
of yours that
is half-way
to somewhere
we might
never reach
the promise is
for words not
whatever you
might hope
words to mean
my words can
make no promises
after sounds
only sounds
or shapes
if you can
see them
11
the undecimal thought:
what comes
from coming
aching
pressed
chosen
pressure of being
pressure of flesh
pressure of being
in flesh and flesh
being in you who
are herself given
the noise at
becoming
the silence
afterwards
breathe for to take the world back in for once again
breathe for to gather the life of the breathe for word again
breathe for to show how the breast rising from the breast
and falls again
at the right tempo
and tirednesses
the breath rasps
and you exist
accordionly it is
a simple gestural
music and good
for the ear to hear
in its imperfections
12
each of us
singular
numinous
by our presences
multiplied
by the jointure
the making
out of us
or what we
can make out
distant from us
by the horizon
cluttered with
forests and hills
beings or beens
drawing toward
us as is
required
by the passage
of experience
through us
and thoroughly
13
most simple
so too difficult
to manifest
in a body
as complex
as yours
that skin
complected
of light
against the
shadow
that light
requires
by its fact
the most
simple fact
cannot ever
be explained
14
instant
and every instance
coming from it
the particular
instant at which
a certain word
turned
to face
another
that a sequence
became a set
I made a
mesh of
meaning
draw that veil
over your face
to hide nothing
to gently dissuade
and see
what comes up out of
these words
of the instant
that instant
of their making
this instant
of their taking
any instant
of their being known
which I give
over to you
as an instant
of words an
instance of
being
the play
that keeps
our race
and running
15
we have filled
with small and credible
objects
the rafters of this house
each memento meant
to provide for some passing joy
the pleasure of sight
of memory
these talismans we bring or make
too much of
everything
painting after
painting I’ve made
books upon books
and never the right one
to read
all these utensils
to make all these foods
we eat
the flavors of these liquors
everything strong
pungent or piquant
the more evidence we need
to prove to ourselves we
are here
our tongues
tasting only
when not
talking
a flavor even
to the air
16
it’s true I can’t live
without music
about me
it is the aural
form of light
the shapes it takes
remind me of the shapes
I take a shapeshifter
not wanting to be
one thing certainly
not what I am
(who)
a shape for
a determined state
or place
and the repetition of it
and the repetition of it
and the repetition of it
and the repetition of it
and the repetition of it
and the repetition of it
is what gives it
its heft in my life
since it is weightless
I count on its heaviness
17
time was
inestimable for us
so we traveled
across the continent
as if crossing
the road
kudzu and aspen
palmetto and pine
there is no difference
between North Dakota
reaching westward so flat
we lose perspective and can’t
tell if we are running level
or slightly downhill or
slightly up and
the westernmost edge of
Montana rising up into
Idaho and rich for peaks
there is no difference between
th’abundant green Tennessee
gathered in e’s and Arizona
given over to white sand
that still holds the heat
firmly in place
in us grows some need
to hold the world in our hands
to plunge our fingers
into its giving body sandy
or loamy wintry or summered
green and growing or
brown and burst
a mania
so deep
a trip
700 miles
in a day
seems
possible
if only
because
we did it
18
waiting
for water
breaking
or boiling
what slips
out or
eventually
in
19
genuflect
and you can put on a shoe
the knee bends
at kneeling
light collects
at the ends of your hair
a trio of buttons
at the back
at the back of this white blouse
and the scrim of fabric’s held
and holds you
as if cupped
in a hand by yourself
or the good bed
for sleeping
or lying there
undisturbed
excepting
the voluminous light
that pours from streetlights
as you wander
in and out of sleep
and struggle back
into it
fighting against
light sifting
through your eyelids
and into you
20
I cannot write this poem
cannot write
the poem
this poem
should be
cannot struggle
against
the light
the poem
throws
upon me
cannot bear
the light
cannot bear
the words
these crippled
words
Get up, I tell
them, get up—
It’s time
to start
21
o
I awoke
from too
little sleep
too much
much writing
too so
I am
tired but
tried and
trying to
make out
or make
up or
out of
these words
a paean
to being
when I
don’t even
believe it
in my
odd and
careful way
22
inconsequential
but not without sequence
movement sinuous
not rectilinear
this is only a note
to you
and it carries but
the weight of lightness
gentle on its knees
and bending
it is a benediction
made in a place
for you in celebration
of your life
of those leptodactylous fingers
how they touch people
at the tip of them
with the quiet words
how you guide the water
of so many small lives
to make them larger
against any hope for hope
if you were
a body of water
yours would be
Crater Lake
deep and deep and
deep blue cool and calm
and we slept
near its shores
one night
in darkness
so deep
itself
that we
could not see
the boulders
surrounding
our tent
and children
23
exerting a wrinkle
into the weave
of a life exerting
itself against
that same weave
and its unraveling
we make
what we break
24
as under
25
over wrought
26
my thoughts
arrive in scraps
and patterns
it is a patter
that takes
the words out of me
and gives them
over to you
just as the mail
arrives as it just did
nothing to read
there but we never know
when there
will be
27
the garden is ripening
but ragged from disuse
traveling for most
of the spring we didn’t
make anything of it
but weeds and won’t
till later into the year
past spring’s fat middle
garden’s ripening and
going overripe
green and muddy and
grass grown tall from
rain after rain
and enough sun
the world is alive
just only a little bit
too
much
we cannot tame
ourselves so how
could we tame
the growing world
around
us?
