ONE MONTH

24


Is there a will
to beauty? Does the
ear demand compassion?
Does beauty in horses
arise from a sexual
attraction to power?
What form of living
detracts least from
the others? Do diagonals
replicate an ecology
of resistance? Another
life might be too
many, right? Can
thought avail itself
of the eye’s weaknesses?
Do images necessitate
a force toward the eventual
obliteration of difference?
If religion and logic
are mutually exclusive
shouldn’t we rid ourselves
of them both? Are we
doomed to love
what entertains us?
Are fingerprints our
initial admissions
of guilt? What surface
doesn’t implicate only
another inexhaustible
depth? If we move fast
enough in arbitrary
directions will we cease
to appear? Is gravity
that mute vector that
explains all else?
How ugly can an
organ of pleasure
be? Do you still
fear words? This ninety
degree angle at the corner
of the page doesn’t lead
to the murder inherent
in hierarchical structures
does it? What is the
“earth” made of? How
often have you wished
to slough the body’s
nerve sleeve? Can
space exist without
the coterminous
abstraction of time?
Doesn’t the word
“man” begin to strike
you as being just
a little humiliating?
Does the occurrence
of clouds allow
metaphor’s genesis in
the “primitive” mind?
Does every prize fail
by dint of redundancy?
Is help finally on
the way or have we
ceased to need it?


25


Is subjectivity subject
to ridicule? Do molecules
know better the benefits
of community? Are
questions merely the effect
of being a thing among
things? Where is light
more cinematic than on
the fading vertical face
of the house across
the street at five o’clock?
Is the location of Earth’s
orbit partly responsible
for nostalgia? How is it
that certain animals seem
always to desire what
haphazard affection we
can muster upon arriving
home? When is this
poem best suited
to history? Why do
the trees stand for all
our conjecture? Carry
this fulsome parcel
of energy past its humble
origins, will you? Can’t
dusk trouble us a little
more in this dingy epoch
of bulbs? Did you ever
find your answer in
a song for devout
“primitives” whose
language you had no
way of deciphering?
What is less important
than thought? How has
each name become razed
from the topography
of the epileptic’s brain?
Is it dark yet? Have your
eyes adjusted? Does
the pestle grind away
at your resolve? Do you
grow hearts like a shark
loses teeth or need three
like an octopus? I
wonder what the news
will hate tonight? Was
the corpse of the Chinese
prisoner pliant in the hands
of the sculptor? Why
can I not leave my body
to the animals of the field?
Will night’s chill erase
the tediousness of our
concerns? Join me for
a walk into the already
opening horizon, won’t
you? How come I have
ceased breathing in
normal intervals? Who
is the you you prefer
to leave behind? Will
it disturb us too
radically to go back
to an existence free
from the sins incurred
by agriculture?

UNMANUAL, PART I

Start with the world
We say don’t paint yourself
Into a corner but think
How ridiculous the word is
To begin with
Start with the world
One animal
Among others
A man is an idea
Had by an upright animal
Overdosing on protein
Start with the world
The single hair that will soon
Cling airily to neighbors
The impediments we only fail
To breach because
Our bodies are temporarily
Too large
Start with the world
Which does not disturb you
For no reason
The square of tamed light
That hovers at the conclusion
Of the room
There are arms
Dangling or thrown in
Ease or fury
Everywhere
Start at the airport
Of the city that overlooks
A sea you cannot drink
The sky is on
Fire at least twice
Every day
Start without
Shame at the abundance
Your eyes leech
From the periphery
Your eyes used up
Until you sense the necessity
For lovelier organs
For want of a compass
You will cross into immense
And once forsaken territories
Where the language of mute vectors
Like light like electrons or
The urging of gravitational bodies
Is audible still
If I speak of time I only succeed
In discrediting grace
We are all gravitational bodies
Where are we all
Headed?
Start as often as you sense
An aversion to it
The body that is
Now anew
That is to say
You are becoming another
Thing wholly astray
There is no pausing
In wonder
At the wreck of the world
Which is rearranging
Past sleep
You can slow
Down or speed
Up but only at
The same time
Start with the bird
Whose name you don’t
Know now laughing
In its lilac bough
Revisit the bed
At inopportune moments
Watch the coyote
Frisking amid the man’s scattered
Articles until your back
Falls into spasm
Every statement belies
A splinter
Of immanent questions
Breathe as though it were possible
Not to
Fall into spasm
Whenever the phone rings you
Should look at a stranger
Before answering
Begin again
At the quest things
Demand from the habitation
Of air
You share
The molecules of the potato
Stolid with their lack
Of charisma nevertheless
Siphon some morning’s triumphant
Bandwidth of sun
Start with the song
Friends make in their enmity
Of night’s passing
Under the emaciated daybreak
Clouds as gypsy cabs
Scuttle forth in Spanish
Radio brain-squawks
This is the morning the cowardly
Fear
When every glancing
Atom starts over
As it has
Every morning of existence
The trees grinning inwardly
At our hopeless rush
Into open air
Which openly harangues
Us in its patent
Refusal to draw close
Today the air tickles
The back of your throat
Like a daring lover
Who fears not the conspiratorial
Plunge it
Probably invented
Like Ellsworth Kelly
Said, “I wanted to recognize things”

FACSIMILES

Sunday morning sun coming
Up over the punctuated
Factory glass of Erie
Pennsylvania, the Erie
Beer Company closed
Forever, green scrap cranes
Still, flaccid almost
As gleaming heaps
Of disassembled metal
Split the light in all
Directions, basking
At Erie’s fringes
The sun’s almost
Solemn orb striated
By fingers of cloud
It nonetheless gobbles
Neon at the borders
Leaving Erie on
A cramped, acrid Amtrak
Scribbling on a snack
Car napkin heading North