ON SONG

The first thing you must know is that you are already singing.

ξ


The horizon of the ear
eclipses the wall

today a sawing shot
through with green buds

tapping hoods
I haven’t spoken

for hours. The horizon of
the eye is a half-sphere

where our there suffers
no obstruction

Here, here
is all that

there is, this wind
embracing, instructing

the lack
of anything we might call

separate

ξ


There are clusters of cells in my brain that fire each time I encounter certain loved ones, tastes, color arrangements, repeated advertisements, and of course, songs. The brain attaches a degree of emotional significance to these encounters, as if one cluster was raised in topographic relation to the others, a sort of bar graph of consequence. I hear your voice and I raise. The front gate clangs in my head, releasing a map of affect. In Cotard’s syndrome, these clusters are razed to the point that the person believes he or she is dead. In the experience of many epileptics, the opposite is the case: everything has the utmost significance, every word a clue from God.

ξ


If the world is a seizure
the aura is tone

and I suppose it is
given

to us to
flux again

through the advent
of song, going

tremulous
in acknowledgement

of the already
harmonious

or discordant surge
we curve

just singing

EVEN FURTHER HYPNOPOMPIC REVELATIONS

Which isn’t to say

That one doesn’t

Wake all day

Just as an honest man

Is always in trouble

The headlines dull

The head while

Eviscerating

The heart, the hand

Draped idiotically

Like a flag over the eyes

Sense redirected

To more immediate peril

Toes turning blue

As the radiator limps

Into its wintry duty

Its indolent waves

Pushing the calendar

Like a wing from the wall

The starlings are fled

The cat is fed

The Carter Family

Pleads Meet me

In the moonlight

Alone, punctured, interloping

Atoms to sustain

Our perceptual escapade

With no hope

Of escape, of winter

I have had enough

When suddenly you arrive

From the overslept bed

Coursing

Within your envelope

Of heat, of course

I love you

As the church bells

Announce the hour

9 o’clock

In their flurry

Of dongs

FURTHER HYPNOPOMPIC REVELATIONS

Having made it this far

Harshly coloring

The air with scrapes

Of sound

Or trembling

In the electrons

Like color

The milk has run out

And the coffee

Chimes acidly

Ferrying us

From this catch

Of moment

To the next

For fear

That we are

Mutely doing it

On our own

A thought intolerable

A morning hot

With lemon water

Empty brown

Bottles crowding

The kitchen, the cat

Secretly frenzied

As the invisible strings

Of breeze animate

The spare

Limbs’ leaves

Across the retarred street

Only a human could need

Something so

Redundant

As an answer

Looking skyward

To the stars that exploded

To compose us

Inconsolable settlers

Of a land we

Know less and less

Now and again

The starlings crowd

Like seeds atop

The gutted bough

As the radiators

Begin their spitting song

Splitting the air

For warmth, for love

This sound of you

Breathing in

The dusty bedroom

As outside a stray

Cat laps bugs

From the speckled grill

Of a minivan

The various forms

Sustenance takes

Breaking the mind

Into wonder

And resolve