Friday, March 04, 2005

HOROSCOPIC BRUSHSTROKES IN THE MARGIN OF DEATH

Ever noticed how a flame disappears
In sunlight, even whilst
Notorious lightning breeds

On the horizon, you
Have an eye
For such things: the reactivation

Of long-malingered volcanos, human
Or otherwise, how a wounded
Sloth creeps lamely from unwieldy trunk

To bending branch, the plaintive varieties
Of unseen matter
Coalescing against our lamentable

Screen of den culture, you are a person
Who puts things in
Order in order that the edgeless

Fog might disband, if only
For an afternoon, and this is why we’ve come
To you, repeatedly swearing

That we’re not animals, that
The fact is we would not dream of having them
Sullied by the petty transactions of faith

And discord, we want you
To think about us
Like an eye that has been turned

Hopelessly inward
So all it sees is a miasma
Of tissue, tiny parts

Convulsing involuntarily, absurdly
Divorced from their original functions, one
Cannot love that way, just as

One cannot enter the fold with his nails
Thrashing the air he cannot
Breathe, you know this, your very

Gestures have instructed
Us thusly, the way they dissemble the easy
Grotesque we’ve become and point

Toward a prospect of grace, only last
Night you made apologizing
Pretty again, perhaps this afternoon

The dogs will lie supplicant
At our feet and think us masters
When for so

Long it’s been the obverse, tomorrow untold
Colonnades of light might
Descend from the weightless vault

Of heaven, because, you see, that’s a possibility
As all things suddenly
Are, one has only to speak

Your name and a massive flock of dirigibles
Arranges itself into graph
Paper patterns against the amoebic

Sky, I
Would only ask that you take off
Your jacket and sit here

In the chair beside my bed, I must
Shortly leave this only-just-this-very-instant
Brightening world, and I would

Have your hand
Laid heavy atop the beads
Of my loosening brow.

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