Following

I go to the door, check the lock again.
Poke through the mail.
The city is quiet. It sleeps
under a blanket of conflict and doubt.
Observe a rectangle of faint light
on the kitchen tile, follow it to its source.
End up this time
at the window watching the moon.

The not knowing
of what’s coming is very present;
what can possibly be generated
out of this still air, the darkly
coiled ivy; what areas
can be circled, what inventions
are even possible.

Shell Full Of Stones

Munificence is of the Sea
which you cannot explain, nor do,

Because it is too Big.

At first, seem quiet, the
continents dragging themselves along, their immense

Books of Wounds
like black stones ribboned in white

doodling on their own bandaged pages.

At first, a gray doubt. Like a dove, almost
not there; like an

elephant’s eyelid
opened

already, it comes.

Cobweb Encased Hands

Something in it harkens to the hungry past
inside the thin skeleton of a shrew.

The sound of a plastic bag on the counter
pushed by the wind of a fan;

It is a ghost, a wing moving in the concentrated dark,
the dresses in the closet swaying in the dark
so dense you can feel it against your skin.

I put one hand out to find the wall.
Something God knows
scratches inside of the wall.

The chickadees will
wake up
when the cows wake up and the
misers
of mummified boardgames
make up their minds;

And when the larvae has been harvested,
their eyeless, mouthless, mindless
ends moving

in the infirmary, reaching for their parents.

Cold Coffee

At noon
you are delirious, and you speak to the sea
in a language, like a dream

Language that you find romantic,
but she cannot understand. The next thoughts are automatic.

You imagine sex with her

as you sweep cat litter off of the floor. Pour water. Contemplate
the deadliness of a fan.
The knifed bread, the sounds of doors

Somewhere

opening and closing.

One dog’s low bark.

To the daylight in its forms like white bodies in the waves.
Figures in the green folds of waves…

Waking up
re-Waking up
each minute, it seems,

is an account of the day—

Testimonials typed out
by ghost stenographers in the john; secretive
ladies for whom

there is no room. No

opening,
no sequins or pearl.

Old Hands Hold Money, Children Roar At Birds

Looking out at the great puppet show.

The dogs, dogs
of all kinds

chase balls.

The roots crawl out of the ground
and reach for us.

Birds skim the land
like
bombers.

This is the best part of living
well,

and this is pretty nice.

Some birds fly right through men
as you eat a sandwich in the sun.

Bicycles
ride without men or women, a whole

Armada

of dead bikes,

Honest-to-God, it’s day again.

The male pigeons waddle after the females, more
well-fed
than

most of the humans,

land on the peak of the fountain. It isn’t
that hard for them.

Should it be for us?

We grow corn and mustaches,
amass wealth, build houses,
aspire to love, operate on one another,
dismember our feelings,
wait silently in the bathtub

and contemplate cancer, and our
histories,

and our fear of pain.

When it arrives like a shark’s face

in the aquarium

We know it. We know it is an
apparition but we

cannot leave the room.

The Play

a moth limps out of his cell like an afterthought.
he is to perform a little play for us, a
play based on our lives.

we let him do this, offer a respite from his
torture etcetera
so we might be entertained.

without our consent, he drops his trousers
and begins to dance. this isn’t supposed to happen, they think.

this is
an outrage.

cancel the orders for season tickets: this art is fake.
he found it folded in a shoebox next to
dead mother’s nightgown, the maps that led us
to father’s grave—one big joke. his props are
bones, his set is a pair of false teeth. we forgot the
way to our own memory.

lingering there in the lamplight
we are in trances.
the shape of the night is in lines and dots.
the origin of the drawing cannot be attributed to god.
fancy seamstresses have been hired to fool our
laffy-daffy souls.

the reflection of one dot in particular resembles a baby.
there’s one baby that we all know quite well, right?
what is this baby in the black dot? that is ourselves.
where do we find such white clothing? in the hexagon of earth.
when does the river turn back into the ocean? calamity junction.
the field was a maze of many colors. it was a lineup of our years
like criminals.

they were fairly obedient in their assembly.
do not turn them away or laugh at them, or deny them.
they appeared here for you, all in a row, so pay attention.
one could only lead to the other, and that one could only lead to the next.
there isn’t much mystery here.
the only mystery is in the moment of convergence. beyond that, what?
an idea is only possible with the previous idea,
like a person is only possible after many enfolding lifetimes.

a lapse in time forgot its naming. people provide the details.
jewels unfurl along the road.
they blast the brain with light.

remaining on stage, the quietness of his monologue
makes us sit forward in our chairs. our ears are little white dwarves.
the mass of the stars is measured in lives.
the chairs are shaped like circles. gallows may or may not be in the fly.
an usher in the shape of a mouth reminds us not to leave our seats quite yet.
the spotlight man, who is a head of a hair, pops it down. he’s in his
roost, the room of quiet deformity.

for the first time, we hear his jokes, though.
they refer to our secrets. they refer to everything that accumulates
like sewage in the clogged drain. but this is mostly unknown.
before we can hear the punchlines, down comes the curtain.

intermission is a time when we can mull about and pretend
it doesn’t matter.
some go to sleep.
some kill thyselves.
some remain in the bathroom or the coat closet for a number of years.

the moth’s understudy is a bear.
he is unconvincing.
his costume is nothing more than the clothes in my closet,
but also the clothes in the closet of another man,
and the clothes in the drawer of his wife. he is armed with a bowie knife
and a muted trombone.
everyone’s clothes on everyone’s bear, are everyone’s understudy
in everyone’s play.

the moth has entered the moon as his vanity.
he reminds himself that he is a terrible faceless creature with no memory.
he hears screaming from the house. also, music.
what is he supposed to do?
the backdoor is propped open with a garbage can.
the noose he tied is in the garbage can, along with his letters
and his lipstick.

with much regret, he feels his way out into the night.
he sees nothing but flying the color red yellow. jesus, he is limited.
his brain is limited, his body is limited, he wants nothing more
than to be completed by whoever started him.
out in the dark blue scene the mountain is wearing his face.
the evergreens are waving him into the cold grave of the ocean.
the reflection of the moon is smaller than the dot.
without eyelids, eyes are unnecessary.
the highway feels its way across the map.
the plains are sprouting with hair.
the winter isn’t over and neither is the summer.
in between perhaps there will be some melt. in between,
perhaps, there will be some reminders of his performance;
there will blow large scraps of paper bladed into shreds by the sun;
loose wind unties his wings from his shoulders;
there is no blood in his single vein;
the audience is tired and traumatized, but oh well,

they’re gone, and it’s not his problem anymore.