the maples
own the yard
we are merely
serfs to their
majestic
shade
28
transfigure
to transfigure
the world
we occupy
and create
I move to do it
can remember
when my life
was all thistles
or all ocean
or Lake Erie
as my backyard
and the mulberry
going purple
for summer
or searching the Andes
for guinea pigs
lost in the caves
of Barbados
or the hills where
I was born
penisolate
the scent of
fresh fish
storms of weaverbirds
or termites
the light of
the sun quenched
by burgeon
and burgeon
the overwrought
earth abundant
in so much of
everything we
don’t want
that much of
29
our lives
are complicated by
a sprig
of mint
a gentle
mid-green
bouquet
upon crushing
the way
the leaf plasters
to the tongue
a Host
and the white
flat body of Christ
how the tongue
perceives
the ridges of
the leaf its
veins some
how reminding
of the fat red
veins that run
through my
penis plump
with blood
and desire
the leaf the
shape of a
single eyelid
held closed
for it
held
closed for it
for to feel
for to feel
to give away
the body for
to concentrate
on the body
to eliminate
everything
extraneous
to accept
as fact
everything
indispensable
30
mine is
a stray body
not required
for the earth
not apt for
continuance
one that
disappears
after the thought
of it and accepted
as an object
desirous but
merely
a velleity
passing
inornate
inorganic
ignorant
to the measure
of the music
he comes here
as it to be
not the body
of a man
appeared
before you
but a carrier
of this mind
small as the
pocket between
two legs
and just
and just
as powerful
31
everyone hates
a poem especially
the poets
because they
know them best
and learn that
poems always
fail to be
the poems
they should be
poets care
only for words
about poems
for the secure
conviction that
they can hold
the concept of
the shape the
poem takes when
it is as it should be
they want discussion
that tells us what
the poem best is
because that assurance
those words of prose
hold more of what
the poem is than
the poem itself
which is little
more than a
contraption of
failed ideas painted
brightly and given
a shine but wobbling
at its center
about to fall
and hated
and hated
and hated
for failing
for always
failing so
I give you a poem
today on this
special day
marking your
first fifty
years because
you are inured
to my failure
and may be amused
by my attempts
to avoid
it at all
32
oasis
stasis
basis
*
coeur
care
core
*
have
he’ve
heave
*
nox
knocks
gnox
*
two
twa
twee
*
one
won
win
*
pour
pore
poor
*
first
thirst
thrift
33
abducted and inferred
these words
are articles of self
small fragments like
a flake of skin
drifting into snowstorm
you may not
notice them all
or the ice that forms
on them in the storm
and its aftermath
but they are here
exemplary in their
cavalier way
expressive the syrups
of my body not
emotions but the grimy
fluids I’m filled with
blood mucus urine
semen all these syrups
of the human body
these representations
of the self
in real life
34
the day has moved past morning
and I keep writing
this is a diary of a day
in which nothing happens
because all I do is write
my conversation is outward
to you but you do not exist
at least not here or now
I could discard all these words
and you would not ever know them
though they had still been said
toward you
who is not here
made myself a lunch
to stave off hunger
since playing music
hasn’t done it
cut up
red onion
red pepper (bell)
celery
tomatoes
fresh basil
and added
black beans
a little salt
pepper
when the beans
were warm and
the vegetables
were crunchy
I scooped spoons
into my bowl
added sriracha
sauce and ate them
I am well now
not rested
but fed and
energetic enough
to continue
with this write
