It comes in threes
and here’s the third,
bad news couched
in benign words,
no, pareidolia–
man in the moon, Jesus
in a breadloaf,
such a hunger
for finding something,
anything, even terror.
You asked what you should say.
Nearby is the country
they call life
you will know it
by its seriousness.
Rilke. I don’t know,
nor do I want to, really.
Give me your hand.
The day’s calvacade,
a clatter of hours–
this life could use
more sotto, more legato.
A thing is more striking
given the proper setting:
Consider a spotlight
in its wealth of darkness.
The weight of a caesura.
Excursive silence.
The night before
a departure,
waiting
for that balm of
Not Here.
It’s supposed to
come in threes,
but between worse,
and worst–
I mean, I can’t
even tell
if this food
has gone bad–
implications are tiring.
I’m going
to the ocean,
to take in the water’s
endless rehearsal
and the steady,
steady shore,
to live
in the littoral–
there’s not one thing
that isn’t somehow in motion,
just I wish they
sometimes weren’t
And like that, overnight,
the end of full summer—
a tainted glass, rain,
that striking first chill.
Oh there is something
so sad and lovely
about these first days
of autumn:
A distance
carries more,
an absence
weighs, a heart
grows blonder, gold
as desire, as early
larches turning
to fire, as bold gestures
dreamed of in quiet
hours, the night
gone still. The night
that follows the day,
the beauty and terror
of the inevitable, prized
apples and aftermaths.
I know why love
is depicted as fruit,
it begets itself, grown
ripe around the seeds
or stone, anything
for a taste
of what remains, forever.
Still here, still,
here.
How many times
did she say it?
The practice
is yoking
together.
Sprawled along
the floor
like I know
what I’m doing,
Ujjayi, ocean breath,
now come and meet
this foreign body,
a little space, a little
more, a common interest
we seem to share,
now tell me more–
An expanse of hours
an evening stretching open
like a mouth
cool breath
no,
cold
.
Watching the gulls
amid the old hotels
and new, so obviously
not homes
.
Anywhere
just anywhere else
but here
The body fails
in predictable ways
but sometimes I am
still surprised
when someone is
and then
is not
The late-July breeze, distinctive
in ease, a quiet morning slipping by,
I wake and say I’m here! I’m here! somehow
still a fear of loss, despite the day unfolding
like a lawn chair, predictable, light-weight
.
To have, to hold– a leaf-dappled scene
a girder on the building, perforated
at regular intervals and the word
EMPTY over and over, is it a warning?
or a confirmation
.
There is so much space inside
these days, so little tethering
them in place, you think
an uncontrolled fall from there,
you think the myriad faces, the counterparts,
negating, rescinding
.
A wisp of clouds here, but thunder
in the pass, maybe a loss
of temporality– a sweet sparrow
call, it’s so peaceful here,
so where am I exactly?
The late-July breeze, distinctive
in ease, a quiet morning slipping by,
I wake and say I’m here! I’m here! somehow
still a fear of loss, despite the day unfolding
like a lawn chair, predictable, light-weight
.
another day
box-like in progression,
predictability,
oh inflexibility
of time–
I’d rather
an ocean I’d rather
that ocean sound
that imperfect rhythm
constant yet
somehow revelatory
I know the pilgrim
changes it’s not
the pilgrimage
per se
but things are always
more tolerable
somewhere else
