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one day, birds

arriving to address the assembly

i can’t believe this, you say again,
& keep on. as though to sing
that song of yours in strange words
we do not know. despite myself
you say––

[or in spite of?]

[to spite. the blast]

against scattering & by way of explanation
of why you ––anything. we are skeptics
of this logic & think you are creatures
who do not know what you are
perhaps because you insist on asking
what is this & why

[scatter. return]

we think maybe this is your only song
we think you want help with the singing.
we have seen you watching so we came
for we are the ones who come & go.

Ongoingness

A refrain

I am thinking about the way things go today, still meaning to learn what people mean when they say that’s how it goes–––

as it goes–––

about what is leaving and how it happens a little at a time and then all at once, la rêve du monde slipping into a well of missing words and I would prefer to be less aware of being little more than bereft wading through the river of it rushing out, looping a single refrain, please.

Deer Friends

In this condition

Being a human creature makes me prone to bouts of fantasy. Such as, sometimes I get it in my head that I would like to go out and run with some deer, with feelings of vague and wistful longing. Then occurs to me that following an impulse like this to its natural conclusion will likely result in an awkward encounter, as I do not currently have any actual friends who are deer. If I did, I would probably know that going for a run through some woods or across a field or even a highway–– however spontaneous it may seem in a moment–– is the sort of thing one must be invited to do. Then I recall what kind of creature I really am, and feel vaguely ashamed, which seems like another habit particular to my kind.

Every Grain

Our sands

With bone worn backs we huddle
in the shadow of empire, nursing
unborn stars, to beg the question:
how many dawns remain? Against
vain attempts to tame the hungers
of that constant, mechanical mouth,
its gaping hole the void in the centers
where we once met beneath another
sun, in another time, before time was
eaten too, to be excreted in legions
of micro units, meted out in
increments
of perceived
worth.

Why this?

Answers to FAQs.

Why this?
For these moments
I brace with an answer.
So dumb when it comes
to the ways of this place
that I carry a cheat sheet.
It says: taste, tear,
bear the weight because
you know yourself a floating
thing, prone to flying off,
unable to land. The terror
of losing touch with
gravity. Because that dark
beyond those clouds
is thick with the pull
of entropy, into some
chaos and I don’t know
what, away from here
the place of sweat
and laundry and alarms
and a lot of driving to
and from places in cars
with their warning lights
and trying to park
and getting overdraft
notices and the most recent
thing to break today is a blood
vessel in the eye and that little
hinge that’s supposed to keep
the door from opening too wide
and obviously this heart and
at least one of these is going
to stay broke and too far open
all the time.

When Company Comes

To leave themselves

The shore in late afternoon in winter sang the shells of a season of arriving tides, drumming the fragments of entire homes these creatures left behind. We walked through them in February when it was cold and you stopped on your knees before them, collecting. The awe on your face with each find. A week later the machines arrived to dredge sand over it all, to smooth the surface for the summer season––to make it, as one spokesperson said, nice for our visitors.

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