35
shadow of
the frame
holding the
print against
the wall is
laminated
to the wall
laminated
to the air
before it the
wall itself
laminated
to the room
behind it
laminated
to windows
to the green
light of the
backyard to
maple the
fence around
it to alley to
street to the
park down
the road the
highway the
green sward
of the state to
Pennsylvania
New Jersey
Connecticut
Vermont the
Altlantic the
breadth of
North America
the Pacific the
sky at night
the sky’s blue
in daylight the
stars’ plenilune
for everything
is in layers of
sight and sound
and scent we
move through
these without
noticing how
we burst thru
each layer
as we go
36
the darkness
of bookbinding
velvet sheath
upon the words
the strangeness
of the words and
strangeness of
covering them
books arrayed
in darkness
holding the
darkness in
only when you
open a page
when you crack
a book open
can you see the
light it holds in
the light we
force into hiding
37
it is a paint-by-numbers window
the chatoyance of light through the closed window
light moves through glass better than breath does
sunlight off earrings arranged neatly
the bedsheets reflect the sunlight but don’t take it in
there are no flowers here but I think of flowers
swans in many colors slipping over water (they have no legs)
an egg in the palm of a hand with thin fingers
thinking of the reason for painting
the scent of paint that I can only imagine through falling light
the barricade between word and meaning
shoes are too heavy for my feet though the floor is not a cloud
eaten enough to fall asleep and it would be a short fall
the world comes to an end not on a Saturday but when we die
the day I die the world ends
the world ends for me
38
ent(erring in)
to sleep)fullness
of be(ingot w/
beauty leftless)
what make to
do)ing yet been
in care)fault
man(nourish
I meant to be
some)onesome
man or bare(
lyght of daye)
nomatterwhat
I dew)in the
morn)ing’st a
re:ason t’wake
& gives me
w(hat breat)hes
I need to find
my kname am(
ongry the bram)
bless wherein
rasp(berry cane
is abel to rise)
humped & dusky
with sword of
thorn & ma(king)
it(sweet redfruit)
but fullofseeds
39
afar all galas and altars alas appall all stanzas
these theses represent essences when seen
I insist rigid districts in illicit witticisms
O no books loop nor loom no words for works
Thus much blurts untruths thru us
40
this only note
to use in muse
and musical
version of what
capricious one
I might be or
have been finds
not you but a
place for you in
static reliquary
for the moment
of the word only
that moment
because once
said and given
the word rises
and drifts away
leaving evidence
in a memory
but nowhere
else the vision
these had of
you falling away
the walls come
down the valley
opens green and
steep at extremes
flat in the middle
the voice that
could speak inside
that green would
echo just a little
in a check and
die away every
breath steps thru
thinking to the
last thought a
body would have
which would be
something like
The sun I feel
now on my skin
I do not care
what time it is
but the sun
is warm and I
think yellow
upon my crepe-y
fingers moving
only slightly
because of it
41
~ is a sign of breathing
… and I am breathing through these words
[what I don’t hear is{these word}s]
cañon is a forgotten way of breathing through great poets
if you + I ever discovered what it was about then we could tell*
a cat is occupying^^this sentence^^or sitting next to me
¿what/could/you hope/to achieve/by cutting/your breathing/that way?
¡I am falling\over each\one of my\words!
can,you,see,the,problem,with,writing,and,how,it,is,not,speech?
(is it possible to care for anything more than for words?)
