from THALES
What’s everything?
Place contains it
falsely. Grey waves
on the colony
at Miletus
suggest embrace.
He turns
until pyramids
match their shadows,
draws them in
circles. Wants laws
like rising mist.
Against this, a river
to drink. He
and Solon
in the vast
dust.
*
Cleaning raw egg off a wood floor
won’t convince you that all is water. Thought’s
speed. Charging through everything,
incomparable. Slow down!
Too late. 720
moons in the sun
“which beams in Charles’ wain.”
*
A Rod of Amber: Why do you not spawn?
The Olive Speculator: Because I love children.
The Birth of Philosophy
*
elong / casual / ensouled / I / river / Ursa / or / Asia
minor / focus / the / samian / all / that / is / solid
a wave
from EXPOSURES
Indwelling jargon parades
against clockwork, renews
a softer emergence . . . . etched
vs. mist
Music
makes the world
louder by contrast
Cars distinguish
one another
Unmetaphorical
germination
takes precedence
*
sedate at this, but I want to fucking drive
a wedge
*
Form went inside,
so lost itself.
Neighbors of belief
begin to time
Out of ear
shot: leaks, rills
of news. Ends
of lines incur
from EXPOSURES
To rescue
one another
including us
we have to tear away the metaphor
of depth
Time is as familiar
and uninhabitable as the bored ice
Riddled petals
Crawling housewife
at least noted
Shapes argue with the whole picture--every detail
sweats charm and grace, and it stinks--to you.
Park the form in what happens and the attentions.
"I have a dying person on the other end." That they
would cast each other's shadows and not parrot.
"I stitched his Senate shut."
Explosion of birds
from the roof when the car
door slams out of habit
Snout around for signs
of disbelief
blacked against desire.
Fuck spirit
--once.
Eight minutes 'til we fail to weep.
Screen holds twelve sec.
Just ego scriptor in the third thought place.
DECADIC NEWS (return policy)
TEN YEARS LATER
Serial snow covers the absence of the last
as you return to a self you are
for the first time. In layers you flash
in the pan. Clay strains, unfortunate fractures
slow as the salt forming out then and there.
ALL POINTS BULLETINS
lined up around the block
not long since, too long
after sunset’s undertow
brought a story of some ardor
into perspective for “us”
and “your” children, waiting
to populate the song
when I have ceased to sing
PRISONER’S TONGUE (a camera caught it)
at one point the lead
said CUT IT OUT—not
with regard to the
*
emphasis on the damned.
Today’s purple blossom
—except this range
“EXPECT THIS PAIN”
Value is exchanged for Event
why then should my self
not follow the materials
into the well of echoes
all floats. all floats
ANOTOMY
increasing rendition
arches of a toccata over
lapping the tin ear
fingers hardened to limbs
that once scored the shore
scoured clean of clinging noise
the drone of calculation
knuckled down
limb-tips
might have
traced
nocturnes of passing true
felt
around in the silence
softening this wreck
TENURES LATER
In order of appearance the guests ghosts
took on a radiance
reimagined
veiny, swift
and time-consuming
things have accidents
often each other
“so go write some goddamn poems about next”
