from one into another
at a crossing it is possible
to notice
how one emerging
from the echoic shadows
beyond the edges of this rush
is a creature
who understands
time through a listening
body & one
pauses now
sinew of back, legs, neck
all stretched to hear––
that graceful leap before
that pause, the pointed look
––one eye
& i witness
through shatterproof glass
blink
& then she moves
again the leaping
wave of herself
across road & into
an opposite dark.
in the shade near the back of a crowded room
Why does the performance poet so often sound like the caricature of a self-proclaimed poet? I suppose this is something that happens in the act of proclaiming so much and at such volume in that outfit. This one calls himself by a word that is three adjectives stitched together, each of which might have been lifted from the stickers of a 1980s grade school Trapper Keeper ™. It isn’t @zippydippycool, but you get the idea. I do not like noticing these things with such profound embarrassment. Doing so only reminds me that whatever it is that one is supposed to be very excited about, I am not. And that my heart, which may sometimes retract in shock to a mean and stingy artifact of itsownself, is usually on the verge of brimming way beyond expected confines, so I spend most remembered moments of this one life trying to pass as one whose heart and everything else is not so often leaking. Meeting mostly failure, with many humorous exceptions that never fail to surprise me, as when someone remarks (as someone often does) on my apparent calm. Which may explain the aversion here, as perhaps only the complement to a fondness for the dull-seeming ones with no names who do not wear any outfits but go on in a deliberate way, careful not to show themselves too much and scare everybody off, unseen and unproclaiming, especially when it comes to knowledge of what it is that is going on––here, and here, and also––do you hear that thing in the background, which is nowhere? I feel it coming closer all the time.
in a gathering marginal crowd
Rhythms of earth tongues,
come out. I give these
primitive liberties forms
to evade surveillance
of that principle
bent on separation
of bodies from themselves
and one another
that enacts bars
of murderous purity
masquerading
as sensible grammars.
Nocturnal creatures know
me, sit in my lap, lap from
my hands & laugh at extents
of your fears. We only eat prey,
love, announce the joyful birds.
Separate us all you like. Each
solitude only offers another
rebirth. With each, we widen
the net of our bodies. We become
looming canopies connecting
at altitudes & depths, above
& beneath the walls you drive
yourself mad with the effort
of erecting in your endless quest
to extract Resource from source
while mass-printing gods to coddle
your greed, and their dragons laugh
Will you look at this face? No
you can’t bear it, finding
in its gaze the endless points
of no return, each now a star
in the night you claimed
to conquer & our skins fallen
from us, we move from
their weight & your ability to trace
yes what are you tracing & do you
know when the last wall is built its last
stone in place and the weight of its
prowess inverts and you find yourself
entombed in some solitary well, to call
us, who will hear you but the lowest,
who come and go
among these depths
and their
dead?
Next sunset
Remember after this song to seed the next shadowland of loss, following the fever of fences we built to keep us in, and terrors out, when in the shade of their heights they only heightened fears, when in the privacy of night, we meant to leap between those stars, counting.
In low light.
I walk between these low lamps as you sleep, the poorwill’s circled notes outside, inviting recollection of endings that preceded this one, and the sound of this space is a single note, sustained in the once noble ruins of this ribbed house of song and sacrament. The stained glass windows that once made a miracle of your face are now clotted with the dust of a decade of storms, and it may be true that there is never time to clean them, but also that I fear the glass has worn to the point that only the dust holds it here, or perhaps that whoever this is, still waiting for the mass, will shatter if those beams should suddenly descend. Again.
How much in shadow.
To resist the floodlight’s patrolling glare, its demands and agendas, its attendant megaphone, in favor of a posture of listening, a touch whispered enough to elicit shivers of recognition. This earned denial of easy access. The elegant strength, to hold a posture possessed of substance so rich that it will be perennially misunderstood in this landscape, resisting the impulse to break the pose of perfect opacity––to correct, as the saying goes, by shedding some light.
How else could you photograph sound?
Here is the wise light of the dark surface, opening,
in praise of the unknown, unnamed
here is a deft grammar of mystery.
How much to be,
how much to be imagined
in these shadows.
Look, do not look,
but see.
***
Inspired by the work of Roy DeCarava.
Harvest of trespassers.
Behind thought,
this vicious joy.
Something
abominable.
A rare bird
labeled Thou
shalt not.
Touch.