“she is ready to scribble something back but don’t quote me on that”
—Oui, oui, oui: all the way home…
Speaking | requires the effort | to stop
*the asterisk leads you nowhere†
42
articulated
it is an
articulated
words the
articulation
of words the
articulation
of fingers
these fingers
pointing at
words arti-
culated by
a mouth and
tongue or
these words
articulated
by fingers
rummaging
over a key-
board for
words to
make out
of letters or
words made
out of sounds
by tongue
words spewed
from mouths
that speak and
taste that kiss
articulations
of a thought
by fingers by
mouth by a
simple mind
in the simple
pleasure of
communion
43
it is all momentary
this life
and happens within
moments strings of
moments until
they stop
until it all stops
our moments have
been numerous and
singular and over
the time of years
years enough for
two infants to grow
into adulthood one
to marry for the house
to be empty but not
too empty for us
we still have the books
the books and this
material culture what
defines us walls of
words really or letters
walls of text but made
for the eye who loves
text whether it creates
sense or mere shape
for we feel in our bones
the urge of sense
the scent of signs
even when those signs
those symbols of our
language are corrupted
shattered crushed and
somehow
beautiful
44
other-
& -ly
I am
son’t
good
for be
ing w/
4 long
it’sn’t
real/ly
my flt
mr my
in10-
shun
to be
not as
others
wd hv
me but
as the
word
might
ask/
sept
or as
I mght
make
tht wd
or word
be 4 me
it’s the
form’ve
my(nd)
to find
how th
wrd cn
be wrkt
& wrckt
2 do wht
it shdn’t
to make
it do wht
it might
be to hv
it be in
flux & fl
owing ov
er the pg
& yr ears
45
muscscledd out of sleep today
to keep the writing moving
to move the word over the page
I am looking for a way to keep from sleeping
a way of waking before every sleep begins
I am clotted by sleep, made scarce and useless
bundled into dream to live something I might never remember
sleeping away this quarter of my life
don’t want to sleep away something so precious
precious and painful
something so vile and precious and painful and necessary
46
ascendant
and airy
these promiscuous efflorescences
all of a sudden
grown out soggy earth and rain out of grey
every leaf of every tree shuddering through the breeze
something moves so something must live
something moves you
something about the sun the heat
the question of summer and its eventual fact
even the human flowers
even the human flowers all around you seem appropriate for the weather
not raining for once a cool breeze everything suffused by sunlight
47
swung
from center
the one
sung
slung
away in an arc
stung
by the memory
you have
a word
in these
thoughts
a sound
in the
way each
is made
crept
and caught
stuck
and bungle
dirt
and a shirt
crunched
and knuckled into it
the voice
is the way
the tongue
grasps to
clump this
many sounds
together
in one bite
one swift and small
one swift and small bite
and delicious
because it is juicy and wild
48
peaty scotch in
the evening fighting
between smoky and
sweet gives a silence
to the night after
words and food
too many words and
abundant food
all taken into your
body all processed
and given back to
the world
take a moment
to sip this peaty
scotch in the evening
to let it soak into
your tongue and
sting let it raise
your taste buds
to the taste too strong
for you when younger
but now you want
these vibrant flavors
49
these thousands
of words for you
come out of the
air out of wandering
from the way
a person talks
from one point
to another the
connecting of the dots
of all these thoughts
running through
me and I am run
through with the
thoughts of 27 years
more than half
your precious life
and I’ve forgotten
everything I had
meant to say and said
instead whatever
passed through
my head to recognize
this day this only day
in all of time when
you and I will be 50
by tomorrow the
time will have past
I will be 51 and you
will still be 50 for
hundreds of days
more and that will
pull you away from
me again for another
year until that one
day next year when
you and I will be 51
together for a day
we are in the same
orbit but at different
points in the ellipse
we are moving at
the same rate so we
never catch up to
the other we are
locked together and
moving as if through
space as if on the
same arc of time and
I am always just a day
less than a year older
than you just as our
children’s birthdays
are always eight days
apart we are close
enough to think we
are in sync but we are
just a hair out of sync
and revolving through
all that time we have
hoping to come together
for a second as one and
continuing as one and
continuing though we
are always two and
will certainly end
the end is night
or it seems so to us
the darkness that
envelops us that
creates our dreams
that makes the world
we live in for our
sleeping with its own
rules a place where
I might be ten years
younger than you
or a raccoon the place
where you may have
no birthday because
the particulars of
your birth are of
little significance
as every other fact
about you because
it is a world beyond fact
50
with brine
and giving
birth
with brine
and giving
birth again
everything
is spilling
from you
our children
your blood
that marine
fluid that
floated our
children tears
that’re happy
those that’re
sad and the
tears in your
body as the
children are
born cold and
crying cold
naked and
crying so full
of wonder at
the reason
why they must
be born at
that moment
and be made
to be
Congratulations. A year of congratulations.
ReplyDelete